HOWTO: ipw2200 + wpa

[linux_newbie]

Hi,

I am not so expert in using linux. I am currently using Kubuntu Breezy. I followed all the steps in the How-To and got the wireless interface up and running and I could see my access point but the problem is that I am not getting an ip address and hence i am not able to connect.

Has anyone seen this problem before. I would be very grateful if somebody tells me what did I do wrong and what I need to do.

Thanks,

[bennettg]

Does it matter if I am using a ascii passphrase (i.e. 8-63 characters) as opposed to a hexadecimal (64 characters)? I tried to use the examples in the /usr/share/doc/wpasupplicant/examples/wpa_supplicant.conf.gz file.

Why would I have been able to connect sporadically with the current /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf?

PLEASE HELP ME

[RickKnight]

Bennettg,

I don't know why your getting the sporadic connection, but I don't think the ascii passphrase is the culprit, allthough you'll want to change the passphrase to something more secure when you get things working.

Luca_linux' HOWTO worked great for me with Hoary (Kubuntu-5.04) but not with Breezy, so when I did finally get my wireless working with Breezy I posted the steps here. Go back through Luca_linux' howto and look at what I've added or changed . If you have a problem with any one step, post back here and I'll try to help. Also, you can find a lot of help, including an occaisional developer on irc channels #ipw2100 and #ipw2200 at freenode.net.

Good Luck
Rick Knight

[srijith]

I recently tried to compile the drivers for the 2.6.10-6 kernel and found that using the 2.4 firmware hangs the bootup at the hotplug level. Using 2.3 firmware got the whole thing to work fine.

HP nc6120, Ubuntu Hoary.

[mxr]

probably this has been posted before but the thread is just too big to go through. and when i searched for dns related issues no one was addressed (at least not the identical ones that i have).

i know this is a howto about gettin ipw2200 to work with wpa but there are some issues... at work i have wpa personal and following configuration:

ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant
ap_scan=2

network={
ssid="Work Network"
key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
proto=WPA
pairwise=TKIP
group=TKIP
psk="workkey"
}

it works! at home i have wpa2 personal. guess what - same config works - i can connect to AP and get an IP and the DNS servers in my /etc/resolv.conf

now - here is the trick! at home, DNS resolution does not work - i can access stuff only via IPs.

noticed a difference - at home (WPA2), my resolv.conf has 3 outside DNS servers (that I can ping by both IP and hostname). but at work my resolv.conf has search workdomain.com and a local (192.168.x.x) DNS server.

first i was thinking that this is WPA and WPA2 issue. changed at home to WPA. still no luck. but now i am thinking that there is something with those DNS servers and it does matter if its a 192.168.x.x or an outside one. btw i have a Linksys wrt54gs v4 at home (where i have the DNS issues).

[iansyngin]

Has anyone seen the following.
I'm following the guide for installing wifi drivers: ipw2200 and ieee
when i run the command

sudo make

i recieve the following error:

/tmp/wifi/ieee80211-1.1.9$ sudo make
Password:
Checking in /lib/modules/2.6.12-10-386/build/ for ieee80211 components...
make -C /lib/modules/2.6.12-10-386/build M=/tmp/wifi/ieee80211-1.1.9 MODVERDIR=/tmp/wifi/ieee80211-1.1.9 modules
/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.12-10-386/scripts/gcc-version.sh: line 11: gcc-3.4: command not found
/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.12-10-386/scripts/gcc-version.sh: line 12: gcc-3.4: command not found
make[1]: gcc-3.4: Command not found
make[1]: Entering directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.12-10-386'
CC [M] /tmp/wifi/ieee80211-1.1.9/ieee80211_module.o
/bin/sh: gcc-3.4: command not found
make[2]: *** [/tmp/wifi/ieee80211-1.1.9/ieee80211_module.o] Error 127
make[1]: *** [_module_/tmp/wifi/ieee80211-1.1.9] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.12-10-386'
make: *** [modules] Error 2


has anyone any ideas?

[iansyngin]

found answer to this:
i needed to install gcc 3.4 and removed other version. worked fine after that.
the latest version of gcc incompatible with the document

[mxr]

Problem solved. The issue was, well I would not say in the router but partially. The thing is that in my Linksys you can set under DHCP server DNS addresses and you can leave 0.0.0.0. In both cases they get into /etc/resolv.conf but with defined IPs it did not work for me. So I replaced them with 0.0.0.0 and now it rocks!

probably this has been posted before but the thread is just too big to go through. and when i searched for dns related issues no one was addressed (at least not the identical ones that i have).

i know this is a howto about gettin ipw2200 to work with wpa but there are some issues... at work i have wpa personal and following configuration:

ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant
ap_scan=2

network={
ssid="Work Network"
key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
proto=WPA
pairwise=TKIP
group=TKIP
psk="workkey"
}

it works! at home i have wpa2 personal. guess what - same config works - i can connect to AP and get an IP and the DNS servers in my /etc/resolv.conf

now - here is the trick! at home, DNS resolution does not work - i can access stuff only via IPs.

noticed a difference - at home (WPA2), my resolv.conf has 3 outside DNS servers (that I can ping by both IP and hostname). but at work my resolv.conf has search workdomain.com and a local (192.168.x.x) DNS server.

first i was thinking that this is WPA and WPA2 issue. changed at home to WPA. still no luck. but now i am thinking that there is something with those DNS servers and it does matter if its a 192.168.x.x or an outside one. btw i have a Linksys wrt54gs v4 at home (where i have the DNS issues).

[bennettg]

Bennettg,

I don't know why your getting the sporadic connection, but I don't think the ascii passphrase is the culprit, allthough you'll want to change the passphrase to something more secure when you get things working.

Luca_linux' HOWTO worked great for me with Hoary (Kubuntu-5.04) but not with Breezy, so when I did finally get my wireless working with Breezy I posted the steps here. Go back through Luca_linux' howto and look at what I've added or changed . If you have a problem with any one step, post back here and I'll try to help. Also, you can find a lot of help, including an occaisional developer on irc channels #ipw2100 and #ipw2200 at freenode.net.

Good Luck
Rick Knight

Rick,

I've got it working well, though I don't know exactly how. It still drops occasionally, so I wonder if that is a signal issue or somehting on my laptop.

I followed luca_linux's how to and it didnt work. I then changed what luca_linux had for his script and replaced it with yours. It still didn;t work, until I changed the loading to S43 from S40.

relevant files are attached. I have chenged the security settings from what you see here (and what was posted earlier) for security.

/etc/rcS.d:
bennettg@ubuntu:~$ sudo kate /etc/init.d/wifi_wpa.sh

#! /bin/sh
# wifi: wpa_supplicant init
echo " * [Wifi]: Enabling WPA supplicant..."
if [ -x /usr/local/bin/wpa_supplicant ]; then
/usr/local/bin/wpa_supplicant -ieth1 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -Dipw -w &
fi

sleep 2

#use dhcp to request a network address
dhclient eth1

exit 0

bennettg@ubuntu:~$ sudo ln -s /etc/init.d/wifi_wpa.sh /etc/rcS.d/S43netwifiwpa




/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf:

ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant

network={
ssid="acorn"
scan_ssid=1
proto=WPA
key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
pairwise=TKIP
psk="24334B4A44412423486A736B61"
}


I don't know why, but it works and I'm not touching it. So in summary I followed luca_linux's how to word for word throughout, failed to get it started and then used the portions of your howto above (the start-up script) and changed its symlink to s43.

does this make sense to you? I am writing the details here in case someone else has this problem or in case i do in the future. maybe you understand what happened more than me and can add the caveats to your howto!

thanks for all your help. let me know if you have an open source project i can donate to

[Robor]

I wasn't trying to enable WPA but I had an occasional loss of wireless connectivity and I was getting an error in my logs about firmware. A Google search hit this thread.

I figured, I don't want WPA but it looks like I can upgrade my firmware and ieee80211 subsystem and hope that fixes my problems. Well, I went through the process and it broke my wireless. On reboot my wireless (Eth1) doesn't show up and if I double click my 'Network Connection' icon I get a "No such device" error. I repeated the process to no avail.