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IDProjectCategoryView StatusDate SubmittedLast Update
0009524Kali LinuxKali Package Bugpublic2026-01-26 22:472026-01-27 22:16
Reporterayman ayman Assigned To 
PrioritynormalSeverityminorReproducibilityhave not tried
Status newResolutionopen 
Summary0009524: Kernel Panic (NULL pointer dereference) in iwlwifi when enabling Monitor Mode on Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6235 - Kali 2025.4
Description
  1. Hardware Information:

Wireless Card: Intel Corporation Centrino Advanced-N 6235 (rev 24)

Driver: iwlwifi

Firmware: iwldvm

  1. Operating System & Kernel Version:

Distribution: Kali Linux 2025.4 (Rolling)

Kernel Version: 6.16.8 (approximate based on latest 2025.4 updates)

Environment: Live USB (and Fresh Installation)

  1. Description of the Issue: The system suffers from a total freeze (Kernel Panic) immediately after switching the Intel interface to Monitor Mode. This happens consistently when running airmon-ng start wlan0 or iw dev wlan0 set type monitor.

  2. Testing & Comparison (The Proof):

Kali 2025.2 (Live/Installed) : Stable. Monitor Mode works perfectly.

Kali 2025.3 (Live/Installed) : Stable. Monitor Mode works perfectly.

Kali 2025.4 (Live/Installed) : Crashes. System freezes the moment the card enters Monitor Mode.

  1. Error Log Analysis (Journalctl): Monitoring journalctl -kf during the crash revealed a critical error: BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 0000000000000000 RIP: 0010:iwl_agn_bss_info_changed+0x... [iwldvm] Call Trace: <TASK> ... iwl_dvm_bss_info_changed

  2. Conclusion: The issue appears to be a regression in the latest Kernel or Firmware updates provided in the 2025.4 release specifically affecting the iwldvm driver for older Intel Centrino hardware. A NULL pointer is being accessed during the BSS info change process when switching modes, leading to an immediate system panic.

Activities

kali-bugreport

kali-bugreport

2026-01-27 22:09

reporter   ~0021301

Kernel / firmware issues should be usually reported to the developnent teams of these, they (Kali team) had mentioned this plenty of times on this bug tracker.
kali-bugreport

kali-bugreport

2026-01-27 22:16

reporter   ~0021302

e.g. things like these are stated by them:

We're sorry but we don't have the manpower to deal with hardware support problems.
Those problems need to be fixed in the upstream Linux kernel. We regularly import new kernel releases.

Issue History

Date Modified Username Field Change
2026-01-26 22:47 ayman ayman New Issue
2026-01-27 22:09 kali-bugreport Note Added: 0021301
2026-01-27 22:16 kali-bugreport Note Added: 0021302