Comprehensive ndiswrapper troubleshooting guide

[Pitirim]

pytheas22 -
wicd installed ok.
The l.e.d. in the adapter is now on, but it's on constantly. Under Win XP, it flashed till a connection was established and then remained on.
I've run through these wicd options using encryption and my WEP key (which is what works for all our other machines and is a 26 character alphanumeric string, as in AD56C853... so, Hex [0-9/A-F] I suppose):

WPA1/2 (Passphrase): Bad password
WPA1/2 (Preshared key): Unable to get IP address
WEP (Hex [0-9/A-F]): Unable to get IP address
WEP Shared/Restricted: Unable to get IP address

The router itself is listing "Use WPA security only". A bit puzzling this, as the key we use to connect under Win XP is referred to as a WEP key. I rang Orange but the guy I spoke to was unable to make clear how this works.
I tried using a static IP address but I was not successful. Lots of permutations for someone like me who is just trying to make educated guesses. This option is not exhausted, therefore, but a) I don't know if it is worth pursuing, and b) wicd is now displaying "No wireless networks found" so the option ain't there now anyway.
Update: I unplugged the usb, put it back, wicd now sees my wireless network. It says:

WANADOO-6BE4 64% WPA Channel 1

I'll plug away with the permutations...
-------------
I found this (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=174024&highlight=wanado&page=2):
(Originally the company was called Freeserve, then it became Wanadoo, and now it's Orange. We got the router when it was still badged as Wanadoo. The router is referred to interchangeably as either a Wanadoo Livebox or an Orange Livebox. Only the badge changed.)

Originally Posted by Ray Hamilton
Simon

I'm not sure if this will help because I have just noticed that you are using Dapper. However, I presumbaly have the same Wanadoo wireless kit - the USB adaptor being labelled Inventel.
Roughly this is what you do.
Install ndiswrapper from the Ubuntu CD.
Copy your windows files to a directory that you can access from Ubunutu:
prisma02.inf probably found in /windows/system32
prisma02.sys probably found in /windows/drivers
now open a terminal (Applications->Accessories->Terminal)
and type (you will need to enter your root/main login password when prompted):
sudo ndiswrapper -i /pathtoyourfiles/prisma02.inf
sudo ndiswrapper -l (that's a small L) hopefully you see no message about hardware not being present!Click
sudo ndiswrapper -m
sudo modprobe ndiswrapper

From here you can use a GUI to do the rest of the job, so close the terminal window
Now System->Administration->Networking
Click on Wireless connection/wlan0 then click properties
for Network name (ESSID) use WANADOO-E696
for key type use Hexadecimal
for WEP enter the key that is printed on the sleeve of the Wanadoo Wireless CD cover - NOTE do not use spaces
for configuration use DHCP
click OK
click activate

I can find 6 PRISMA02 files (none hidden, but none with .inf or .sys extensions either) on the laptop I'm using to type this but I'm not confident that I could get them to where they need to be to test this option. The thread is over 3 years old so may no longer be relevant anyway.
-----------------
The jargon is beginning to accumulate as synaptic silt - I think this is how ox-bow lakes get started isn't it?

[Pitirim]

On my Ubuntu Karmic 9.10 box:

leslie@leslie-desktop:~$ lsusb
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 045e:0084 Microsoft Corp. Basic Optical Mouse
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 1435:0427 Wistron NeWeb
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
leslie@leslie-desktop:~$

Search for " 1435:0427 Wistron NeWeb" turned up this:
http://cateee.net/lkddb/web-lkddb/P54_COMMON.html
My usb adapter is listed and the link to the Ubuntu driver brings up this page:
http://lxr.linux.no/#linux+v2.6.33/d...s/p54/p54usb.c
where my device appears at line 77.

Now, I'm thinking that my usb adapter is definitely supported, but when I read "This module does nothing by itself - the USB/PCI frontends also need to be enabled in order to support any devices," I'm not sure how to see if my "usb frontend" is enabled or not.
If I see it with lsusb does that mean it is enabled?

As I've tried connecting with Network Manager I'm assuming that ndiswrapper has already used the appropriate drivers for my adapter. This from http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/F/front-end.html (The Jargon File v4.4.7): "Software that provides an interface to another program ‘behind’ it, which may not be as user-friendly."

Is this what I need to get my adaptor to work, or is it just another sausage on the dog track?

[pytheas22]

Sorry for the delayed response--I've been traveling/studying feverishly. But to try to provide some clarification as to what's going on (at least as I understand it):

There are two possible ways to get your wireless card working in Ubuntu. One way is to use ndiswrapper, which is a "wrapper" that makes it possible to use Windows drivers to get network interfaces working on Linux. ndiswrapper is not an ideal solution, as its functionality is limited to normal managed mode (no advanced wireless features) and it can be fickle. ndiswrapper isn't installed by default in Ubuntu.

The other, better way to get your device working is to use the native Linux driver, named p54usb. p54usb is installed by default in Ubuntu, and you don't need to do anything to enable it--it should just be "plug and play," although obviously that's not proving to be the case for you. The page you found (http://lxr.linux.no/#linux+v2.6.33/d...s/p54/p54usb.c) is the source code for the p54usb driver, which is built into the Linux kernel.

Don't worry about the bits about having to enable USB/PCI interfaces. That's just telling you that in order for the p54usb wireless driver to work, your kernel needs also to support USB devices in general, because obviously a USB wireless driver will only work if the operating system itself comes with drivers for the USB ports (when you compile a Linux kernel you can choose not to include support for USB devices, but that would only make sense in certain cases). But Ubuntu certainly comes with USB support enabled--otherwise "lsusb" would not report anything at all--so that's not the problem.

You've tried both ndiswrapper and p54usb, and the results in each case seem to be the same: the system recognizes your wireless card without issue and can detect wireless networks with it, but can't seem to connect. Because of this behavior, I suspect that the issue is not with the wireless driver, and it probably won't make a difference whether you use ndiswrapper or p54usb to drive the device. I think the key to solving your problem lies in figuring out why the system is having trouble negotiating the actual connection, which may well have something to do with oddities related to how your router is configured.

Searching for "ubuntu pairing mode" mostly turns up results related to bluetooth devices, not wireless routers. However, I did find this page which deals with connecting to a Livebox router on Ubuntu. The posters there mention having to press a "1" button on the router immediately before telling Ubuntu to connect to it. Is this what you were doing (apologies if it is and I'm just confused)? If not, are you able to connect if you do that?

From what I understand based on reading that thread, the issue is that the Livebox router uses MAC address filtering, so it will only allow computers to connect if it recognizes their MAC addresses (and you presumably press the "1" button in order to tell the router that a device is about to connect whose MAC address it has not seen before, so that it temporarily suspends the MAC address filtering and allows you to connect). If you're able to access the router's configuration profile, does it tell you anywhere whether the MAC address for the wireless card you're using on Ubuntu is approved?

If you don't know the MAC address, you can find it by opening a terminal and typing "ifconfig wlan0". The output will look like this, where the part in bold is the MAC:

wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:22:fb:d4:c1:2e  
          inet addr:10.16.6.81  Bcast:10.16.6.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::222:fbff:fed4:c12e/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:1246676 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:571593 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:886492853 (886.4 MB)  TX bytes:101935025 (101.9 MB)

I'm sure this is all clear as mud, but I hope it provides a somewhat better idea of what I think is going is on and where to go from here.one was

[Pitirim]

Thanks for your reply, pytheas22, and no probs re "delay": I'm surprised you have time to do anything but study, but then again I am not averse to providing some light relief in which to knit up the ravelled sleeve of care :) (although I can thoroughly recommend P.G. Wodehouse as a far, far better alternative).

Actually, your post made perfect sense. I'd been wondering why the MAC address obtained from ifconfig wlan0:

leslie@leslie-desktop:~$ ifconfig wlan0
wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:0b:6b:6c:3e:04
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

leslie@leslie-desktop:~$

does not match the MAC code which goes with the WEP key: 00:07:3A:D7:6B:E4

I have been trying to figure out how to enter this somewhere to match up adapter and router (if that's what will happen) but I can't figure out where.

[Pitirim]

I think the solution may lie here:
http://tinycorelinux.com/forum/index.php?topic=4394.0
but my Ubuntu skills are not up to implementing it.

There is something called a "four-way handshake" that seems to be going on between adapter and router:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WPA2-PSK

I'll also try to contact Juanito, the author of the above post to see if I can get help from him. Any progress and I'll post here.

[pytheas22]

Pitirim: so do you have a different passphrase for each wireless card/MAC address? Also, it still doesn't seem certain to me whether you're using a WPA key or a WEP key.

The "four-way handshake" only happens with WPA (both WPA1 and WPA2), not with WEP, but so far I think we've been operating on the assumption that you use WEP. I guess technically it could be possible to use both, although I've never heard of that.

In any case, I think it would be helpful if I knew what the wireless password actually is that you're giving to Ubuntu, because that would help me figure out what kind of security the router is using. If you don't want to post the passphrase publicly, you can send me a private message (I promise not to come to Scotland to steal your wireless connection). Also, please let me know whether the passphrase is the same for all of your computers, or is specific to certain wireless cards.

The link http://tinycorelinux.com/forum/index.php?topic=4394.0 just explains how to negotiate a WPA connection manually from the command line. You could try following those steps if you like (they should all work on Ubuntu, although they won't get you an IP address; to do that you'll need to run "sudo dhclient wlan0" after running all of those commands), but in Ubuntu you don't need to worry about all that, as NetworkManager (and wicd) takes care of the dirty behind-the-scenes work for you. That guide was written for tinycore Linux, which is a minimalist Linux distribution that doesn't have all the nice GUI tools available on Ubuntu.

[Pitirim]

pytheas22 -
Thanks for the interpretation of the Tiny Core post. It does seem to confirm that the Livebox is using WPA, which is the information also from Orange themselves, though the guy I talked to about how a WEP key is used with the WPA system was not able to enlighten me.
We use this WEP key for any and every wireless connection via the Livebox:
A4F95C317A6E3AD43B54316BEE
Its listed there as "Security key (WPA-TKIP)"
I've just copied and pasted direct from the router's configuration pages.
These also give the "device address" as 00:14:A4:5B:BA:D0 , which is not the same as the addresses listed as connected with it, nor the same as the MAC code which comes with the Windows supported installation CD viz.: 00:07:3A:D7:6B:E4
If you were to come to Scotland I think you'd be welcome to use our internet connection :)

[pytheas22]

That certainly looks like a WEP key, although it would also be valid as a WPA key. I've done some reading and it seems Orange may ship these boxes with WPA keys that look like WEP keys, so that probably explains what's going on. For now, let's assume it's WPA, and trying connecting from the command line. That should provide a lot more diagnostic information than you can get using a GUI program.

To connect from the command line, first type:

sudo gedit /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf

A file will open. Add these lines to it:

network={
ssid="Livebox-XXXX"
psk="A4F95C317A6E3AD43B54316BEE"
}

Then save and close the file (be sure to replace the "XXXX" bit with the name of your Livebox wireless network, of course).

Next, make sure the router is in pairing mode. Then run this command:

wpa_supplicant -dd -D wext -i wlan0 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf

This should give you a lot of output. Ideally, it will end by telling you that the WPA connection has been successfully negotiated (I forget what the exact message is). If you see that success message, you can type this last command (in a new terminal window, with the previous one still open) to request an IP address:

sudo dhclient wlan0

If something doesn't work, please post all of the output from the two commands above, and it should help figure out what the issue is. Hopefully things will become clearer now that we understand more about what kind of security you're using.

Also, to be clear, you won't need to run these commands in a terminal all the time to connect; I'd just like you to do it that way now in order to get more feedback from the computer and help diagnose what's going on. Unfortunately none of the GUI programs provide very much feedback at all other than telling you when something failed.

EDIT: I've also just read from in this thread:

Why they ever called it a WEP key is beyond me . By default the livebox uses WEP/WPA in some weird combined mode . The key is more correctly a Security Key and can be used for either WEP or WPA. You can change the Livebox to WPA Only in the config pages and the key remains the same .

Have you looked at this? Is your router in the "weird combined mode" trying to use WEP and WPA at once (I'm not sure what that actually means as I've never heard of that before, although theoretically I think I could see how it would be done). Can you switch it to WPA-only and see if that changes anything?

[Pitirim]

Hi pytheas22 -
Just back at the computer after a day in the garden.
Here are the results of those commands in your post #808:

leslie@leslie-desktop:~$ sudo gedit /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
[sudo] password for leslie:
leslie@leslie-desktop:~$ wpa_supplicant -dd -D wext -i wlan0 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
Initializing interface 'wlan0' conf '/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf' driver 'wext' ctrl_interface 'N/A' bridge 'N/A'
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=12):
57 41 4e 41 44 4f 4f 2d 36 42 45 34 WANADOO-6BE4
PSK (ASCII passphrase) - hexdump_ascii(len=26): [REMOVED]
PSK (from passphrase) - hexdump(len=32): [REMOVED]
Priority group 0
id=0 ssid='WANADOO-6BE4'
ioctl[SIOCSIWPMKSA]: Operation not permitted
ioctl[SIOCSIWMODE]: Operation not permitted
Could not configure driver to use managed mode
SIOCGIWRANGE: WE(compiled)=22 WE(source)=21 enc_capa=0xf
capabilities: key_mgmt 0xf enc 0xf flags 0x0
WEXT: Operstate: linkmode=1, operstate=5
socket(PF_PACKET): Operation not permitted
Failed to add interface wlan0
State: DISCONNECTED -> DISCONNECTED
wpa_driver_wext_set_operstate: operstate 0->0 (DORMANT)
WEXT: Operstate: linkmode=-1, operstate=5
wpa_driver_wext_set_key: alg=0 key_idx=0 set_tx=0 seq_len=0 key_len=0
ioctl[SIOCSIWENCODEEXT]: Operation not permitted
Driver did not support SIOCSIWENCODEEXT
wpa_driver_wext_set_key: alg=0 key_idx=1 set_tx=0 seq_len=0 key_len=0
ioctl[SIOCSIWENCODEEXT]: Operation not permitted
Driver did not support SIOCSIWENCODEEXT
wpa_driver_wext_set_key: alg=0 key_idx=2 set_tx=0 seq_len=0 key_len=0
ioctl[SIOCSIWENCODEEXT]: Operation not permitted
Driver did not support SIOCSIWENCODEEXT
wpa_driver_wext_set_key: alg=0 key_idx=3 set_tx=0 seq_len=0 key_len=0
ioctl[SIOCSIWENCODEEXT]: Operation not permitted
Driver did not support SIOCSIWENCODEEXT
wpa_driver_wext_set_wpa
WEXT: SIOCSIWAUTH(param 7 value 0x0) failed: Operation not permitted)
Failed to disable WPA in the driver.
wpa_driver_wext_set_drop_unencrypted
WEXT: SIOCSIWAUTH(param 5 value 0x0) failed: Operation not permitted)
wpa_driver_wext_set_countermeasures
WEXT: SIOCSIWAUTH(param 4 value 0x0) failed: Operation not permitted)
No keys have been configured - skip key clearing
Cancelling scan request
Cancelling authentication timeout
ioctl[SIOCSIWAP]: Operation not permitted
WEXT: Operstate: linkmode=0, operstate=6
SIOCSIFFLAGS: Permission denied
leslie@leslie-desktop:~$ sudo dhclient wlan0
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/wlan0/00:0b:6b:6c:3e:04
Sending on LPF/wlan0/00:0b:6b:6c:3e:04
Sending on Socket/fallback
DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 3
DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 8
DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 13
DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 10
DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 13
DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 8
DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 6
No DHCPOFFERS received.
No working leases in persistent database - sleeping.
leslie@leslie-desktop:~$ ^C
leslie@leslie-desktop:~$ ^C
leslie@leslie-desktop:~$

I did the

sudo dhclient wlan0

any way just to be complete.
The "^C" was me trying to copy without using the "edit" menu in the terminal.
I used quotes as shown in the gedit file, i.e. around the SSID and the WEP/WPA key.
I'm guessing that this means the adapter driver files are not all there (so a bit like me then).
The Livebox security is set to "WPA only" - that was needed to set up our laptops using their own wireless cards rather than the Inventel adapter which is sold and supported by Orange (using Msft Windows of course). We followed instructions from Orange to do this after experiencing the sort of problems encountered by the contributors to that thread you linked to. There are 3 other settings: "WPA and WEP", "WEP only", and "none". I'm too weary to pursue this and not make a pig's ear of it tonight so I'll check back in in the morning, but please feel free to put this small fish to the back of the stove while you get on with the really important stuff :)
Leslie.

[pytheas22]

Ah, I made a dumb mistake. I should have had you prefix one of those commands with "sudo" but forgot, which is why (at least, one of the whys) you weren't able to connect. Sorry it took me a whole day to get back to you and point this out, but when you get a chance, please run these commands and let me know the output:

sudo wpa_supplicant -dd -D wext -i wlan0 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
sudo dhclient wlan0

That should at least not give you so many "permission denied" errors. And maybe it will even get you online.