OpenSUSE Networking Troubles
 

I realise that the OpenSUSE wiki says that the Linksys WUSB54G Wireless card works out-of-the-box with YaST2, but other sources tell me that you need the rtx100 drivers. I am trying to get my WUSB54G card to work, but the only time that I ever got it to work was under Ubuntu with ndiswrapper. Will it work without ndiswrapper under OpenSUSE? I already know my configuration information (DNS, Routing, etc.), so that's not a problem.

What information about my network do I need to find before I reboot into OpenSUSE? I already have the IP, Mask, Gateway, DHCP address, and DNS Name servers.

I believe that you need to install the ndiswrapper packages. If you use DHCP, it will assign you an IP ,Mask ,Gateway, etc.
You will also want to install the wireless-tools package and the wpa_supplicant package. If your card is detected, they may be called for.

I will install ndiswrapper, wireless-tools, and wpa_supplicant. But what exactly am I supposed to do, from start to finish, to get the network card configured? I know how to use ndiswrapper, but do I need to configure the DHCP server?

I misunderstood what you meant. I thought that you were going to use a dhcp client, such as from a linksys router or cable modem.

You can set up your interfaces in YaST. If you have a cable modem, or router with a dhcp server, you can opt to use that to set most of the items automatically. Otherwise, you can instead set them manually from in YaST, in the section where you setup the interface.

Before you do that, however, you need to make sure the ndiswrapper is installed, and the driver is loaded. Then check if the module is loaded with "lsmod" as root. There are instructions on using ndiswrapper in this websites wiki. http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/NDIS_Wrapper
Also read the ndiswrapper README file. There is an option to update the modprobe aliases for example. I'm not sure if the wiki mentions it. For SuSE 10, the version of ndiswrapper may work. For an older distro, you may need to download the source.

Go into YaST, and select Network Devices -> Network Card.
See if your card is detected. It might be. However, I'm not sure because it is a USB device. If it isn't, you will need to click the "Add" button. I believe that you will need to select "Wireless" from the drop-down selector, and check the "USB" box on the bottom of the screen.

If you are going to use a dhcp client, then most of the information on the page will be ghosted, because DHCP will supply it when you boot up. Check on the Routing button however. It can't hurt to supply the gateway address anyway. In the Host Name button, you can enter your hostname.

Under the advanced section is where you will enter things for the wireless interface.
Advanced -> Hardware details: enter "ndiswrapper" under Module Name if it isn't already there. For a usb device, your Hardware Configuration name will probably be different then mine, because I have a built in adapter. The name may seem wierd, but it is used in the scripts, and you don't need to remember it. The Configuration Name at the top will probably say wlan0. This is the name of the interface you would use. For example, to reset the interface, "sudo /sbin/rcnetwork restart wlan0".

Under advanced -> DHCP Client Options, I have the "Request Broadcast Response" box checked.

Under Advanced -> Detailed Network Card Settings:
I think for a USB device, selecting On Hotplug for the device activation may be a good idea. For wireless, you may want to select "Externel Zone" for Firewall zone, and restrict the services in the firewall setup.

Now if you click on "Next" in the bottom right hand corner, you will get to part where you set up the encryption.
For at home, you will probably want to use the "Managed" operating mode. Enter a name for your wireless network in "Network Name (ESSID)". Under Authentication mode, are several options. The particulars may depend on what your card supports. I would recommend using "WPA-PSK".

This is a oneliner that I use to generate a random 64 digit Hexadecimal key:
The same key will be needed in all of your wireless devices if you use WPA_PSK. (PSK=Pre-Shared Key)
If YaST doesn't like it, maybe a case issue for the letters a-d, then you could try editing /etc/sysconfig/network/ifcfg-<interface> (<interface> might be wlan0, or different in your case) manually.
Enter the key in the line:
WIRELESS_WPA_PSK='<insert key here>'

The first time I did this, I had to enter it manually, and the encryption kicked in as soon as I reset the network for wlan0. If you have a linksys router, you can configure it in your browser. By default at 192.168.1.1, with a default password of "admin". This would allow you to also select wpa-psk here, and paste in the same Hexadecimal key.

I'm using open WEP encryption, so I already have a key. I entered it all in upper-case; is that correct?

I did the following steps in order to install the wlan0 interface under ndiswrapper:
However, the wlan0 interface is not shown when I use iwconfig.

Here's the rundown of what I tried:
The problem lies between modprobe ndiswrapper and iwconfig wlan0. For some reason, ndiswrapper is not working, although I'm using drivers that worked on Ubuntu.

Please help - this problem is extremely annoying!

Now that you have posted your WEP key, be sure to replace it. Why are you using WEP? Unless you have a device that doesn't support it, you should use WPA instead. WEP is broken, and there are tools that can crack wep in 30 minutes.

In your ndiswrapper setup you forgot to run "ndiswrapper -m" to save the module alias. You could also run as root "depmod -a" and "ldconfig". Sometimes and installation doesn't go through all of the way for some reason and these aren't run.

Make sure that ndiswrapper shows up in "lsmod". If the ndiswrapper kernel module doesn't load, then iwconfig won't work.

This part from your post looks odd: ndiswrapper version 1.2 loaded (preempt=no,smp=yes)
Do you have a multi-processors? Other errors were indicated as well. Where did you get this ndiswrapper from?

I build mine from source. I cheated a bit. The tarball contains a .spec file. So I copied the ndiswrapper tarball to /usr/src/packages/SOURCES/ and extracted the ndiswrapper.spec file to /usr/src/packages/SPECS/. Then I used "rpmbuild" to make an RPM packages (actually two of them) and used the rpm command to install them.

Also double check that your windows driver is the correct one. For example, a 64 bit version is distinct from the 32 bit version.

I got the ndiswrapper off the SUSE repositories. I probably should compile my own.

I am also disturbed by the strangeness of the errors. That's why I'm asking for help. I have a single processor.

Also, that's not my real WEP key.

Thanks for the assitance!

From you previous post, you didn't run "ndiswrapper -m". Also, from the error messages, please double check that the windows ndis driver is the correct one.

I ran ndiswrapper -m, but I forgot to copy that and put it in the post above.

The exact same driver worked under Ubuntu 5.04, so it should work under SUSE 10.0 OSS, unless I am horribly mistaken.