Trouble installing Gentoo through WPA network.

Jonathanius · 08-15-2008, 07:44 AM

This was originally posted on Linux Forums under Gentoo Installation using minimal CD through WPA network it sat there for 2 weeks but my problem persists.

Quote:

A Linux newbie's attempt to install Gentoo on and outdated machine (don't try this at home):
Is it even possible to install the Gentoo 2008.0 with the minimal CD through a WPA(-PSK) connection? The Gentoo Handbook(x86) doesn't even mention WPA until the fourth section of Chapter 4(Wireless Networking), still, I can't imagine that Gentoo doesn't have the capabilities to connect to WPA until installed fully installed. Anyway I'm trying to install Gentoo on an old Toshiba Satellite laptop with:
Processor:Celeron 430.4 MHZ
RAM: 64mb
HDD: approx 6GB
Chipset: Intel 1440BX
It meets minimum requirements for the Minimal CD install but not for the LiveCD (with it nice new point-and-click GUI installer). I'm trying to connect to the net via the Linksys WUSB54G v4 network adapter (through a USB 1.0 port). Gentoo recognizes it immediately as wlan0, and after I run net-setup it will display(using iwconfig) the correct ESSID and access point, but, both "Link Quality" and "Signal Level" appear at zero and a ping returns "unknown host". Also the "Encryption key" displays 6 sequences of characters(a combination of letters and numbers) each 4 characters in length separated by dashes(-). Apparently it thinks the passphrase I enter is a WEP key even asking: "Are you entering you WEP key in HEX or ASCII?"
But if I try to configure my network manually as described in the Gentoo Handbook under "Using ifconfig And route" it returns: "bash: ${192.168.1.1} bad substitution" (192.168.1.1 is the default IP address for Linksys routers) On a side note: I have tested the Wireless Adapter with a different computer under WinXP and it worked fine.
Anyway I know that the standard tool for WPA networking in Linux is wpa_supplicant with happens to be on the minimal CD but won't anything except repeat itself again, unless you try to configure it with: -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf in which case it returns "failed to reed or parse configuration '/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf' so I'm kinda at a loss there, though that looks like my best bet. I tryed something called wpa_passphrase which has you input the ssid and passphrase and then displays:
ssid="[myfakenetworkname]"
#psk="[myfakepassword]"
psk= (a really really long string of letters and numbers)
Anyway after doing that, iwconfig shows the Encryption key in the same format as previously described but with 19 groups of characters instead of only 6 so apparently I'm making some progress but not more than that. Both Link Quality and Signal level still display 0 and a ping still returns "unknown host". The last the I've tried is wpa_cli but after displaying the version number (v0.5.7) and copyright and license info it says: "Could not connect to wpa_supplicant - re-trying" after which is displayed a blinking text input underscore thingy and it just sits there until I have to force the computer off. So is it possible to connect to a WPA network via minimal CD and if so how? Help would be much appreciated as this is my second Linux install (I put Debian on the same box about a week ago)

-Cheers,
Jonathanius

Pearlseattle · 08-15-2008, 12:15 PM

Well, I can tell you how I set up my WPA-connection, if this helps.

After loading the module of the network card I use the following script to connect to the access point:

Code:

wpa_supplicant -Bw -i wlan0 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf #Add "-d" at the end  to show debug informations
sleep 4

ifconfig wlan0 10.0.0.18 netmask 255.0.0.0
sleep 2
route add default gw 10.0.0.2

And the wpa_supplicant.conf looks like this:

Code:

ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant

# Ensure that only root can read the WPA configuration
ctrl_interface_group=0

# Let wpa_supplicant take care of scanning and AP selection
ap_scan=1

# Same as previous, but request SSID-specific scanning (for APs that reject broadcast SSID)
network={
  ssid="thessidofyouraccesspoint"
  scan_ssid=1
  psk="Your nice passphrase"
  priority=2
}

This is the only WPA-configuration that works with a passphrase for me.

Jonathanius · 08-19-2008, 10:35 AM

Thanks Pearlseattle for taking the time to reply, I tried what you told me, but unfortunately its still not working, I don't know if I'm even putting in the right thing, here is exactly what I input:
wpa_supplicant -Bw -i wlan0 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
sleep 4
ifconfig wlan0 10.0.0.18 netmask 255.0.0.0
sleep 2
route add default gw 10.0.0.2
ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant
ctrl_interface_group=0
ap_scan=1
network={
ssid="thessidofyouraccesspoint"
scan_ssid=1
psk="Your nice passphrase"
priority=2
}
After I input all of this the computer returns:
bash: syntax error near unexpected token '}'
In the third line I have tryed substituting my DNS for 1.0.0.8 and also my netmask for 255.0.0.0 but all this to no avail, pings always return:
ping: unknown host www.gentoo.org (or whatever other URL I tried to ping)
Also when I input:
iwconfig wlan0
it says the essid is "ARTSTUP1" which is not the name of our network, in fact I have absolutely no idea where it came from.
it also says that the Encryption key is off
So, am I doing the right thing? If so, do you have any other suggestions, if not, what should I change?
Thanks again for your help!
-Jonathanius

Pearlseattle · 08-20-2008, 10:53 AM

Hi
To me it looks like you're writing the whole stuff on the command line, or?
But what I mentioned is split into two parts: the first one is what you type on the command line, the second one is the configuration you set up in your "wpa_supplicant.conf"-file.
Am I wrong?

Jonathanius · 08-20-2008, 03:48 PM

Yes that is correct I have been typing it all into the command line. How would I get to where I can configure the wpa_supplicant.conf file? Could you please show me exactly what to type? I am completely new to this. Thanks.
-Jonthanius