Connect to wireless without GUI

[lunix-]

Hi ubuntu community!
For a long time I been struggeling with how to connect to my home wireless network from console.

The wireless connecter on gnome does the job perfectly though.
There I just type in the key when prompted and it works great! (thanks ubuntu!)

But I'm planning to set up a headless linux installation without any GUI and I need to find out how to connect from console.

To connect on other networks I do this and it usually works:
#ifconfig wlan0 up
#iwconfig essid "network" key 10DIGITHEX
#dhclient

But on my home network, this doesnt work at all. I get no dhcp offers..

Is it possible to see what the nm-applet does to connect and make a nogui script from that?

Here is the output from 'iwlist scan' command:

Cell 01 - Address: MA:CAD:RE:SS:00
Channel:5
Frequency:2.432 GHz (Channel 5)
Quality=38/70 Signal level=-72 dBm
Encryption key: on
ESSID:"my network"
Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s
Bit Rates:6 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s; 12 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s; 24 Mb/s
36 Mb/s; 48 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s
Mode:Master
Extra:tsf=0000020sc7f40244
Extra: Last beacon: 89940ms ago
IE: Unknown: 0008417269665474
IE: Unknown: 0104848B9
IE: Unknown: 03010
IE: Unknown: 2A010
IE: Unknown: 32080C121830406C


Here is a working iwconfig output (connected using Gnome) :
wlan0 IEEE 802.11bg ESSID:"my network"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.432 GHz Access Point: 00:20:B2:E0:33:82
Bit Rate=54 Mb/s Tx-Power=19 dBm
Retry long limit:7 RTS thr: off Fragment thr: off
Power Management: on
Link Quality=36/70 Signal level=-74 dBm
Rx invalid nwid: 0 Rx invalid crypt: 0 Rx invalid frag: 0
Tx excessive retries: 0 Invalid misc: 0 Missed beacon: 0

Any help would be greatly appriciated!

(my first post on ubuntu's forums! YAAY Hope Ill be able to conrtibute soon)

[bkratz]

Sorry, afraid I would be of little help except there is a very long tutorial thread on manually connecting.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=571188

[lunix-]

Thanks for a lightning fast reply and for a nice link!
I have been reading and testing for a while now and I got a little further. But I'm still not able to do what I need to:

When i disconnect with the gnome-connection-manager and then try to reconnect with my script, then nothing works.

but: When I don't disconnect from internet with the connection manager, and just run my script, then I'm able to reconnect using my script. I guess that means that my script is functional, but just need some more vital data to be able to connect from scratch?
Here is my connection script so far:

#!/bin/bash
ifconfig wlan0 down
dhclient -r wlan0
ifconfig wlan0 up

iwconfig wlan0 essid "my network"
iwconfig wlan0 key 10DIGITHEX              # s:ASCII_KEY

iwconfig wlan0 key open
#iwconfig wlan0 key restricted     ( I try switching between those two   without much luck..) 

iwconfig wlan0 ap MA:CA:DD:RE:SS:00

iwconfig wlan0 channel 5
iwconfig wlan0 mode Managed
dhclient wlan0

Here is my dmesg | tail:

[26901.357108] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready
[26901.396447] wlan0: direct probe to AP MA:CA:DD:RE:SS:00 try 1
[26901.404445] wlan0: direct probe to AP MA:CA:DD:RE:SS:00 try 1
[26901.404476] wlan0 direct probe responded
[26901.404479] wlan0: authenticate with AP MA:CA:DD:RE:SS:00
[26901.407824] wlan0: authenticated
[26901.407827] wlan0: associate with AP MA:CA:DD:RE:SS:00
[26901.409822] wlan0: RX AssocResp from MA:CA:DD:RE:SS:00 (capab=0x431 status=0 aid=7)
[26901.409825] wlan0: associated
[26901.419820] wlan0: disassociating by local choice (reason=3)

Seems that the 'disassociating' from the dmesg is because of timeout, after waiting a long time for dhcp offers.


The output from running script:

root@syntaxerror:/home/a# sh scriptname
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/wlan0/MA:CA:DD:RE:SS:00
Sending on   LPF/wlan0/MA:CA:DD:RE:SS:00
Sending on   Socket/fallback
DHCPRELEASE on wlan0 to 10.0.0.138 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/wlan0/MA:CA:DD:RE:SS:00
Sending on   LPF/wlan0/MA:CA:DD:RE:SS:00
Sending on   Socket/fallback
DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 7
DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 14
DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 9
DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 12
DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 12
DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 7
No DHCPOFFERS received.
No working leases in persistent database - sleeping.

It would be really nice to understand what fails here.

[lunix-]

bump. anyone?

[chili555]

Is Network Manager still running on the computer? If so, it is doubtful you will ever connect manually. NM just wants one set of hands on the steering wheel; not yours. Next, if this is to be a headless server or HTPC, how are you ever going to find it with a constantly changing IP address? Winbind or samba or all those Redmond tools??? Tsk, tsk!

It will work perfectly with a static IP address in /etc/network/interfaces. My interfaces file, with a few details disguised, is here:

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

auto wlan0
iface wlan0 inet static
address 192.168.1.108
netmask 255.255.255.0
gateway 192.168.1.254
wireless-essid mylilrouter
wireless-key 096xxxxAFE

#auto eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp

Before login, the network is up and running. I have tested and run this on home servers many times.

[lunix-]

Thanks guys for trying to help!! So far I still can't connect to wireless(WEP) from CLI.. But luckily the network-manager-gnome gets me connected at least

I did set up a headless gateway based on ubuntu wich also works as a samba file&print server and "torrent server". Works beautifully, though I'd like to uninstall X. Until I know how to connect from CLI, I guess I'm stuck with gnome running..


A strange thing that happens is when I write
iwconfig wlan0 essid "correct essid"
and then write "iwconfig".
It returns:
unassociated Mode:Managed Frequency=2.432
Access Point: Not-Associated Bit Rate etc etc etc

while when I write a "incorrect essid" and write iwconfig to check configuration, it returns:
unassociated ESSID:"incrorrect essid"
Mode:Managed Frequency=2.432 Access Point: Not-Associated
Bit Rate etc etc etc

So `iwconfig` doesn't show ESSID when I type in the correct essid. Anyone with the same problem or knows how to fix it?