Install Requirements for GSM band observation with hackRF


The GNURadio version used for this is 3.7.9. I used the live DVD image which can be downloaded from here.

The extra tools needed are :
(gqrx was preinstalled in the GNURadio image).

This is how I installed the other three tools.

Installing gr-gsm,  GnuRadio blocks which is used to decode GSM packets.

sudo apt-get install git cmake libboost-all-dev libcppunit-dev swig doxygen liblog4cpp5-dev python-scipy
git clone https://github.com/ptrkrysik/gr-gsm.git
cd gr-gsm
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make
sudo make install
sudo ldconfig


I had the error "package 'libosmocore' not found", so I had to manually install that package using the commands provided in this site.

cd libosmocore/
autoreconf -i
./configure
make
sudo make install
sudo ldconfig -i
cd ..

And during the configuration  "No package 'talloc' found" error occurred and I had to download and install it manually with this link.
Then inside that folder execute the following commands.

./configure --prefix=/usr && make
sudo make install


Since I used the live bootable image of GNU radio, the gnuradio folder was located in home/ubuntu/src path.

We need to set the path of the gr-gsm blocks to gnuradio so we need to create a file called config.conf using touch command.
Then enter the following content in it.

[grc]
local_blocks_path=/usr/local/share/gnuradio/grc/blocks

I did not have permission to edit this file so I had to install gksu and edit the file.

sudo apt-get install gksu
gksudo gedit configure.conf


Installing kalibrate-hackrf, a tool that will hop among known GSM frequencies and will tell which your country is using:

git clone https://github.com/scateu/kalibrate-hackrf.git
cd kalibrate-hackrf
./bootstrap
./configure
make
sudo make install


Then go to this folder (~/kalibrate-hackrf/src$) and execute the following command and specify GSM900 and the gain 40.

./kal -s GSM900 -g 40 -l 40

It should show like the following image.


Finally install wireshark,

sudo apt-get install wireshark

Now we are ready with all tools necessary. The interesting part of sniffing GSM traffic is in my next post.

Ref: https://z4ziggy.wordpress.com/2015/05/17/sniffing-gsm-traffic-with-hackrf/



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