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WLAN Card: Driver loaded, where is access point?!


Andrewski
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OK, after a ton of help from omarserenity on IRC last night, I got my driver loaded and learned a lot in the process. However we got stuck; the card is up and responding to commands, but can't see the access point. Here's what I've done:

 

Netgear WG311 (Atheros chipset)

Driver available from http://sourceforge.net/projects/madwifi

Documentation considered: Madwifi documentation, http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/Linux/, http://en.tldp.org/HOWTO/Wireless-HOWTO.html

 

Steps taken:

Downloaded and installed kernel 2.4.22-21mdk

Configured, "made", and "make installed" madwifi driver

Loaded the driver

 

Output once driver loaded:

[root@localhost andrew]# iwlist ath0 scan
ath0      No scan results

[root@localhost andrew]# iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

ath0      IEEE 802.11  ESSID:""
         Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.412GHz  Access Point: 00:00:00:00:00:00
         Bit Rate:0kb/s   Tx-Power:off   Sensitivity=0/3
         Retry:off   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
         Encryption key:off
         Power Management:off
         Link Quality:0  Signal level:0  Noise level:0
         Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
         Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

Harddrake2 sees the wlan card, but won't let me configure it with the gui; it asks me for the driver, which is 3rd-party.

Checking "tail -v -f /var/log/messages" didn't give me any errors.

I have a mobo-integrated ethernet card that I'm using at present to access the Internet. I don't know if that will need deactivating before the card will work, but it doesn't seem that way.

 

Thanks!

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Steve,

Thanks. That worked to set the address, but I still couldn't get the card to "talk" with the AP. I think I'm just not knowledgable in the ways of de/activating hardware, but when I restart, the card is no longer up and I have manually load the drivers again. Plus, I don't know how to get my eth0 to stay down so I can test the ath0 connection. Any tips?

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Steve,

Thanks.  That worked to set the address, but I still couldn't get the card to "talk" with the AP.  I think I'm just not knowledgable in the ways of de/activating hardware, but when I restart, the card is no longer up and I have manually load the drivers again.  Plus, I don't know how to get my eth0 to stay down so I can test the ath0 connection.  Any tips?

What do you have in your /etc/sysconfig/network and /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-wlan0 files ? You should have

 

HOSTNAME=yourhostname

NETWORKING=yes

GATEWAY=192.168.x.x

GATEWAYDEV=wlan0

 

I was missing the gateway address in the lines above, at first and I could not access the AP properly. Also make sure you are not using WEP for testing purpose, do you fillter on the router by MAC and turn WEP off.

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More things I've tried:

root:andrew$ modprobe wlan
root:andrew$ modprobe ath_hal
Warning: loading /lib/modules/2.4.22-21mdk/net/ath_hal.o will taint the kernel: non-GPL license - Proprietary
 See http://www.tux.org/lkml/#export-tainted for information about tainted modules
Module ath_hal loaded, with warnings
root:andrew$ modprobe ath_pci
root:andrew$ ifconfig ath0 up
root:andrew$ iwconfig ath0 key off
root:andrew$ iwconfig ath0 ap 00:06:25:DB:50:60
root:andrew$ iwconfig ath0 essid "linksys"
root:andrew$ iwconfig
ath0      IEEE 802.11  ESSID:"linksys"
         Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.427GHz  Access Point: 00:06:25:DB:50:60
         Bit Rate:1Mb/s   Tx-Power:off   Sensitivity=0/3
         Retry:off   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
         Encryption key:off
         Power Management:off
         Link Quality:0/92  Signal level:40/154  Noise level:0/154
         Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
         Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

root:andrew$ ifconfig
ath0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:09:5B:92:84:DD
         UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
         RX packets:292 errors:511190 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:81828
         TX packets:271 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
         collisions:0 txqueuelen:199
         RX bytes:23005 (22.4 Kb)  TX bytes:13158 (12.8 Kb)
         Interrupt:10 Memory:d2414000-d2424000

Once I associated with the AP, my tail output shows the following:

Dec 12 13:50:41 localhost kernel: NETDEV WATCHDOG: ath0: transmit timed out
Dec 12 13:51:17 localhost last message repeated 3 times
Dec 12 13:52:29 localhost last message repeated 6 times
Dec 12 13:53:37 localhost last message repeated 5 times
Dec 12 13:54:49 localhost last message repeated 6 times
Dec 12 13:56:01 localhost last message repeated 6 times

Why all the errors and lost packets if I'm associated?

 

Further question: I didn't see anything in my router's documentation, but there are two MAC addresses listed in the router configuration: LAN and Wireless. (The LAN one is printed on the underside of the router.) Which one should I be using?

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Andrewski here is sort of what I have in mine;

 

DEVICE=wlan0

BOOTPROTO=static

IPADDR=192.168.x.x

NETMASK=255.255.255.0

NETWORK=192.168.x.0

BROADCAST=192.168.x.255

ONBOOT=yes

KEY=off

WIRELESS_RATE=11M

WIRELESS_MODE=Managed

WIRELESS_ESSID=linksys

 

Also you will or should have to create this file from scratch. I had too do the same thing. Secondly, do you know if the correct device is being detected in Mandrake Control Center, or is it listing it as an unknown device still ? Secondly, once you have your wireless card working just edit the /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 and change the "ONBOOT=yes" to "ONBOOT=no" and you will be all set, once things are working, you can ping the LAN and access the Internet.

Edited by Relic2K
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Relic:

Thanks again for your reply. A few :rolleyes: things:

1. Do I need to name the /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-wlan0 file as the name given to the driver? In my case, that's ath0 (at least it has been all along). So would the file be named /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-ath0, or is wlan0 a necessary name?

Secondly, do you know if the correct device is being detected in Mandrake Control Center, or is it listing it as an unknown device still ?

2. In harddrake, the card is seen and listed as "Ethernet". When I go to the Network auto-config, it detects my wired card, but asks for the driver for my wireless. Because I compiled it on my own, it's not in the list of given drivers.

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Thanks, Steve. I created the file and put in it the following (pulling info from http://www.stat.ufl.edu/~presnell/Laptop/d.../dwl-g650.txt):

andrew:andrew$ more /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-ath0
DEVICE=ath0
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
# IPADDR=192.168.1.100
# NETMASK=255.255.255.0
# NETWORK=192.168.x.0
# BROADCAST=192.168.x.255
CHANNEL=6
ONBOOT=yes
KEY=off
WIRELESS_RATE=11M
WIRELESS_MODE=Managed
WIRELESS_ESSID=linksys

Then I tried

root:andrew$ ifup ath0
Determining IP information for ath0... failed; no link present.  Check cable?

Then I tried restarting (just to see if ath0 would load on boot) and got the following from /var/log/messages:

localhost harddrake:  succeeded
localhost network: Setting network parameters:  succeeded
localhost network: Bringing up loopback interface:  succeeded
localhost ifup: wlan device ath0 does not seem to be present, delaying initialization.
localhost network: Bringing up interface ath0:  failed
localhost ifplugd(eth0)[925]: Using interface eth0/00:B0:D0:06:0F:ED with driver <3c59x> (version: LK1.1.18-ac)
localhost ifplugd(eth0)[925]: Using detection mode: SIOCGMIIPHY
localhost ifplugd(eth0)[925]: ifplugd 0.15 successfully initialized, link beat detected.
localhost ifplugd(eth0)[925]: Executing '/etc/ifplugd/ifplugd.action eth0 up'.
localhost dhclient: DHCPACK from 192.168.1.1
localhost ifplugd(eth0)[925]: client: Determining IP information for eth0... done.
localhost ifplugd(eth0)[925]: Program executed successfully.
localhost network: Bringing up interface eth0:  succeeded
localhost internet: Checking internet connections to start at boot succeeded

 

OK, so it's not loading on boot. Now if I load it manually, the ESSID and AP MAC address are reset:

root:andrew$ modprobe wlan
root:andrew$ modprobe ath_hal
root:andrew$ modprobe ath_pci
root:andrew$ iwconfig
ath0      IEEE 802.11-DS  ESSID:""  Nickname:"localhost"
         Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.452GHz  Access Point: FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF
         Bit Rate=1Mb/s   Tx-Power:off   Sensitivity=0/3
         Retry:off   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
         Encryption key:off
         Power Management:off
         Link Quality:0  Signal level:0  Noise level:0
         Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
         Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

 

One more question I mentioned before: There are two MAC addresses mentioned in the router configuration (one called LAN and one called Wireless); which should I use in my ath0 configuration?

 

Sorry there's a lot! :unsure:

Edited by Andrewski
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Thanks for the reply. My modules.conf file had said:

alias ath0 wlan ath_hal ath_pci

because those are the three drivers that the madwifi documentation told me to load. However, we know the results of that.

 

Now, with the modified modules.conf file:

alias ath0 ath_pci

I get the following message from /var/log/messages on boot:

localhost ifup: Determining IP information for ath0...
localhost ifup:  failed; no link present.  Check cable?
localhost network: Bringing up interface ath0:  failed

It doesn't say ath0 is absent; that seems... better?

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