What hex file do I use to flash sniffer firmware?

[Eugeen]

Hi. I am fairly new to all of this. I am currently researching BLE vulnerabilities for a University project. I have had great difficulty attempting to flash the Nordic BLE Sniffer firmware to my nRF52840-MDK USB Dongle.

I am using Ubuntu 64-bit:
Ubuntu 18.04.4 LTS
Release:    18.04
Codename:    bionic

I have been following this documentation at infocenter.nordicsemi.com/.../nRF_Sniffer_BLE_UG_v3.1.pdf

So far, I have taken these steps:

  1.  Installed the Sniffer Software.

  2.  Downloaded, unzipped, untarred and installed nRF-command-line-tools_10_7_0Linux as well as SEGGER JLink v662.

  3.  Run "pip3 install -r requirements.txt" that finished with the message "successfully installed pyserial"

  4. Copied the extcap from the sniffer tool folder to the extcap of my wireshark installation.

I do not know how to install the sniffer firmware? In the hex folder of the sniffer software there are 7 hex files and I do not know which one to flash. I am also getting mixed messages in online documentation: Do I use nRFTools such as nrfjprog and mergehex to flash the sniffer firmware to the device or do I use nrfutil?

I would prefer to use nRF Command Line tools to be able to flash it. My device appears in dmesg and lsusb so is definitely connected. When I run "sudo nrfjprog --ids" as some forum posts suggest, I get the message "ERROR: There is no debugger connected to the PC."

Any advice would be greatly appreciated as I cannot deal with trying to configure this thing anymore and I am sure I am doing something very wrong/don't fully understand it.

Thanks

[Simonr]

Hi

Our nRF Sniffer for Bluetooth LE doesn't support the nRF52840 Dongle I'm afraid. To use the nRF Sniffer for Bluetooth LE you need either the nRF52840 DK, nRF52 DK, nRF51 DK or the nRF51 Dongle.

None of the seven .hex files are compatible with the nRF52840 Dongle. The difference between the .hex files is what debugger/board they are made for. The pca10040, for example, is for the nRF52DK. 

Best regards,

Simon

[Eugeen]

Thanks Simon, this makes me feel so much better knowing that it is proably not my fault! Just a quick question, I have the NORDIC nRF52840 that actually has NORDIC printed on the board, and I have another dongle from MakerDiary. On the box, it states that this is an MDK and can be used for Bluetooth packet sniffing. Even though it says its MDK, is it still incompatible?  Is there other sniffer firmware that can be flashed to it?

Thanks for replying.