Tag: Training

Ubuntu 24.04 Setup for Factoria Labs Trainings

A standard installation of GNU Radio 3.10 contains a vast array of functionality, but you can add quite a bit more with a few minutes of additional work. These Out Of Tree (OOT) modules expand the functionality of GNU Radio in ways that are valuable for people learning to use the software as well as experienced users. I provide a BASH script that installs these modules on my GitHub page, and recommend my students perform this installation before attending my classes.

What the Script Installs

The install script is located here, and you should definitely take a look it before running, as it does required admin privileges to run:
https://github.com/paulgclark/grc-install/blob/master/install_scripts/flabs_training_setup_24_04.sh

The script installs the following:

Install Process

There are three steps for installing this on your Ubuntu 24.041 machine:)

  1. Clone my GitHub repository
  2. Run the script
  3. Reboot and log in using Xorg display server

First, install git if you haven’t already:

sudo apt install git

Next, change to the install scripts directory and run the BASH script:

git clone https://github.com/paulgclark/grc-install
cd grc-install/install_scripts
./flabs_training_setup_24_04.sh

When the script completes, reboot. Then click your login icon. Before entering your password and completing your login, click the little gear in the bottom right of your screen to select “Ubuntu on Xorg”:

Complete your login, and you’re done! You will only need to select Xorg once – all subsequent logins will default to Xorg unless you change it back.

Testing Your Installation – Software

All of the test flowgraphs are contained in the grc subdirectory of the grc-install repo you cloned earlier. Change to that directory before proceeding2:

cd ~/grc-install

Running the following flowgraph will test GNU Radio Companion, as well as gr-satellites and gr-reveng:

gnuradio-companion grc/gfsk_loopback_sim.grc

After the flowgraph loads, click the Execute button in the toolbar (it looks like a Play ▶️ button). If the installation went well, you’ll see a stream of messages stating “It works!” in the bottom left console. You can close the execution window to kill the simulation.

Testing Your Installation – Pluto SDR Drivers

If you have a PlutoSDR, you can test that hardware support was correctly installed by plugging in your SDR hardware, then bringing up an FM receiver flowgraph with:

gnuradio-companion grc/pluto/fm_rx_hw_pluto.grc

Running the flowgraph will bring up a window that allows you to tune the FM receiver. Use the slider to select the frequency of a station known to broadcast in your area3 to listen.

Testing Your Installation – USRP/UHD SDR Drivers

If you have a USRP SDR, you can test that hardware support was correctly installed by plugging in your SDR hardware, then bringing up an FM receiver flowgraph with:

gnuradio-companion grc/uhd/fm_rx_hw_uhd.grc

Running the flowgraph will bring up a window that allows you to tune the FM receiver. Use the slider to select the frequency of a station known to broadcast in your area to listen.

Testing fosphor

Foshpor is an incredible visualization tool, but it can be tricky to set up depending on your CPU and graphics hardware. To see if your installation has worked, you can run one of the following flowgraphs:

gnuradio-companion grc/fosphor/fosphor-pluto.grc
gnuradio-companion grc/fosphor/fosphor-uhd.grc

You may need to click the corner of the execution window and stretch it out to see the display properly:

  1. This process is intended only for Ubuntu 24.04 computers running on x64 CPUs – no promises if you try it on a different platform ↩︎
  2. I’m assuming you cloned grc-install into your home directory. If you put it somewhere else, adjust your path accordingly. ↩︎
  3. For example, 98.1 FM would be entered as “98.1M” after which you would hit the Enter key ↩︎

Arsenal Labs at Black Hat 2022

Hello Factoria Labs readers! As you may know, Black Hat USA happened earlier this month in Las Vegas. As well as teaching an in-person SDR class, I was also honored to present a hands-on project at the Arsenal Labs – we had a great turnout, as you can see from the picture.

Arsenal Labs
Black Hat 2022 – Arsenal Labs

My project was an end-to-end, RF reversal of a simple garage door protocol. Although the signal produced by the garage door remote was not terribly complicated, the project provided a full view of the reversing process, including:

  • scanning for the remote’s signal
  • capturing the signal to disk
  • tuning and demodulating to produce a digital baseband waveform
  • identifying the framing and encoding of the baseband waveform and then extracting the bits
  • building a simple transmitter to implement the reversed protocol
  • building a more complex transmitter to implement brute force attacks

If you caught my presentation and wanted to look at starter and solution projects, it’s all at:

https://github.com/paulgclark/garage_door

I’ve also included a PDF of the printed handout we had for Arsenal attendees.

If you’re curious, the garage door remote used in the lab was this model:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08RSDQKM9

Thanks for reading!

Online SDR Training Now Live!

Hello SDR Fans!

It’s been a long-time goal of ours to put our SDR training online in an on-demand format, so that people around the world could learn SDR at any time. That’s finally started happening! Our first class is online, and we’re working on the second right now. After that, are more to come.

We broke up our content into chunks roughly one day in length, though they will likely run a bit longer than that. Our first course, for example, has over 7 hours of video. Given the time it will take you to work through the projects, this will be more than a day for nearly everyone.

While the on-demand format is new, the material is very similar to what we’ve been teaching for years to private customers and at conferences such as Black Hat and the Wild West Hackin’ Fest. The main difference is that a few of the hardware projects required some changes so you can complete them in a virtual setting. We’ll do these projects in a simulation mode, but we’ll demonstrate all of the things you’ll need to do to make them work in the real world. We’ve also simplified the process of getting GNU Radio running on your system by providing you with a virtual machine containing all of the software and project files you’ll need.

We will also be offering a new in-person class consisting almost entirely of hardware projects, as a companion to these online classes. The companion class will provide hand-on training with SDR hardware and live signals, while the online classes will allow you to do most of your training at your own pace. Stay tuned for details on that.

We hope the chance to learn SDR in a more flexible (and distanced) way is useful to you. If so, please check us out!

SDR Training in Seattle

Hello readers! Until now, our schedule has only allowed time for SDR training at customer sites or at conferences such as Black Hat and the Wild West Hackinfest. After many requests, we’re finally able to offer an open class, where individual students can sign up and learn the ins and outs of Software Defined Radio.

As always, these are small class sizes full of intensive, hands-on learning. They’ll be held in the greater Seattle area (the suburb of Kirkland to be specific) from the 5th to the 8th of November. First will be our Intro to SDR class, then our Intermediate Digital class. If there’s enough demand, we’ll add on our Reverse Engineering and Python+gnuradio classes (email us if you’re interested).

You can register here, and if you sign up on or before the 3rd of October, you’ll get a discounted rate.

If you have any questions about the classes, please contact me at paul<at>factorialabs.com.

See you there!

New SDR Courses!

After learning to build analog and digital radios, a number of our customers had the perfectly reasonable question: “What next?” Over the last year, we’ve developed two additional SDR courses that provide an answer.

The first course focuses on reverse engineering RF devices with SDR, with a host of practical exercises and real hardware to attack.

The second shows you how to build SDR-based radio applications, focusing on the especially tricky part of programmatically extracting data from gnuradio flowgraph objects. Getting data out of flowgraphs is a problem that stymies a number of folks, but I’ll save you a ton of time by showing you powerful methods to get this done cleanly.

As with our previous courses, we first taught them to carefully chosen lead customers. Now, after numerous improvements and tweaks, they’re ready for primetime.

You can contact us at paul@factorialabs.com if you’d like to arrange a private training for your organization. We are also planning on two public training sessions this year: one in the greater DC area and a second in Seattle.