HOWTO: ipw2200 + wpa

[mpdemian]

hi there,

ok so after going through 19 pages of this thread, I am still in trouble...
I set things up the way Luca suggested (thanks!), and there are no signs of anything out of place, except that with WPA enabled (or WEP with the previous version of the driver, for that matter) the card just won't get the AP's attention.
If I disable WPA or WEP (and only leave MAC address filtering), I get a clean connection to DHCP and an address.

Someone has a clue? many thanks!

Here are the details:


testing the modules and drivers:

# dmesg| grep ipw
ipw2200: Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2200/2915 Network Driver, 1.0.6
ipw2200: Copyright(c) 2003-2004 Intel Corporation
ipw2200: Detected Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG Network Connection

I have the following ieee80211.ko:
# cd /lib/modules
# find -iname ieee80211.ko
./2.6.10-5-386/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/ieee80211/ieee80211.ko

I then start the wpa:

# wpa_supplicant -B -i eth1 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -D ipw -w -dd
Initializing interface 'eth1' conf '/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf' driver 'ipw'
Configuration file '/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf' -> '/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf'
Reading configuration file '/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf'
Line: 1 - start of a new network block
ssid - hexdump_ascii(len=11):
44 45 4d 49 41 4e 5f 48 4f 4d 45 DEMIAN_HOME
proto: 0x1
scan_ssid=1 (0x1)
key_mgmt: 0x2
PSK (ASCII passphrase) - hexdump_ascii(len=9): [REMOVED]
PSK (from passphrase) - hexdump(len=32): [REMOVED]
Priority group 0
id=0 ssid='DEMIAN_HOME'
Daemonize..

so far so good?
I can even control the card power using the HW Switch From Hell on my laptop:
initially:
---------
eth1 radio off ESSID:"DEMIAN-home"
Mode:Managed Channel:0 Access Point: 00:00:00:00:00:00
Bit Rate=0 kb/s Tx-Power=off
Retry limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off
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

<hw switch on>
eth1 unassociated ESSID:"DEMIAN-home"
Mode:Managed Channel=0 Access Point: 00:00:00:00:00:00
Bit Rate=0 kb/s Tx-Power=20 dBm
Retry limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off
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
however, this is where the good news stop. no signal.

what is strange is if I remove and reload ipw2200, I get the same identical status report, but *sometimes* the gnome network monitor shows all sorts of packet traffic over eth1.
Also, if I scan for APs I get:

# iwlist eth1 scanning
eth1 Scan completed :
Cell 01 - Address: 00:0F:B5:1B:2B:30
ESSID:"DEMIAN-home"
Protocol:IEEE 802.11bg
Mode:Master
Channel:11
Encryption key:on
Bit Rate:54 Mb/s
Extra: Rates (Mb/s): 1 2 5.5 6 9 11 12 18 22 24 36 48 54
Quality=72/100 Signal level=-56 dBm
Extra:wpa_ie=dd160050f20101000050f20201000050f2020 1000050f202
Extra: Last beacon: 97ms ago

but I can get no further...

thanks!

ciao --

[luca_linux]

1) Try to use a static IP address just for testing if it's DHCP related.
2) Try to remove "-w" flag when loading wpa_supplicant.
Then let me know.

[Stealth]

LUCA YOU DA MAN!

I just reinstalled Kubuntu after trying to see what other distros worked with my Inspiron 9300. Nothing came close to Kubuntu's awesome detection and hardware support, all missing was connecting to my WPA network. I've followed this before, and tried it again with no avail, but I was following an older howto, because I see you updated to the 1.0.6 which is what I was trying, having the problems of that ieee80211 thing. Thanks a bunch dude!

[mpdemian]

well many thanks for your tips, I have tried several combinations, it looks like if I disable WPA on the AP, I can get an address from DHCP just fine,
but as soon as I start the wpa_supplicant daemon, I get kicked out.
If I enable WPA on the AP, I no longer get an address without wap_supplicant, which is ok, but I don't get one either when I start it.

(and yes I have checked that the passwords match :-))

So I would conclude that for some reason this doesn't work for me.

The only oddity is that for some reason I end up with two drivers in the kernel, ipw and ipw2200:

# lsmod | grep ipw
ipw 8452 0
usbserial 28136 1 ipw
ipw2200 89608 0
firmware_class 9728 1 ipw2200
ieee80211 28900 1 ipw2200
ieee80211_crypt 6472 2 ipw2200,ieee80211
usbcore 107384 6 ipw,usbserial,usbhid,ehci_hcd,uhci_hcd

is this a clue?

if I remove ipw2200, eth1 disappears altogether, while nothing seems to happen if I remove ipw.

but I need it (?) because this is the driver that wpa_supplicant expects to find:

# wpa_supplicant -B -i eth1 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -D ipw -dd


thanks again...

[luca_linux]

Uhm...there's something strange...the only modules you should have are ipw2200 and ieee80211* ones.
Try to reinstall all, after remove the old modules COMPLETELY.

[mpdemian]

uhm... no luck.
I reinstalled everything and zapped the ipw whatever it was, now I have what I consider a clean config but I get the same exact behaviour:

# lsmod | grep ipw
ipw2200 162568 0
firmware_class 9728 1 ipw2200
ieee80211 44548 1 ipw2200
ieee80211_crypt 6472 2 ipw2200,ieee80211

I am tempted to blame the router/AP but I have no way to test the card and driver using a different router.
Giving up on this for the time being...

thx anyway, cheers

[luca_linux]

Try updating wpa_supplicant to the latest version. The one from the Ubuntu Repositories is old. You can download the source from here: http://hostap.epitest.fi/wpa_supplicant/

[MadJeff]

Guys, I'm crying Uncle! I need help with this one.

New IBM ThinkPad X40, new Ubuntu install. I've followed the instructions to the letter and keep hitting an error when I go to run Make on the ieee802.11 components. Here's the error:

Checking in /lib/modules/2.6.10-5-386/build/ for ieee80211 components...

/lib/modules/2.6.10-5-386/build/include/config/ieee80211

Above files found. Remove? [y],n y

Old ieee80211 references found. In order to build the ieee80211
subsystem, prior versions must first be removed. You can perform
this task by running this makefile as root via:

% sudo make check_old

and answering Y to remove the file references.

Aborting make.

make: *** [check_old] Error 1

I've ran the sudo make check_old command and get the same error. It thinks there are still old modules floating around. Just to be sure, I reinstalled from scratch last night and did the procedure on a clean default install, with the same results.

This is my last piece of the Ubuntu puzzle, getting WPA working here at home. If I can beat this, I have decided I'll be standardizing all my linux installs here at home and work, as I've had nothing but good luck with it so far. It rocks!

Any ideas?

[67fbd400_Linux]

I Just loaded up my Latitude c600 with ubuntu. This forum rocks. I noticed many people having the same problem of connecting with WPA + DHCP. I believe I have found the answer.

You need to edit your /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf and add ap_scan=2 this allow you to search for hidden ap's. Before I made this change I was not able to locate my ap.

ap_scan=2
network={
ssid="APNAME"
proto=WPA
scan_ssid=1
key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
psk="Secret Key"
group=TKIP
pairwise=TKIP
}

I also had to change the networking start script to S41networking.

sudo rm /etc/rcS.d/S40networking

sudo ln -s /etc/init.d/networking /etc/rcS.d/S41networking

I added wpasupplicant to the /etc/rcS.d/ directory to start at S40wpa_supplicant.

sudo ln -s /etc/init.d/wpasupplicant /etc/rcS.d/S40wpa_supplicant

The start script order change was because I noticed wpasupplicant was sTarting after networking.

I am also using the default start script for wpasupplicant.

I hope this helps some people get connect thise who can't get IP's this will help.

Luca great job on the how to you might want to add some of this to it.

[luca_linux]

Guys, I'm crying Uncle! I need help with this one.

New IBM ThinkPad X40, new Ubuntu install. I've followed the instructions to the letter and keep hitting an error when I go to run Make on the ieee802.11 components. Here's the error:



I've ran the sudo make check_old command and get the same error. It thinks there are still old modules floating around. Just to be sure, I reinstalled from scratch last night and did the procedure on a clean default install, with the same results.

This is my last piece of the Ubuntu puzzle, getting WPA working here at home. If I can beat this, I have decided I'll be standardizing all my linux installs here at home and work, as I've had nothing but good luck with it so far. It rocks!

Any ideas?

Have you run the command "sudo sh remove-old" in ieee80211-1.0.3 directory?