Need WIFI help

[wmrobins]

Hello all,

I'm having trouble getting my wireless card up and running on Kubuntu flight 7. I have a Presario 2500 laptop. Linksys WPC55AG ver 1.2 wireless card (A+G). Access point is Linksys WAP54G. Set for 802.11 g only, WPA, PSK, AES and no MAC filtering.

I've tried a lot of settings in madwifi, wpa_supplicant, KWIFIManager, Wireless Assistant, Connections and Network Settings over the past month or two. (As well as a few “how to” sites on the net, with no luck. (Well at least not on my Access point.) So.... Rather than wast every bodies time fixing what I've screwed up, I've decided to swallow my pride, do a fresh install and all updates (done) and plead for guidance.

Please, please, please. Somebody tell me what do I set/edit and where do I set/edit to get me on the air.

Thanks in advance,


WMRobins

[The Liquidator]

Re: Need WIFI help

Here is my experience as a Kubuntu (although not a Linux) Noob. I have a Belkin 54g wireless network which with Flight 7 (although not previous versions) worked straight away. 128bit encryption was not a problem either. I have assumed you have DHCP i.e automatic IP addressing.

First, check with system settings/network settings . With luck you should see a disabled wireless adapter which means it is detected but not yet fired up. Don't worry that its disabled, only about detection.

Then launch KWifi Manager. Select settings and then "stay in system tray" and if you wish "show strength number". That will be the visible sign in the taskbar that you have a connection. For good measure you can also "scan for networks" which will demonstrate the ability to communicate with the router. Assuming all is well close kwifi manager.

So far you haven't actually set anything, just checking that everything should work. Now launch the wireless assistant. I have to run it on every boot up so I have created a desktop link. You will be presented with a wizard. You will be asked to type in any security code you have. If you have like I do 128 bit encryption, type in the alpha numeric code without spaces or points and do use the hexadecimal option. That should be it.

Let us know how you get on.

Ian

[warbuckle]

Re: Need WIFI help

Hello WMRobins,

I do something similar to Ian, however, from a terminal as "root" iwconfig

Tell us what it shows.......

This will tell you if the card is even being picked up. I run Dapper 7 on an Acer 3500 Aspire with ann Atheros chipset, my router is the same as yours.

If your card shows up as "wireless extension", then you can begin to configure it...

I then start the kwifimanager and input my settings into the configuration.............

Apply
Activate

The speed bar should hopefully show "green" then.

I then go to a terminal and as root
dhclient ath0 - my wifi card - yours may be named soemthing else.........

and I am now good to go.

The Wifimanager will not hold your settings - at least mine did not, I had to manually edit my /etc/network config file...........

It gets a little more complicated if your card does not show up with iwconfig...........


Regards
Will

[wmrobins]

Re: Need WIFI help

Ianmillington and Warbuckle, Thanks for the replies.

Ianmillington,

Tried it and everything looks good accept when I click on my ESSID in Assistant it asks for my WEP key (not WPA) and after I enter it I get "connection failed". Should I be seeing anything referring to WPA and AES? Do I need to edit the wpa_supplicant.conf file or is this step now obsolete?

Also, (I should have mentioned before) I have three access points in my network using that roaming option or whatever it's called.



Warbuckle, I'll get to your suggestions after work today. I'm out of time for now.

[The Liquidator]

Re: Need WIFI help

Sorry I'm not familiar with WPA. Having checked my router config which is WPA capable it seems you need to enter a "pre-shared key" somewhere.

Sorry couldn't help further.

Ian

[wmrobins]

Re: Need WIFI help

Hi Warbuckle,

I tried your method.

iwconfig shows:


ath0 IEEE 802.11 ESSID:""
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.412 GHz Access Point: Not-Associated
Bit Rate:0 kb/s Tx-Power:20 dBm Sensitivity=0/3
Retryff RTS thrff Fragment thrff
Encryption keyff
Power Managementff
Link Quality=0/94 Signal level=-95 dBm Noise level=-95 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

sit0 no wireless extensions.



Then entered dhclient ath0:

wmrobins@BLT3:~$ sudo dhclient ath0
Internet Systems Consortium DHCP Client V3.0.3
Copyright 2004-2005 Internet Systems Consortium.
All rights reserved.
For info, please visit http://www.isc.org/products/DHCP

Listening on LPF/ath0/00:12:17:63:14:1a
Sending on LPF/ath0/00:12:17:63:14:1a
Sending on Socket/fallback
DHCPDISCOVER on ath0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 3
DHCPDISCOVER on ath0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 7
DHCPDISCOVER on ath0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 13
DHCPDISCOVER on ath0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 7
DHCPDISCOVER on ath0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 9
DHCPOFFER from 192.168.1.1
DHCPREQUEST on ath0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67
DHCPACK from 192.168.1.1
bound to 192.168.1.110 -- renewal in 2972827 seconds.
wmrobins@BLT3:~$


Which is my neighbor's WEP access point. (Been there before.)

[warbuckle]

Re: Need WIFI help

Ops.................lol. Free internet...........just kidding.

I believe that there is an option of the iwconfig command that will "bind" your wifi card to the MAC address of your router.............sorry, I am at work and cannot test it right now. But if you bind it it should work from your access point. I also believe that with using "WiFi Assistant" you can have your WiFi access default to a particular network, ie not your neighbors.


Found this on google to bind to your MAC address on your router:

iwconfig eth0 mode Managed
iwconfig eth0 mode Ad-Hoc
ap
Force the card to register to the Access Point given by the address,
if it is possible. When the quality of the connection goes too low, the driver may revert back to automatic mode (the card finds the best Access Point in range).
You may also use off to re-enable automatic mode without changing the current Access Point, or you may use any or auto to force the card to reassociate with the current best Access Point.
Example :
iwconfig eth0 ap 00:60:1D:01:23:45
iwconfig eth0 ap any
iwconfig eth0 ap off

Hope this helps

Will

[wmrobins]

Re: Need WIFI help

Well. No luck yet.

[wmrobins]

Re: Need WIFI help

Do I need to do anything with wpa_supplicant or madwifi also?