How To: Manual Network Configuration without the need for Network Manager

[kerry_s]

i only use 3 commands in mine:

ifconfig wlan0 up &
iwconfig wlan0 essid hidden &
dhclient wlan0 &

i use "&" on the end to background it while it continues to boot.

[christer_f]

Hi Kevdog,
Thanks for a great tutorial.
I have the same problem as drpaul (#939 & #940). Is there a problem with NetworkManager and manual setup in Ubuntu 9.10?

In fact, my NetworkManager-applet connects with no problem (I use a 26 hex-digit WEP key).
However, I would like to be able to make the connections from a script that provides essid and key, and I followed the steps in your tutorial. Unfortunately with little luck.
With the ethernet physically disconnected and wireless network disconnetced (from the NetworkManager-applet), I run into the same problem as drpaul, with the dhclient not managing to get a lease:

After the unsuccessful

$ sudo dhclient wlan0

this is what I get from

$ sudo iwconfig

....
wlan0     IEEE 802.11bg  ESSID:"LADIFREE"  
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.462 GHz  Access Point: Not-Associated   
          Tx-Power=20 dBm   
          Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:7594-F110-2A4D-XXXX-1E66-61DA-F0
          Power Management:on
          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

(where I have replaced 4 hex characters in the key by "xxxx")


Can this be due to a conflict between iwconfig and the NetworkManager? Or doesn't iwconfig support 26 hex-digit keys?

-- christer

[aznguyphan]

Thanks a lot for this, helped me do a minimal Ubuntu install.

[Martin Anthony]

I have some problems with the script to work, first I run the lshw, see below.

martin@anthony-laptop:~$ lshw -c network
WARNING: you should run this program as super-user.
*-network:0 
description: Wireless interface
product: PRO/Wireless 2200BG [Calexico2] Network Connection
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 5
bus info: pci@0000:01:05.0
logical name: eth1
version: 05
serial: 00:0e:35:39:ad:fa
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
configuration: broadcast=yes driver=ipw2200 driverversion=1.2.2kmprq firmware=ABG:9.0.5.27 (Dec 12 2007) ip=192.168.0.2 latency=64 maxlatency=24 mingnt=3 multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11g
resources: irq:11 memory:cffff000-cfffffff
*-network:1
description: Ethernet interface
product: 82801DB PRO/100 VE (MOB) Ethernet Controller
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 8
bus info: pci@0000:01:08.0
logical name: eth0
version: 83
serial: 00:0e:7b:13:1c:14
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: bus_master cap_list ethernet physical
configuration: broadcast=yes driver=e100 driverversion=3.5.24-k2-NAPI firmware=N/A latency=64 maxlatency=56 mingnt=8 multicast=yes
resources: irq:11 memory:cfffe000-cfffefff ioport:cf00(size=64)
martin@anthony-laptop:~$

And then I run this script:

 
#!/bin/bash
sudo ifconfig eth1 down
sudo dhclient -r eth1
sudo ifconfig eth1 up
sudo iwconfig eth1 essid "anthony"
sudo iwconfig eth1 key 1234567890
sudo iwconfig eth1 mode Managed
sudo dhclient eth1

And get this message:

martin@anthony-laptop:~$ ./wireless_3.sh
There is already a pid file /var/run/dhclient.pid with pid 2100
killed old client process, removed PID file
Internet Systems Consortium DHCP Client V3.1.2
Copyright 2004-2008 Internet Systems Consortium.
All rights reserved.
For info, please visit http://www.isc.org/sw/dhcp/
 
Listening on LPF/eth1/00:0e:35:39:ad:fa
Sending on LPF/eth1/00:0e:35:39:ad:fa
Sending on Socket/fallback
DHCPRELEASE on eth1 to 192.168.0.1 port 67
send_packet: Network is unreachable
send_packet: please consult README file regarding broadcast address.
Internet Systems Consortium DHCP Client V3.1.2
Copyright 2004-2008 Internet Systems Consortium.
All rights reserved.
For info, please visit http://www.isc.org/sw/dhcp/
 
Listening on LPF/eth1/00:0e:35:39:ad:fa
Sending on LPF/eth1/00:0e:35:39:ad:fa
Sending on Socket/fallback
DHCPDISCOVER on eth1 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 7
DHCPDISCOVER on eth1 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 10
DHCPDISCOVER on eth1 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 12
DHCPDISCOVER on eth1 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 12
DHCPDISCOVER on eth1 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 9
DHCPDISCOVER on eth1 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 11
No DHCPOFFERS received.
No working leases in persistent database - sleeping.
martin@anthony-laptop:~$

Can you see any thing wrong, with my script?

[drpaul]

I think that there may be a problem with what you are entering for your key. I realize that you you didn't want to put your real key in there, but it is expecting a hex format key as in this excerpt

sudo iwconfig eth1 key HEX_KEY <<<-------- If using ASCII Equivalent, this is s:ASCII_KEY (please make note of the prefix s

HTH

Paul

[MasMas]

Sorry for bothering, but every upgade of my Ubuntu brings network down... so I'm trying to find some help.
This time I had 9.04 and upgraded to 9.10... wireless stopped working.

I had an ASUS p5w deluxe with rtl8187 wireless card, I used the win98 drivers with ndiswrapper and uninstalled network manager and so.

I think the driver is still correcly installed, all as before.

an iwlist wlan0 scan finds my wireless network but my card seems not able to connect to it.

My iwconfig says:
wlan0 IEEE 802.11g ESSIDff/any
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.412 GHz Access Point: Not-Associated
Bit Rate:54 Mb/s Tx-Power:20 dBm Sensitivity=0/3
RTS thrff Fragment thrff
Encryption keyff
Power Managementff
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

If I put down and up the connection and try to associate to the AP it still remains unassociated...

Some peoples says me to use wicd, use another dirver and so, but I:
1. does not have an internet connection in the machine (so I cannot easilly download modules and such);
2. since before it functioned, I think something in the upgrade get in the way of a functionign installation.

So, has anyone a functioning ASUS P5W deluxe wifi connection with 9.10? In this case, what configuration are you using?

Alternatively, someone knows if 9.04 to 9.10 intorduces something that can ruin the wireless configuration?

Or can someune tell me some places to look to logs or so to understand why my connection cannot get its essid?

Thank you

[btindie]

I've been trying to do a minimal Ubuntu 9.10 wireless install using the mini.iso bootstrapping it via grub. After adding the required firmware to initrd.gz which in my case was rt73.bin it was able to use the wireless.

I did however have to mount and chroot into an existing installation to get access to the iwconfig command. In addition to the commands mentioned in the original post to get the wireless working correctly I did also have to do

 
iwconfig wlan0 channel 11

in addition, though I don't know if it was absolutely required, I manually set the key mode to open.

With the Lucid mini.iso I've found that all I've had to do is add the firmware to initrd.gz and it's been able to configure the wireless by itself.

EDIT:

I've had no end of problems trying to get my wireless connection to work using just the wireless-tools package for a mini install of Ubuntu, that's connecting via WEP. After adding the firmware to initrd the install went fine but after a reboot it stopped working. I've been trying to get it working via /etc/network/interfaces with wireless-* options. From that I've had some strange results.

The output of iwconfig wlan0 indicates that it's associated to the access point but when I run tcpdump along with dhclient I can see the requests going out but there's no reply from the access point. I have seen ARP requests coming in from the AP. Then for some reason after installing wpasupplicant and modifying /etc/network/interfaces to use the wpa-* options and restarting the network it all of a sudden comes to life!

[phaile]

You wee beauty This got me up and running in no time, thanks very much!

[menachem]

This is a great tutorial.

I didn't read all 69 pages of this thread, so I don't know if this was answered already.

Once you've configured and connected to the wireless network using the command line, how do you monitor it? I don't necessarily need real time updates, but what commands would I use to get information such as signal strength. Also, if I suspect there is something wrong with the connection and want to check it out.

[drpaul]

to the previous post:

sudo iwconfig

gives very useful info

HTH

Paul