HOWTO: ipw2200 + wpa

[fulco]

I completely removed the old drivers and firmware and installed all of the new stuff. Here's the errors that I'm getting:

Hi MokeyWrench,

I have the exact same errors when using the 2.3 fw/ 1.04 driver combination when setting the Wireless network device to static IP (which I prefer because I use my laptop at home only and it's faster at boottime since there is no waiting for an answer from the DHCP server involved).

Switching to DHCP leaves me with a dead connection after boot (Wifi card not assoiciated with AP). Only after I disable and enable the driver with a modprobe -r and a subsequent modprobe I manage to get a connection, but only for a very short time. After that de connection is dead again.

I went back to driver 1.03 which does not give me these problems. Maybe I will give 1.04 another try tomorrow. I might also try to use the 2.3 fw with the 1.03 driver if possible to see what that gives (I already verified the fw 2.2 / driver 1.04 combination does not work).

Anyway, I really would like to have static IP functioning again since it's fast an reliable.

[radhaz]

When I power down the system I get a statement that states something to the effect of:

wpasupplicant: Disabled see /etc/default/

Is this normal? I am also getting a lot of packet loss / network drops that sometime necessitate either deactivating & reactivating the eth1 connection or even rebooting the laptop.

If anyone has any advice or can point me towards a thread for ways to troubleshoot wireless networking ie commands and such I would be greatly appreciate.

Also something you might want to note for people doing fresh installs is they have to install gcc & headers from the cd (can be done via synaptic for n00bs like myself) otherwise the install won't work.

Very Respectfully
RadHaz

[Technoviking]

I had to do two things to make the ipw2200 driver happy with my computer.

1. Remove old driver:

remove-old

Run this from the ipw2200-1.0.4 directory, it cleans up your modules directory, and resets compile options.

2. Disable hardware crypto:

echo "options ipw2200 hwcrypto=0" > /etc/modprobe.d/ipw2200

This solved firmware errors I was having.

Mike

[radhaz]

...

2. Disable hardware crypto:

echo "options ipw2200 hwcrypto=0" > /etc/modprobe.d/ipw2200

This solved firmware errors I was having....

What error's were you having?

[Technoviking]

What error's were you having?

I kept getting "ipw2200: Firmware error detected. Restarting".

Mike

[dejitarob]

I used the 1.03 drivers+firmware for a few months with no issues. I upgraded to 1.04 the other day fine. A few days later I suddenly was unable to get an IP or even see any APs. "dmesg | grep ipw" showed the firmware error restarting. Removing and reinstalling the firmware fixed this and its been working great since.

[MikePB]

Hey. I'm a big 'ol noob and I did all of what I was supposed to do, and now my wireless card seems to have disappeared

I can get on fine over ethernet (hence the post ), but my wireless interface eth1 is no more!

Please help a confused and frustrated noob!

[fulco]

Ok, I reinstalled driver 1.04 and firmware 2.3, making sure no old drivers of firmware are present.

The firmware loads normally when booting into Ubuntu, but... there is no connection. Checking the network connection told me DHCP had not been succesfull since there was no IP address. I set the interface to Static IP to force IP address and re-initialized the network with the commands:

sudo /sbin/modprobe -r ipw2200
sudo /sbin/modprobe ipw2200
sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart
sudo killall wpa_supplicant
sudo /usr/sbin/wpa_supplicant -B -i eth0 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -D ipw

Now, my network connection kept going up and down every few seconds: it does connect to my accesspoint, but not for long.

The messagelog shows:

ipw2200: Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2200/2915 Network Driver, 1.0.4
ipw2200: Copyright(c) 2003-2004 Intel Corporation
ACPI: PCI interrupt 0000:01:07.0[A] -> GSI 5 (level, low) -> IRQ 5
ipw2200: Detected Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG Network Connection
ieee80211: eth0: Unknown management packet: 0
ieee80211: eth0: Unknown management packet: 0
ieee80211: eth0: Unknown management packet: 0

Everytime the interface goes trough a disconnect/connect cycle, this last message is repeated.

Sometimes, between all the "Unknown management packet 0:" messages, a firmware error or some other network related message shows up too. This happened too with driver 1.03 but did not cause any problems with my connection. Just for reference:

ieee80211: eth0: Unknown management packet: 0
ieee80211: eth0: Unknown management packet: 0
TKIP: replay detected: STA=00:13:01:10:06:16 previous TSC 000000000000 received TSC 000000000000
TKIP: replay detected: STA=00:13:01:10:06:16 previous TSC 000000000000 received TSC 000000000000
ieee80211: eth0: Unknown management packet: 0
ieee80211: eth0: Unknown management packet: 0
ieee80211: eth0: Unknown management packet: 0
ieee80211: eth0: Unknown management packet: 0
ipw2200: Firmware error detected.  Restarting.
ieee80211: eth0: Unknown management packet: 0
ieee80211: eth0: Unknown management packet: 0

Does anybody have a clue what is going on here?

Edit: I had a look in the ipw2200 code:

+void ieee80211_rx_mgt(struct ieee80211_device *ieee,
+		      struct ieee80211_hdr *header,
+		      struct ieee80211_rx_stats *stats)
+{
+	switch (WLAN_FC_GET_STYPE(header->frame_ctl)) {
+	case IEEE80211_STYPE_ASSOC_RESP:
+		IEEE80211_DEBUG_MGMT("received ASSOCIATION RESPONSE (%d)\n",
+				     WLAN_FC_GET_STYPE(header->frame_ctl));
+		break;
+
+	case IEEE80211_STYPE_REASSOC_RESP:
+		IEEE80211_DEBUG_MGMT("received REASSOCIATION RESPONSE (%d)\n",
+				     WLAN_FC_GET_STYPE(header->frame_ctl));
+		break;
+

+	case IEEE80211_STYPE_PROBE_RESP:
+		IEEE80211_DEBUG_MGMT("received PROBE RESPONSE (%d)\n",
+				     WLAN_FC_GET_STYPE(header->frame_ctl));
+		IEEE80211_DEBUG_SCAN("Probe response\n");
+		ieee80211_process_probe_response(
+			ieee, (struct ieee80211_probe_response *)header, stats);
+		break;
+
+	case IEEE80211_STYPE_BEACON:
+		IEEE80211_DEBUG_MGMT("received BEACON (%d)\n",
+				     WLAN_FC_GET_STYPE(header->frame_ctl));
+		IEEE80211_DEBUG_SCAN("Beacon\n");
+		ieee80211_process_probe_response(
+			ieee, (struct ieee80211_probe_response *)header, stats);
+		break;
+
+	default:
+		IEEE80211_DEBUG_MGMT("received UNKNOWN (%d)\n",
+				     WLAN_FC_GET_STYPE(header->frame_ctl));
+		IEEE80211_WARNING("%s: Unknown management packet: %d\n",
+				  ieee->dev->name,
+				  WLAN_FC_GET_STYPE(header->frame_ctl));
+		break;
+	}

Apparently the driver cannot make up the signal type and defaults to "unknown". I have no idea what is causing this, I have not changed the setup of my accesspoint and/or WPA supplicant since upgrading from ipw version 1.03 to 1.04.

Anyway, it seems I am not alone:

http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux...100.devel/5325

Edit 2: if I disable my WPA and set my accesspoint to "open" mode, the 1.04 driver works. I will try to reinstall WPA to see if that solves anything!

[fulco]

Hey. I'm a big 'ol noob and I did all of what I was supposed to do, and now my wireless card seems to have disappeared

I can get on fine over ethernet (hence the post ), but my wireless interface eth1 is no more!

Please help a confused and frustrated noob!

Check your /etc/network/interfaces file. Open a terminal window and paste the following command into it:

sudo gedit /etc/network/interfaces

It should contain lines like this:

mapping hotplug
    script grep
    map eth1

iface eth1 inet dhcp

If not, I suggest you add these lines.

Also, check if the driver reports a firmare error or other error:

sudo dmesg | grep ipw
sudo dmesg | grep iee

If everything is OK then it only shows a few lines containing the Intel Pro Wireless networkdriver version - in this case 1.04 - and a message it has detected a Intel Pro Wireless network connection.

Just put the errors the messagelog gives you in this thread and I am sure someone will be able to help.

[MikePB]

Thanks Fulco!

my /etc/network/interfaces contained the lines already, besides what you said it should have it had auto eth1 at the end

and doing sudo dmesg | grep iee returned info about my firewire

but sudo dmesg | grep ipw returned nothing....