Provided by: pyrit_0.4.0-7.1build2_amd64 
NAME
pyrit - A GPGPU-driven WPA/WPA2-PSK key cracker
SYNOPSIS
pyrit [options] command
DESCRIPTION
Pyrit exploits the computational power of many-core- and GPGPU-platforms to create massive databases,
pre-computing part of the WPA/WPA2-PSK authentication phase in a space-time tradeoff. It is a powerful
attack against one of the world's most used security-protocols.
This document tries to describe and explain all functions the commandline-client pyrit provides. One or
more options may be given on the commandline to customize a command. The exact behaviour of options
depends on the command.
At the time of this writing, cowpatty is not available in Debian. References to cowpatty and its
commands are nevertheless preserved for the sake of completeness.
OPTIONS
Pyrit recognizes the following options:
-b BSSID
Specifies a BSSID. Can be used to restrict commands to certain Access-Points.
-e ESSID
Specifies the ESSID. Commands usually refer to all ESSIDs in the database when this option is
omitted.
-i infile
Specifies a filename to read from; the special filename "-" can be used for stdin. The file may be
gzip-compressed in which case its name must end in .gz for transparent decompression.
-o outfile
Specifies a filename to write to; the special filename "-" can be used for stdout. Filenames that
end in .gz cause pyrit to gzip-compress the file on the fly.
-r capture-file
Specifies a packet-capture file in pcap format (possibly gzip-compressed) or a device (e.g.:
"wlan0") to capture from.
-u URL Specifies the URL of the storage-device in the form of
driver://username:password@host:port/database
Pyrit can use the filesystem, a remote Pyrit-Relay-Server and, if the package python-sqlalchemy is
installed, SQL-Databases as storage. The driver file:// refers to Pyrit's own filesystem-based
storage, http:// connects to a Pyrit-Relay-Server and all other URLs are passed directly to
python-sqlalchemy, if available. The default storage-URL can also be specified by the key
defaultstorage in pyrit's configuration file (see FILES below).
--all-handshakes
The commands attack_batch, attack_db, attack_cowpatty and attack_passthrough automatically use the
single handshake of highest quality only. In some cases even this handshake may have been
wrongfully reconstructed from the captured data, rendering the attack futile. In case more than
one EAPOL-handshake is reconstructed from the capture-file, the option --all-handshakes may be
used to attack all handshakes reconstructable from the captured data. Exact behaviour of the
commands affected by this option is described below.
COMMANDS
analyze
Parse one or more packet-capture files (in pcap-format, possibly gzip-compressed) given by the
option -r and try to detect Access-Points, Stations and EAPOL-handshakes. For example:
pyrit -r "test*.pcap" analyze
Pyrit shows a list of Access-Points, associated Stations and EAPOL-handshakes that could be
identified from the captured data. Handshakes are shown ordered by their "quality":
Good: The handshake includes the challenge from the Access-Point, the response from
the Station and the confirmation from the Access-Point.
Workable: The handshake includes the response from the Station and the confirmation
from the Access-Point. The challenge was not captured.
Bad: The handshake includes the challenge from the Access-Point and the response from
the Station. The confirmation was not captured.
Handshakes of the same quality are ordered by how close the packets that make up the
handshake are to each other.
attack_batch
Attack an EAPOL-handshake found in the packet-capture file(s) given by the option -r using
the Pairwise Master Keys and passwords stored in the database. The options -b and -e can be
used to specify the Access-Point to attack; it is picked automatically if both options are
omitted. The password is written to the filename given by the option -o if specified. For
example:
pyrit -r test.pcap -e MyNetwork -b 00:de:ad:c0:de:00 \
-o MyNetworkPassword.txt attack_batch
Pairwise Master Keys that previously have been computed and stored in the database are
taken from there; all other passwords are translated into their respective Pairwise Master
Keys and added to the database for later re-use. ESSIDs are created automatically in the
database if necessary.
Pyrit works down the list of reconstructed EAPOL-handshakes in case the option
--all-handshakes is supplied.
attack_cowpatty
Attack an EAPOL-handshake found in the packet-capture file(s) given by the option -r using
Pairwise Master Keys from a cowpatty-like file (e.g. generated by ``genpmk'' from
cowpatty, or export_cowpatty below) given by the option -f. The options -b and -e can be
used to specify the Access-Point to attack; it is picked automatically if both options are
omitted. The password is written to the filename given by the option -o if specified. The
cowpatty-file may be gzip-compressed and must match the chosen ESSID. For example:
pyrit -r test.pcap -e MyOwnNetwork \
-i MyOwnNetwork.cow.gz -o - attack_cowpatty
Pyrit's own database is not touched by attack_cowpatty.
Pyrit attacks all EAPOL-handshakes at the same time if the option --all-handshakes is
supplied. This will reduce throughput (e.g.: 33% throughout in case of three handshakes).
attack_db
Attack an EAPOL-handshake found in the packet-capture file(s) given by the option -r using
the Pairwise Master Keys stored in the database. The options -b and -e can be used to
specify the Access-Point to attack; it is picked automatically if both options are omitted.
The password is written to the filename given by the option -o if specified. For example:
pyrit -r test.pcap -e MyOtherNetwork attack_db
Only Pairwise Master Keys that have been computed previously and are stored in the database
are used by attack_db.
Pyrit works down the list of reconstructed EAPOL-handshakes in case the option
--all-handshakes is supplied.
attack_passthrough
Attack an EAPOL-handshake found in the packet-capture file(s) given by the option -r using
the passwords read from the file given by the option -i. The options -b and -e can be used
to specify the Access-Point to attack; it is picked automatically if both options are
omitted. The password is written to the filename given by the option -o if specified. For
example:
pyrit -r test.pcap -b 00:de:ad:be:ef:00 \
-i words.txt attack_passthrough
This command circumvents Pyrit's database and should only be used if storage-space is a
problem (e.g. on LiveCDs). You should consider using attack_batch otherwise.
Pyrit attacks all EAPOL-handshakes at the same time if the option --all-handshakes is
supplied.
batch
Start to translate all passwords in the database into their respective Pairwise Master Keys
and store the results in the database. The option -e may be used to restrict this command
to a single ESSID; if it is omitted, all ESSIDs are processed one after the other in
undefined order. For example:
pyrit -e NETGEAR batch
The option -o can be used to specify a filename the results should additionally be written
to in cowpatty's binary format. The option -e becomes mandatory and the ESSID is
automatically created in the database if necessary. Pairwise Master Keys that previously
have been computed and stored in the database are exported from there without further
processing. Pyrit stops and exits if an IOError is raised while writing to the specified
file. This makes it very convenient to pipe results directly to other programs but also
keep them for later use. For example:
pyrit -e NETGEAR -o - batch | \
cowpatty -d - -r wpatestcapture.cap -s NETGEAR
benchmark
Determine the peak-performance of the available hardware by computing dummy-results. For
example:
pyrit benchmark
check_db
Unpack the entire database and check for errors like data corruption or reference errors.
This function does not check the value of computed results (see verify). For example:
pyrit check_db
create_essid
Add new ESSIDs to the database. A single ESSID may be given by the option -e. Multiple
ESSIDs can be created by supplying a file (one per line) via the option -i. Re-creating an
existing ESSID does not result in an error. For example:
pyrit -e NETGEAR create_essid
delete_essid
Delete the ESSID given by -e from the database. This includes all results that may have
been stored for that particular ESSID. For example:
pyrit -e NETGEAR delete_essid
eval
Count all available passwords, all ESSIDs and their respective results in the database. For
example:
pyrit eval
export_passwords
Write all passwords that are currently stored in the database to a new file given by -o.
Passwords are terminated by a single newline-character ("\n"). Existing files are
overwritten without confirmation. For example:
pyrit -o myword.txt.gz export_passwords
export_cowpatty
Write all results for the ESSID given by -e to the file given by -o in cowpatty's binary
format. Existing files are overwritten without confirmation. For example:
pyrit -o NETGEAR.cow -e NETGEAR export_cowpatty
export_hashdb
Write all results currently stored in the database to the airolib-ng-database given by -o.
The database is created with a default table layout if the file does not yet exist. The
option -e can be used to limit the export to a single ESSID. For example:
pyrit -o NETGEAR.db -e NETGEAR export_hashdb
import_passwords
Read the file given by -i and import one password per line to the database. The passwords
may contain all characters (including NULL-bytes) apart from the terminating newline-
character ("\n"). Passwords that are not suitable for being used with WPA-/WPA2-PSK are
ignored. Pyrit's storage-implementation guarantees that all passwords remain unique
throughout the entire database. For example:
pyrit -i dirty_words.txt import_passwords
import_unique_passwords
Read the file given by -i and import one password per line to the database. The passwords
may contain all characters (including NULL-bytes) apart from the terminating newline-
character ("\n"). Passwords that are not suitable for being used with WPA-/WPA2-PSK are
ignored. This command does not check if there are duplicate passwords within the file or
between the file and the database; it should be used with caution to prevent the database
from getting poisoned with duplicated passwords. This command however can be much faster
than import_passwords. For example:
pyrit -i dirty_words.txt import_unique_passwords
list_cores
Show a list of all available hardware modules Pyrit currently uses. For example:
pyrit list_cores
list_essids
Show a list of all ESSIDs currently stored in the database. This function is faster than
eval in case you don't need to know the number of computed results. For example:
pyrit list_essids
passthrough
Read passwords from the file given by -i and compute their Pairwise Master Keys for the
ESSID given by -e. The results are written to the file specified by -o in cowpatty's binary
format and are not stored in the database for later use. This command therefor circumvents
the entire database and should only be used if storage-space is a problem (e.g. when using
Pyrit on a LiveCD). The batch-command provides exactly the same functionality as
passthrough but can give much better performance as results may be read from the database
instead of recomputing them. For example:
pyrit -i dirty_words.txt.gz -e NETGEAR \
-o - passthrough | cowpatty -d - \
-r wpatestcapture.cap -s NETGEAR
relay
Start a server to relay another storage device via XML-RPC; other Pyrit-clients can use the
server as storage-device. This allows one to have network-based access to storage source
that don't provide network-access on their own (like file:// and sqlite://) or hide a SQL-
database behind a firewall and let multiple clients access that database only via Pyrit's
RPC-interface. The TCP-port 17934 must be open for this function to work. For example, on
the server (where the database is):
pyrit -u sqlite://var/local/pyrit.db relay
and the client (where the big GPU is):
pyrit -u http://192.168.0.100:17934 batch
selftest
Run an extensive selftest for about 60 seconds. This test includes the entire scheduling-
mechanism and all cores that are listed by list_cores. You can use this function to detect
broken hardware-modules or malicious network-clients. For example:
pyrit selftest
serve
Start a server that provides access to the local computing hardware to help other Pyrit
clients. The server's IP-address should be added to the client's configuration file (see
FILES) as a space-separated list under known_clients. The client's rpc_server-setting must
also be set to 'true'. The TCP- and UDP-Port 17935 must be accessible. For example, on the
server (where the GPU is):
pyrit serve
and on the client (the server's IP-address has been added to known_clients and rpc_server
is set to 'true'):
pyrit -r test.pcap -b 00:de:ad:be:ef:00 \
-i words.txt attack_passthrough
strip
Parse one or more packet-capture files given by the option -r, extract only packets that
are necessary for EAPOL-handshake detection and write a new dump to the filename given by
the option -o. The options -e and -b can be used to filter certain Access-Points. For
example:
pyrit -r "large_dumps_*.pcap" -e MyNetwork \
-o tiny_compressed_dump_MyNetwork.dump.gz strip
stripLive
Parse a packet-capture file given by the option -r, extract only packets that are necessary
for EAPOL-handshake detection and write a new dump to the file given by the option -o. This
command differs from strip as the capture-file can be any character device including
sockets and other pseudo-files that look like files in pcap-format. stripLive writes
relevant packets to the new file given by -o as they arrive instead of trying to read the
entire capture-file first.
pyrit -r /temp/kismet_dump -o small_dump.pcap stripLive
verify
Randomly pick 10% of the results stored in the database and verify their value by
recomputation. You need this function if you suspect broken hardware or malicious network-
clients. For example:
pyrit -e NETGEAR verify
EXIT STATUS
If command succeeds, pyrit's process exit status is set to 0; otherwise it is set to 1 and (usually) an
error message or a python-traceback is written to stderr. The following commands also indicate an error
condition in certain cases:
analyze: Not at least one valid EAPOL-handshake could be detected.
attack_passthrough, attack_batch, attack_db and attack_cowpatty: The password could not
be found.
verify At least one workunit contained invalid results.
check_db Errors in the database were found (and possibly fixed).
FILES
~/.pyrit/config
The pyrit configuration file. You can find a documented example in
/usr/share/doc/pyrit/examples/config.example.
NOTES
The author does not encourage or support using pyrit for the infringement of people's communication-
privacy. The exploration and realization of the technology discussed here motivate as a purpose of their
own; this is documented by the open development, strictly sourcecode-based distribution and
'copyleft'-licensing.
AUTHOR
pyrit was written by Lukas Lueg <lukas.lueg@gmail.com>.
This manual page was written by Christian Kastner <ckk@debian.org> for the Debian project (but may be
used by others).
pyrit 2011-03-28 PYRIT(1)