I was trying to access my roommates wireless router after he added a WEP key. After toying around for awhile, all of my network interfaces (expect loopback) disapeared from my network applet. How do I go about getting this back?

I would also like to know how I can see what hardware my machine has, like the device manager in windows. Thx.

Ok, I can see my network interfaces again. Just used the "neat" command. I can connect to with wireless when WEP is disabled, by with WEP enabled. Any suggestions? Thx.

what distribution are you using ?

are you giving it his wep key ? i.e. iwconfig eth1 essid whatever key hexkeyvalue ?

Sorry I didn't mention my distro before. I'm using fedora core 4. I'm gussing that your refering to a configuration file. Where can I find it?

OK, I now understand that iwconfig is a command. I played around with it and entered the key. When I type "iwconfig" I get a massage that says: Warning: Driver for device eth1 has been complied with version 18 of Wireless Extension, while this program supports up to version 17. Some things may be broken... I also notice: Rx invalid crypt: 181. Any ideas?

ok as far as the iwconfig message, it appears the driver for your wireless card was compiled against version 18 of wireless extensions (WE), but the wireless tools (WT) version is older. iwconfig is part of the wireless tools package. see this link:

http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_...nux/Tools.html

You could try updating your wireless tools version, but I don't know that it's necessary.

It's appearant that you aren't using iwconfig manually to connnect your card, so what are you using ? kwifimanager ?

also what card and driver are you using ?

I was using neat to configure my interfaces. I'm using an Intersil Corporation Prism 2.5 Wavelan chipset. I don't know what driver version I have. How can I find out?

Well I don't have any experience with neat or your wireless card. looks like there are several different drivers to support it. maybe someone else can help out.

if you want to try the command line without neat, you could try something like this:

iwconfig

That will show you your adaptors, like eth0, eth1, wlan0, lo. so if wlan0 is your adaptor, then you can list the available networks.

iwlist wlan0 scan

that should tell you the essid of your roomate's network. then connect to it

iwconfig wlan0 essid his_essid key wep_key_in_hex

or if you don't have the hex, this should work:

iwconfig wlan0 essid his_essid key s:his_wep_key

then if you need to get an ip from his ap, use something like:

dhcpcd -d wlan0

I try to scan and I get a message saying that eth1 is down. I tried ifup and it still doesn't work.

I also run FC4, and by default, the kernel is compiled without WEP support. AFAIK, you will need to recompile the kernel with WEP.

Charles

Sweet! I get to learn something new. Thx 4 everyone's help.

I would suggest downloading a kernel to work with if this is going to be the first time you try it. I had to learn the hard way not to make the first attempt at a recompile from the one you are working with. There's lots of good how-to's on the internet. Good Luck.

Thx for the tip.