GhostWire

ESP32 Wireless Discovery & Device Diagnostics

A compact wireless discovery and hardware diagnostics toolkit for ESP32.

What is GhostWire?

GhostWire turns a standard ESP32 development board into a wireless discovery and diagnostics terminal — no display, no external shield, no dashboard. Just an ESP32, a USB cable, and a serial monitor.

The menu-driven interface provides:

Capability	Status
📡 Wi-Fi Discovery	✅
🟦 BLE Discovery	✅
🧠 ESP32 Diagnostics	✅
💾 Memory & Flash Diagnostics	✅
🖥️ Serial Interface	✅

Interface Preview

+------------------------------------------------------+
|                                                      |
|                    G H O S T W I R E                 |
|                                                      |
|    ESP32 Wireless Discovery & Device Diagnostics     |
|                                                      |
+------------------------------------------------------+
|  WiFi  |  BLE  |  Hardware  |  Diagnostics           |
+------------------------------------------------------+

  [ SYSTEM ONLINE ]

  Device  : ESP32-WROOM
  Mode    : Standalone
  Serial  : 115200
  Version : 1.0.0

  Created by: Mayank Malaviya aka AIwolfie

Features

📡 Wi-Fi Discovery

Scans 2.4 GHz channels and reports:

SSID — network name (truncated if longer than 28 characters; hidden networks shown as <hidden>)
Channel — 2.4 GHz channel number
RSSI — signal strength in dBm
Security — OPEN, WEP, WPA, WPA2, WPA/WPA2, WPA2-ENT, WPA3, WPA2/WPA3

 #   SSID                         CH     RSSI     SECURITY
------------------------------------------------------------
 1   HomeNetwork                  6     -48 dBm   WPA2
 2   Office                       11    -67 dBm   WPA2
 3   <hidden>                     1     -81 dBm   OPEN
------------------------------------------------------------

RSSI is affected by walls, antennas, interference, and environmental conditions. Do not treat it as an exact distance measurement.

🟦 BLE Discovery

Performs active BLE scans for nearby advertisements. For each device discovered, reports:

Bluetooth address (MAC)
RSSI in dBm
Advertised local name (where available)
Service UUID (where advertised)

[01] AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF
     RSSI : -54 dBm
     Name : DeviceName
     UUID : ...

GhostWire does not connect to, pair with, or interact with discovered devices. It only listens for advertisements.

🧠 Hardware Diagnostics

Reads ESP32 chip information directly from the hardware:

Chip model, revision, CPU cores, CPU frequency
ESP-IDF / SDK version
MAC address
Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, BLE, and embedded flash capability

💾 Memory & Flash Diagnostics

Reports runtime resource information:

Heap — total, free, minimum free, largest free block
PSRAM — total and free (detects presence; displays "Not available" when absent)
Flash — size, speed, sketch size, free sketch space
Uptime — seconds since boot

🖥️ Serial Interface

  WIRELESS
    [1] WiFi Network Scan

  BLUETOOTH
    [2] BLE Scan - 10 seconds
    [3] BLE Scan - 30 seconds

  DEVICE
    [4] Chip Information
    [5] Memory / Flash Information

  SYSTEM
    [6] Credits / About
    [7] System Status
    [0] Show Banner

Hardware Requirements

ESP32-WROOM or ESP32 Dev Module / compatible development board
USB data cable
Windows, Linux, or macOS computer

ESP32-WROOM modules commonly ship with 4 MB flash. GhostWire's combined Wi-Fi + BLE firmware is approximately 1.52 MB.

Software Requirements

PlatformIO (recommended) or Arduino IDE 2.x
ESP32 Arduino board package (Espressif Systems)

Installation

PlatformIO

git clone https://github.com/AIwolfie/GhostWire.git
cd GhostWire
pio run
pio run -t upload
pio device monitor -b 115200

The provided platformio.ini uses board_build.partitions = huge_app.csv to ensure sufficient application space for the combined Wi-Fi + BLE firmware.

Arduino IDE

Step 1 — Install Arduino IDE

Download and install Arduino IDE 2.x from the official website.

Step 2 — Install ESP32 Board Package

Open Arduino IDE and navigate to:

Tools → Board → Boards Manager

Search for esp32 and install esp32 by Espressif Systems.

Step 3 — Open GhostWire

Clone or download the repository. Open ghostwire.cpp in Arduino IDE.

If Arduino IDE prompts for a sketch folder, create a folder named GhostWire/ containing a file named GhostWire.ino, then copy the contents of ghostwire.cpp into it.

Step 4 — Select Board

Tools → Board → ESP32 Arduino → ESP32 Dev Module

For other ESP32 boards, select the specific board variant.

Step 5 — Select COM Port

Tools → Port

Select the COM port your ESP32 is connected to. On Windows this will appear as COM3, COM5, etc.

Step 6 — Configure Partition Scheme

Tools → Partition Scheme → Huge APP

GhostWire combines Wi-Fi + BLE in a single firmware image. The default partition scheme may not provide enough application space. Select Huge APP (3 MB application partition).

Step 7 — Compile

Click Verify (✓) or navigate to Sketch → Verify/Compile.

Step 8 — Upload

Click Upload (→). If your board requires bootloader mode, hold the BOOT button during upload.

Step 9 — Serial Monitor

Open Tools → Serial Monitor. Set baud rate to 115200 and line ending to Newline or Both NL & CR.

Press the ESP32 reset button if the startup banner does not appear. You should see the GhostWire banner and main menu.

Usage

Enter a menu number in the Serial Monitor:

Key	Function
`1`	Wi-Fi Network Scan
`2`	BLE Scan — 10 seconds
`3`	BLE Scan — 30 seconds
`4`	Chip Information
`5`	Memory / Flash Information
`6`	Credits / About
`7`	System Status
`0`	Show Banner

Build Verification

GhostWire v1.0.0 builds successfully with PlatformIO for the esp32dev target:

RAM:   [==        ]  17.2% (used 56276 bytes from 327680 bytes)
Flash: [=====     ]  48.3% (used 1519653 bytes from 3145728 bytes)

Actual values vary depending on ESP32 Arduino core version, compiler version, board configuration, partition scheme, and enabled features.

Responsible Use

GhostWire is designed for:

Embedded development and education
Wireless environment discovery
ESP32 experimentation
Hardware diagnostics
Testing networks and devices you own or are authorized to inspect

GhostWire intentionally does not provide:

Wi-Fi password cracking or handshake capture
Deauthentication or Evil Twin attacks
Credential harvesting
Packet injection or radio jamming
BLE exploitation or pairing bypasses
Unauthorized access mechanisms

Discover responsibly. Scan only environments and devices you are authorized to inspect.

Roadmap

GhostWire is still evolving. Potential future improvements include:

Configurable Wi-Fi scan settings
Configurable scan duration
CSV / JSON scan output
Extended BLE advertisement parsing
Manufacturer identification
Additional ESP32 board diagnostics
Automated GitHub Actions builds
Release-ready firmware artifacts

Roadmap items are ideas, not promises or existing functionality.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome.

Good areas for contribution

Bug fixes and memory optimizations
ESP32 board compatibility
Documentation improvements
BLE parsing improvements
Wi-Fi scan improvements
Serial UI improvements
Build automation
Testing on physical hardware

Workflow

# Fork the repository, then clone your fork
git clone https://github.com/AIwolfie/GhostWire.git
cd GhostWire

# Create a feature branch
git checkout -b feature/my-improvement

# Make your changes, then test
pio run

# Commit and push
git add .
git commit -m "Describe your improvement"
git push origin feature/my-improvement

Then open a Pull Request. Test on physical ESP32 hardware whenever possible.

Scope

GhostWire remains focused on wireless discovery, embedded diagnostics, and education. Contributions introducing offensive functionality, unauthorized access mechanisms, or exploitation are outside the project's scope.

Development

# Build
pio run

# Upload
pio run -t upload

# Serial monitor
pio device monitor -b 115200

# Clean build artifacts
pio run -t clean

Project Structure

GhostWire/
├── ghostwire.cpp       # Main ESP32 application source
├── platformio.ini      # PlatformIO configuration
├── README.md           # This file
├── LICENSE             # MIT License
└── .gitignore          # Build artifact exclusions

License

Licensed under the MIT License. See LICENSE for details.

Author

Mayank Malaviya aka AIwolfie — Creator and maintainer of GhostWire.

GhostWire — ESP32 Wireless Discovery & Device Diagnostics

Mayank Malaviya aka AIwolfie · 2026

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
.gitignore		.gitignore
LICENSE		LICENSE
README.md		README.md
ghostwire.cpp		ghostwire.cpp
hehe.png		hehe.png
platformio.ini		platformio.ini

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