OWL works, but opendrop doesn't

[littleblack111]

for context: I’m using Intel Wireless 7265 for wifi card, but the network is using ethernet
I am using https://github.com/seemoo-lab/owl and https://github.com/seemoo-lab/opendrop. I use owl -i wlp2s0 -N(because without -N, ERROR: Error while receiving via netlink: Operation not supported), then opendrop recive. doesn't work, opendrop find doesn't work as well. although I can see when i click airdrop on macbook, it will add peer on owl's log

[littleblack111]

What is the status of this project. Archived?

[jairwen]

same here, guess new IOS and OSX changes some workflow in AWDL protocol which ignore opendrop service.

[OPiElix]

Look at this: seemoo-lab/owl#9
It might be that your wireless card doesn't support active monitor mode, which is needed by owl as in the README of https://github.com/seemoo-lab/owl .

Requirements
Wi-Fi card with active monitor mode. To use OWL, you will need a Wi-Fi card supporting active monitor mode with frame injection.

That's why OWL throws an error without the -N. With -N, OWL doesn't throw an error, but simply doesn't work. OWL needs monitor mode to create the awdl0 interface, because Apple devices don't do AirDrop over WLAN, do they?

[jayache80]

Can anyone confirm that this project indeed still works with recent iOS (17 or 18)? I could not get nearby iOS 17 or iOS 18 devices to show up. I confirmed that the Wi-Fi adapter I used supported active monitor mode (Netgear A6210 USB dongle, which uses Mediatek MT7612U chip). I'm using Arch on kernel 6.12.6

I start owl like this:

sudo owl -i wlan1

This gives

14:52:57 ERROR: Error while receiving via netlink: Object busy
14:52:57 ERROR: Could not put device in monitor mode: wlan1
14:52:57 ERROR: could not initialize core

so I bring the interface down (to free it from whatever's keeping it "busy") and try again:

sudo ip link set wlan1 down
sudo owl -i wlan1

and then owl yields no errors:

14:57:10 INFO : WLAN device: wlan1 (addr xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx)
14:57:10 INFO : Host device: awdl0

and when I run ip a I can see that the awdl0 interface was created, and that wlan1 was brought UP. When I run iw wlan1 info I see that it is "type monitor".

While owl is running, I then run opendrop find but it doesn't find newer nearby iOS devices. It throws this warning when it starts but otherwise no errors that I can see:

Looking for receivers. Press Ctrl+C to stop ...
/usr/lib/python3.13/site-packages/opendrop/client.py:69: FutureWarning: <opendrop.client.AirDropBrowser object at 
0x73f352d97230> has no update_service method. Provide one (it can be empty if you don't care about the updates), it'll 
become mandatory.
  self.browser = ServiceBrowser(self.zeroconf, "_airdrop._tcp.local.", self)

However, I brought a Mid-2012 MacBook Pro into the mix (running macOS Catalina 10.15.7) and while running opendrop find on the Linux computer I could tell it it did start to discover that Macbook's Airdrop (while using an iOS 17 device to attempt to share a picture, searching for available airplay recipients). It threw an error but that's perhaps a little code rot:

Exception in thread Thread-3 (_send_discover):
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python3.13/threading.py", line 1041, in _bootstrap_inner
    self.run()
    ~~~~~~~~^^
  File "/usr/lib/python3.13/threading.py", line 992, in run
    self._target(*self._args, **self._kwargs)
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/usr/lib/python3.13/site-packages/opendrop/cli.py", line 156, in _send_discover
    receiver_name = client.send_discover()
  File "/usr/lib/python3.13/site-packages/opendrop/client.py", line 141, in send_discover
    _, response_bytes = self.send_POST("/Discover", discover_plist_binary)
                        ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/usr/lib/python3.13/site-packages/opendrop/client.py", line 109, in send_POST
    self.http_conn = HTTPSConnectionAWDL(
                     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^
        self.receiver_host,
        ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
    ...<2 lines>...
        context=self.config.get_ssl_context(),
        ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
    )
    ^
  File "/usr/lib/python3.13/site-packages/opendrop/client.py", line 266, in __init__
    super(HTTPSConnectionAWDL, self).__init__(
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^
        host=host,
        ^^^^^^^^^^
    ...<6 lines>...
        check_hostname=check_hostname,
        ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
    )
    ^
TypeError: HTTPSConnection.__init__() got an unexpected keyword argument 'key_file'

That was accompanied by a message in owl's output:

16:03:03 INFO : add peer xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx (redacted)
16:03:07 INFO : remove peer xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx (redacted)

I'm thinking that iOS changed and this no longer works with these newer iOS versions, but would appear to still work with older Airplay implementations (like this Mid-2012 MacBook Pro running Catalina).