Problems with Minitar Wireless card!

Baiul · 08-09-2003, 11:45 PM

Hi all,

I have been trying to install this wireless card on an old machine and followed another thread similar to this where we had to change the i686 to i586 in the source files. Well I did this and indeed it installed the card and it is now seen and seems to be partially working.

Problem now is that it will not get a dhcp address and it also will not run IP when hard configured with an address. I can ping it internally but from outside it won't work. I have tried everything I can think of (my linux knowledge isn't the best) and have been at it for a long time now so it's possible that I have overlooked something obvious (forgive me if that is the case). I'm using Redhat 9 (2.4.20-8) and any help or ideas I can try would be welcomed greatfully!

Thanks for the help and congrats on a great forum!

Baiul.

Details are as follows:

[root@localhost root]# /sbin/lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corp. 430FX - 82437FX TSC [Triton I] (rev 01)
00:07.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corp. 82371FB PIIX ISA [Triton I] (rev 02)
00:07.1 IDE interface: Intel Corp. 82371FB PIIX IDE [Triton I] (rev 02)
00:09.0 VGA compatible controller: 3Dfx Interactive, Inc. Voodoo 3 (rev 01)
00:0a.0 Network controller: Unknown device 1814:0101
00:0b.0 Ethernet controller: Lite-On Communications Inc LNE100TX [Linksys EtherFast 10/100] (rev 25)
[root@localhost root]# uname -r
2.4.20-8
[root@localhost root]# more /var/log/messages
Aug 10 13:53:11 localhost syslogd 1.4.1: restart.

[root@localhost root]# ifconfig ra0

ra0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:08:A1:52:AE:2D
inet addr:192.168.1.77 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:66146 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:37 errors:21 dropped:21 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
RX bytes:4016207 (3.8 Mb) TX bytes:3281 (3.2 Kb)
Interrupt:11 Base address:0x2000

[root@localhost root]# lnsmod
-bash: lnsmod: command not found
[root@localhost root]# lsmod
Module Size Used by Not tainted
mousedev 5204 1 (autoclean)
input 5632 0 (autoclean) [mousedev]
parport_pc 17508 1 (autoclean)
lp 8580 0 (autoclean)
parport 33952 1 (autoclean) [parport_pc lp]
autofs 12148 0 (autoclean) (unused)
rt2400 63024 1
tulip 42464 1
ipt_REJECT 3672 6 (autoclean)
iptable_filter 2316 1 (autoclean)
ip_tables 14488 2 [ipt_REJECT iptable_filter]
sg 34572 0 (autoclean)
sr_mod 16824 0 (autoclean)
ide-scsi 11120 0
scsi_mod 102616 3 [sg sr_mod ide-scsi]
ide-cd 33436 0
cdrom 31040 0 [sr_mod ide-cd]
ext3 64704 2
jbd 47828 2 [ext3]

[root@localhost root]# lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corp. 430FX - 82437FX TSC [Triton I] (rev 01)
00:07.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corp. 82371FB PIIX ISA [Triton I] (rev 02)
00:07.1 IDE interface: Intel Corp. 82371FB PIIX IDE [Triton I] (rev 02)
00:09.0 VGA compatible controller: 3Dfx Interactive, Inc. Voodoo 3 (rev 01)
00:0a.0 Network controller: Unknown device 1814:0101
00:0b.0 Ethernet controller: Lite-On Communications Inc LNE100TX [Linksys EtherFast 10/100] (rev 25)

Baiul · 08-10-2003, 08:32 AM

Further info:

[root@localhost root]# iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

ra0 RT2400PCI ESSID:"wlan-ap"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.412GHz Access Point: 00:04:ED:05:07:F2
Bit Rate=11Mb/s
RTS thr=2347 B Fragment thr=2346 B
Link Quality:86 Signal level:64 Noise level:0
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:7 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

I'm pretty sure I can see the thing on an L2 level but not on L3. Now when I try to add a Default gateway I get this

[root@localhost root]# route add default gw 192.168.1.254 dev ra0
SIOCADDRT: Network is unreachable

Also now I get!

[root@localhost root]# depmod -a
depmod: *** Unresolved symbols in /lib/modules/2.4.20-8/kernel/drivers/net/rt2400.o

Once again any help would be appreciated, this is driving me nuts.

Thanks,
Baiul.

Baiul · 08-14-2003, 11:58 PM

Just to add to this my wireless card is now working! After reinstalling the hardware with the newer driver I manually added the following to the /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-ra0
file.

[root@localhost root]# more /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-ra0
DEVICE=ra0
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
ONBOOT=yes
ESSID=wlan-ap
CHANNEL=1
# KEY=ceda0370c30bf66de2ce2a1ff5

(Note that key is random)

Now it works fine! Hopefully this will help someone out in the future.

Baiul.

MikeS · 08-18-2003, 08:53 PM

Forgive me .... Linux slow learner ahead :-)
I have this Minitar PCI card also.
I have compiled the module, run make ....etc
and all seems fine.
insmod works OK .... now

my problem appears to be memory allocation (according to an expert helper) because when I issue a 'ifup ra0' it returns this...

[root@gw root]# ifup ra0
SIOCSIFFLAGS: Cannot allocate memory
Failed to bring up ra0.

So doing a 'lspci -v' reveals this for the card and my realtek wiired NIC.

00:11.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139
C+ (rev 10)
Subsystem: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RT8139
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 10
I/O ports at 6000 [size=256]
Memory at f0002000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256]
Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled] [size=64K]
Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2

00:12.0 Network controller: Unknown device 1814:0101
Subsystem: CNet Technology Inc: Unknown device 0010
Flags: bus master, slow devsel, latency 32, IRQ 11
Memory at f0000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8K]
Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 0

It is suggested to me they are trying to share the same piece of memory (or at least overlapping)

As I said I'm raw at linux so any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

Baiul · 08-21-2003, 06:34 PM

Hey Mike,

I'm not exactly godly with Linux either but I'll try and help. can you give me the results of the following:

more /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-ra0
iwconfig
ifconfig
lnsmod

It looks to me like they are not sharing the same peice of memory though. What are the specs on your machine?

Baiul.

MikeS · 08-21-2003, 07:19 PM

Baiul,
I've got Netgear MA311 working in that box now (had to get something working quickly). But I'd still like to get the Minitar card working so I'll work through it again in another box and let you know how I go. But it might be a couple of days or so.

Watch this space

MikeS

gaff · 08-24-2003, 02:36 PM

Hi all,

I recently bought a WL-PCI (11 Mps Wireless LAN PCI Card) that is using RT2460 chipset.

This thread, as some others on this site have been *very* helpful.

The card is now working as expected. Machine is an (very) old Cytrix 6x86 P150+ running Debian with kernel 2.4.20-3.

Here the main steps of this exploit:
- apt-get install kernel-headers-2.4.30-3-386
- unzip V1.00.0722.2003.zip found on http://www.minitar.com
- fix Configure to set LINUX_SRC to /usr/src/kernel-headers-$CUR_RELEASE
- fix -march=i686 to -march=i386
- make config && make
- insmod rt2400.o
- ifconfig ra0 [IP]

Then you need X to run the setup tool. iwconfig does not work. If anybody hear about a command line, it would be great to share the info.

I ran RaConfig.1 that is found into rt2400_linux-20030513.tgz (same website).

Set your mode, channel and all other parameters and enjoy wireless surfing!

Baiul · 08-26-2003, 02:49 AM

Hi guys,

I didn't use Raconfig, I just manually input the details into the file as mentioned above and it seemed to work. This as far as I know is the only way to do it via command line but I'll be watching incase someone finds another way. Nice work Graf! buying this card was a learning experience for me hehe. Now I am trying to build a cantenna for it since the range is not very spectacular. ;0

Just post if you need any more help Mike and we can see if we can help you. There is now precedent for success! :-D

Baiul.

gaff · 08-26-2003, 03:38 AM

This is interesting.

Actually, I did not use the above files since I do not run RedHat and that those files do not exist in Debian (well, as I am aware of, correct me if I am wrong).

Anyway, it would be interesting to know what RedHat does with those files? Do you have any idea of the script which is using this information?

I thought it would call iwconfig ...? But there is probably another tool to set essid/channel ?

Thanks,

td_miles · 09-23-2003, 12:09 AM

Hi

As far as I can tell the Minitar card pretty much ignores most of that stuff, and doesn't use iwconfig. It DOES get the ip addressing info from /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-ra0 but I doubt it gets the SSID, channel, WEP key, etc from that file (it seems to ignore what I put in there and still works if I don't put anything).

I have been reading through the source code supplied with the minitar (ra2400) driver and it appears that you do need to use the XWindows utility to setup the card. When you install the driver, it has hard coded into it a path that it looks for the config files.

The default for this is:
/etc/Ralink/RT2400/

Within this directory there are 3 files:

1. RT2400.cfg - This file tells the driver which "profile" to use, as well as SSID
2. RT2400.dat - I'm not too sure what this file does. It appears to contain info about the "profile" currently being used, but I can't be too sure.
3. RT2400.pro - This file contains the configuration of any "profiles" that you define. It has multiple profiles that are all on a single line and have no formatting between them, so it is not hand editable.

The "profiles" are defined in the GUI tool. If you didn't have access to the tool then if might be possible to get someone else to create a profile for you with the tool and then simply copy the RT2400.pro file across.

I have been unable to get DHCP working with the card and have also been unable to make WEP work with it. This is even using the RaConfig GUI tool to create a profile that specified this.

If you don't want anything fancy, then I have tried just having a single line in /etc/Ralink/RT2400/RT2400.cfg to specify the SSID and it works. I have removed the other two files (well renamed) that are in the directory. At the moment my files look like this:

===== /etc/Ralink/RT2400/RT2400.cfg =====
[ra0]
SSID=default
========================================

and

===== /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-ra0 =====
DEVICE=ra0
BOOTPROTO=static
IPADDR=192.168.144.30
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
GATEWAY=192.168.144.10
ONBOOT=yes
========================================

This is working fine for me at the moment.

I'm hoping to get time to dig through the source code provided and maybe hack together a utility that will enable you to configure the card from a text prompt by writing the appropriately formatted config file. But don't hold your breath !

Oh and my setup is:
RH 7.3
Minitar PCI wireless NIC
ne2000 ISA ethernet NIC
old Pentium 166 machine with 64MB RAM.

regards,
Tony.

MikeS · 09-23-2003, 05:33 AM

td_miles
That makes some sense to me but perhaps you could post the content of the RT2400.pro file.
It seems that this file holds the config details and the RT2400.cfg file merely point to which 'profile' to use. Do I see this right ???
Anyone ??
MikeS

td_miles · 09-23-2003, 05:57 PM

MikeS,

As requested. I started the XWindow config program and created two profiles. The results of doing this for the three files are below. To grab the contents of the files, I opened them in "vi" and did a cut/paste. I did this so you could see all the padding that is non printable characters, as if I just "cat" the file I only get about 20 chars printed.

--- RT2400.cfg ---
[ra0]
SSID=minitest
ProfileID=PROF1
--------

--- RT2400.dat ---
PROF1^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@minitest^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^ @^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^H^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^A^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^E^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^ @^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^ @^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^ @^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^H ^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@ÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿ^H ^@^@^@^@^@^@
--------

--- RT2400.cfg ---
PROF1^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@minitest^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^ @^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^H^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^A^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^ @^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^ @^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^ @^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^H ^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^H ^@^@pÏO^HPROF2^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@qtech^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^ @^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^E^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^A^@^@^@^A^@^@^@^A^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^A^@^@^@^@^@^@^@1 234567890abcdef1234567890^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^ @^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^ @^@^@^H ^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^H ^@^@^@^@^@^@
--------

I created to profiles.

PROF1 - SSID = minitest no WEP
PROF2 - SSID = qtech, 128-bit WEP

I had reached the same conclusion, it stores the profiles in the .pro file and the .cfg file points to the profile to use.

Hope this helps you.

regards,
Tony.

MikeS · 09-23-2003, 07:56 PM

Ahhhh sh*t.

Thanks for that, I thought that it would give me an indication of how to set the parameters in these files manually.... but allas

Back to the drawing board or install X on the machine.

MikeS

Baiul · 09-24-2003, 08:47 PM

Quote:

I have been reading through the source code supplied with the minitar (ra2400) driver and it appears that you do need to use the XWindows utility to setup the card.

I have to dispute this since I did not use the Xwindows tool to set mine up and I had it working fine. Now if you're going to ask me how that works internally in Linux, I have No idea hehe.

That config tool you were planning on creating sounds like a great idea td_miles.

Sadly thoughmy card isn't even working anymore, it is getting 0% signal strength sitting right next to the router (my PCMCIA one get's 98%). I thik maybe I screwed something up when I tried to make a cantenna

I really haven't tried too hard to fix it yet though since I have been so busy. I'll try and tak ea look at it so I can be more usefull to this discussion :-D

Baiul.

leonbrooks · 11-18-2003, 05:35 PM

Quote:

I did this so you could see all the padding that is non printable characters, as if I just "cat" the file I only get about 20 chars printed.

From rtmp.h:

Code:

typedef struct _RTMP_PROFILE_SETTING {
        UCHAR           Profile[32+1];
        UCHAR           SSID[32+1];
        UINT            SsidLen;
        UINT            Channel;
        UINT            Authentication;
        UINT            Encryption;
        UINT            NetworkType;
        UINT            KeyIndex;
        UINT            KeyLength;
        UINT            KeyType;
        UCHAR           Key1[26+1];
        UCHAR           Key2[26+1];
        UCHAR           Key3[26+1];
        UCHAR           Key4[26+1];
        UINT            TransRate;
        UINT            TransPower;
        UINT            RTS;
        UINT            RTSCheck;
        UINT            FragmentCheck;
        UINT            PSmode;
        UINT            PreamType;
        UINT            AntennaRx;
        UINT            AntennaTx;
        UINT            Fragment;
        UCHAR           CountryRegion;
        struct  _RT_PROFILE_SETTING             *Next;
}

These probably correspond quite directly to the items on the Raconfig screen.