Wireless Encrypted Network

[mystified]

I set up a wireless encrypted network on my laptop with no problem. I used mcc, wireless, restricted wep, added the encryption key, continued thru the steps and it worked. No luck with my other computer tho. Any suggestions?

 

Thanks!

[iphitus]

Buy a voodoo doll and tatoo your wifi key into it. If that fails, post some more details of your wireless setup, router, level of encryption, wireless cards used, what 802.11 level they support, whether they have worked before, etc.

 

James

[mystified]

I tried the voodoo doll and it didn't work. :P

 

History. I've had this network set up for about three years but I never bothered to encrypt it because I live in a rural area with no one nearby. But I decided to go ahead and encrypt it so I logged into my router, a Netgear WGT624, set encryption strength at 128 bits. I have two computers plugged in directly and a laptop and a desktop that are wireless. Everything worked fine before I set the encryption. The laptop that I got working has a built in Broadcom 801.11g wireless card. That computer that I can't get working has a Netgear MA311 802.11b which supports 128bit encryption. I entered the encryption keys into the network card configuration for both computers.

[coverup]

Netgear WGT624 is , I tried it when I was setting up my WiFi network, and it never worked (I was trying to set up WPA encryption). Got Dlink instead, it worked with no extra effort.

[iphitus]

WPA does not work with 802.11b last time i checked :( Ya gotta use wep. I think there are some odd latter b cards that are exceptions though.

 

I know because I cant access my neighbours network to admin it for them, even though I set it up.

Edited May 2, 2006 by iphitus

[ianw1974]

WEP can be cracked within minutes, but at least would keep people off your network who haven't got a clue to crack it.

 

I tend to use WPA instead. I found with Mandriva that the wizard sometimes works, and sometimes doesn't. I normally use the wizard to assign the static ip address as I'm lazy to code the ifcfg-wlan0 file manually :P. Then I just modify the files manually for wpa_supplicant after that.

 

I always find the wizard likes to default back to WEP, even though I configured WPA within it. I just think it's weird and buggy.

 

I would check your /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-wlan0 for the contents, and match this or similar for your other machine if the other one is Mandriva as well as the one you've just got it working on.

[iphitus]

WEP can be cracked within minutes, but at least would keep people off your network who haven't got a clue to crack it.

only with suitable hardware, which the average person does not have unless they intentionally buy it for this purpose. I'd say the chances of having someone get onto your network while you're using wep are negligable and not something to be too concerned about. If you were to be concerned, youd probably be living in quite a built up, dense area closer to a city. I know mystified doesnt ;)

 

Anyway, if your hardware doesnt support WPA, I wouldnt bother going out to get WPA capable hardware unless you need the increased bandwidth of 80211g, WEP would serve a majority of people's purposes fine.

 

James

[michaelcole]

Not expensive hardware at all..

 

http://www.tomsnetworking.com/2005/05/10/h...wep_/page2.html

 

maybe years ago it was but now days Johnny down the street can do it..

 

or

 

http://wepcrack.sourceforge.net/

 

Dont be fooled by saying that certain things are too hard or require lots of money and hardware. Most things now days just take some looking and time..

 

Also think nowdays you can get linux running on a handheld then run some programs on them my take a while but the person can sit in your lobby of your office..

or

sit outside your house in a car..

[coverup]

WPA does not work with 802.11b last time i checked :( Ya gotta use wep. I think there are some odd latter b cards that are exceptions though.

 

I know because I cant access my neighbours network to admin it for them, even though I set it up.

My "odd" card is Intel PRO/Wireless LAN 2100 3B Mini PCI Adapter - if that's not a mainstream card then what is? The router is B/G one, it 's set to auto - when used with a g card, it works at a full bandwidth. The combination that worked for me is WPA supplicant+driverloader. I did try ndiswrapper - it never worked. It seems, I am not alone in that boat

 

Also think nowdays you can get linux running on a handheld then run some programs on them my take a while but the person can sit in your lobby of your office..

or

sit outside your house in a car..

In that case they'll find plenty of idiots who did not even bother to encrypt theire networks. :P

[iphitus]

michael: yes, everybody has 2 wireless cards. that alone is not a common setup. the chances of one then being a suitable prism makes it slightly more unlikely with more and more vendors now moving to newer and cheaper chipsets.

 

Without such a setup, I do not deny it is possible, it is, but it takes a ridiculous amount more time, especially if it's a quiet network. After trying on my own network, I figured that without one card capable of replaying packets to the network, it would take far too long to collect enough packets for aircrack or wepcrack or any of the tools to pick out my wep key. I know that I would notice someone parked in a car out the front for hours and hours on end.

 

WPA does not work with 802.11b last time i checked :( Ya gotta use wep. I think there are some odd latter b cards that are exceptions though.

 

I know because I cant access my neighbours network to admin it for them, even though I set it up.

My "odd" card is Intel PRO/Wireless LAN 2100 3B Mini PCI Adapter - if that's not a mainstream card then what is? The router is B/G one, it 's set to auto - when used with a g card, it works at a full bandwidth. The combination that worked for me is WPA supplicant+driverloader. I did try ndiswrapper - it never worked. It seems, I am not alone in that boat

 

I've got one of those too and it fails to pick up my neighbours network using the native linux driver ipw2100. Under windows, with the provided driver it doesnt pick up the network either.

 

HP iirc released a newer driver for it later on which did have WPA support, so it's possible that is the driver distributed nowadays and is what you are using for driverloader.

 

Also think nowdays you can get linux running on a handheld then run some programs on them my take a while but the person can sit in your lobby of your office..

or

sit outside your house in a car..

In that case they'll find plenty of idiots who did not even bother to encrypt theire networks. :P

a handheld couldnt crack a network within a reasonable amount of time, it lacks the two wifi card setup required to replay packets and crack quickly, most (not all) would not have enough storage for the packets, and it would then be quite slow to discover the key.

[coverup]

it's possible that is the driver distributed nowadays and is what you are using for driverloader.

Yes.

[mystified]

Ok, I'm staying with WEP just to clear that up. :P

 

I checked ifcfg-wlan0 and found that it had not saved my encryption key so I manually added it and then the other difference is that under MII_NOT_SUPPORTED it had yes.

 

I tried restarting the network after adding the encryption code using /etc/init.d/network restart and got the following:

 

Bringing up interface eth1: ipcal: bad netmask. IP

 

Error some other host already uses address No IP.

 

I use dhcp. There is no set netmask or ip address.

 

Suggestions?

[ianw1974]

I'd try using a static ip just for testing, and then revert to dhcp later if need be. Take a copy of the ifcfg-wlan0 file, so you can easily revert back to it. Then head into mcc, network and wireless configuration and change to static and allocate an ip and see how you get on then when you restart the connection.

 

I don't normally use the network restart option, but:

 

ifconfig wlan0 up

 

or "down" if turning it off. Since Mandriva is init scripts mostly, you could also use:

 

service network restart

 

just to save typing the path to the init script if you prefer. Although sometimes the ifconfig up etc doesn't always activate the link, especially when using WPA, so the service restart probably helps in this instance. Since you're using WEP and it's stored on the ifcfg-wlan0 file, the ifconfig wlan0 up should suffice.

 

EDIT:

 

I think you can also use:

 

ifup wlan0

 

and ifdown to disable it.

[mystified]

I tried assigning it a static ip because altho I use dhcp my ip provided me with my own ip if that makes sense. It didn't work.

 

New network card??

[iphitus]

I tried assigning it a static ip because altho I use dhcp my ip provided me with my own ip if that makes sense. It didn't work.

 

New network card??

 

eh?

 

lets just try and set this up manually to prove it works,

reload your wireless driver if you can, by rmmod'ing then modprobing it. its the easiest way to clear out it's settings from any crap mandrake has set. then

 

ifconfig ethX down

 

iwconfig ethX mode managed

iwconfig ethX key open WEPKEY

iwconfig ethX essid ESSID

 

iwconfig ethX

and check that there is a bssid (like a mac address) next to 'Access Point' and that it isnt 00:00:00:00:00:00

if there is, then your wireless card has successfully associated with your wireless network.

 

dhcpcd ethX

OR (not sure which mandrake uses)

dhclient ethX

 

and after proving that it works, and your card is not fried, fight with mandrake's hideous network tools to configure it.

 

James