ndiswrapper no longer working on mandrake after change of router

djzanni · 08-19-2005, 11:59 PM

I'm a linux wireless noob and I've spent countless hours trying to connect to a wireless router using ndiswrapper. But I can't quite figure it out, so I hope y'all can show me the way. It used to work on a previous router, but I've moved now and am using a neighbor's router with a new essid... and now it no longer works (on my linux side... my windows 2k side works).

When I install ndiswrapper-0.9-1mdk.i586.rpm everything seems to work fine. I modprobe ndiswrapper and everything seems to work, I do lsmod and ndiswrapper is listed.

I do ndiswrapper -l and I get

Code:

Installed ndis drivers:
mrv8k51 hardware present

I do ndiswrapper -m and I get:

Code:

modprobe config already contains alias directive

At this point, the ifconfig wlan0 command gives me:

Code:

wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:0F:3D:4B:7F:93
          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)
          Interrupt:5 Memory:e4010000-e401ffff

Thus, up to here everything seems fine (right?)

Then I go to the mandrake control center to add a “new connection”. I choose “wireless connection”, and I get an option to choose “wlan0” which I do indeed choose. The next screen asks whether I want “Automatic IP (BOOTP/DHCP)” or to do it manually. I know the router is set up for DHCP so I choose the automatic IP. On the next screen I select all available options and use the ESSID for the DHCP host name:

Code:

X Assign host name from DHCP address
DHCP host name: WLAN
X Track network card ID
X Network hotplugging
X Start at boot

The next screen gives asks me for some of the router settings. I leave the key field blank since the router's encryption is turned off:

Code:

Operating mode: Managed
Network name (ESSID): WLAN
Encryption Key:

[Should I be doing something other than “Managed” ?]

I leave the next screen blank:

Code:

RTS/CTS:
Fragmentation:

And I choose “steves_place” on the next screen for the host name:

Code:

Host name (optional): steves_place

I also leave the next screen blank:

Code:

Zeroconf host name:

It then asks me if I want to restart the network. I say yes. At this point there seems to be two reactions:

1) Sometimes (rarely) it says that the network restarted and that I should reboot. When I do reboot, of course, it hangs on the “bringing up wlan0 interface” and I have to reboot again and go into interactive startup and suppress the wlan0 (otherwise I can't boot up).

2) The usual response is that the machine freezes. Nevertheless when I do reboot it hangs on the wlan0 interface as described above.

Assuming the machine hasn't frozen. At this point if I go to the “manage connections” part of the control center and I click on the “wireless” tab, I see only two fields are filled:

Code:

Operating made: Managed
Network name (ESSID): WLAN
Network ID:
Operating Frequency:
Sensitivity Threshold:
Bitrate (in b/s):
Encryption key:
RTS/CTS:
Fragmentation:
Iwconfig command extra arguments:
Iwspy command extra arguments:
Iwpriv command extra arguments:

I know the ESSID is WLAN because that's what appears when I look at it from my windows side. In fact, here is the pertinent information that the router (a Belkin cable/dsl gateway router) displays:

LAN Settings
LAN/WLAN MAC: 00-30-BD-C4-7E-DE
IP Address: 192.168.2.1
Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
DHCP server: Enabled

Internet Settings
WAN MAC address: 00-30-BD-C4-7E-DF
Connection type: DYNAMIC
Subnet Mask: 255.255.248.0
Wan IP: 68.100.131.6
Default gateway: 68.100.128.1
DNS Address: 68.100.16.30

Features
NAT: Enabled
Firewall Settings: Enabled
SSID: WLAN
Encryption: Disable

Also – in case it helps – after I have set things up this way, my ifcfg-wlan0 file reads:

Code:

DEVICE=wlan0
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
ONBOOT=yes
HWADDR=00:0f:3d:4b:7f:93
METRIC=10
MII_NOT_SUPPORTED=no
WIRELESS_MODE=Managed
WIRELESS_ESSID=WLAN
DHCP_HOSTNAME=WLAN
NEEDHOSTNAME=yes

If it matters, I have the kernel source installed, and there is a link to it from /lib/modules/2.6.8.1-12mdk/build.

My kernel version is 2.6.8.1-12mdk.

I have a dual boot with windows 2K and the wireless connection works fine there.

It used this same ndiswrapper setup with a different router and it worked fine, but I've moved and am now using a neighbor's router.

One very last thing. I ran across a mention in linuxquestions.org about the driver that I'm using. It says that this particular driver “may need iwpriv wlan0 ndis_reset when changing essid.” I am changing my essid from what is was before I moved, so maybe this is the problem? I don't know how to use iwpriv, however.

Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks.

~daveZ

djzanni · 08-22-2005, 10:11 AM

I see that since there are no replies so I'm guessing I've stumped y'all ;) So after some more fiddeling I've got a little more info.

When I modprobe ndiswrapper and then dmesg, I get:

Code:

ndiswrapper version 0.8 loaded
ndiswrapper adding mrv8k51.sys
wlan%d: setting essid failed (C0010015)
ndiswrapper: Unable to set empty essid
ndiswrapper: Unable to set packet filter (C00000BB)
wlan0: ndiswrapper ethernet device 00:0f:3d:4b:7f:93 using driver mrv8k51.sys

Something here that might be wrong is that the dmesg says that I've got ndiswrapper version 0.8 loaded, but the rpm I installed was ndiswrapper-0.9-1mdk.i586.rpm. Something going on here? [Interestingly, when I uninstall ndiswrapper-0.9-1mdk.i586.rpm and install a more recent rpm -- ndiswrapper-1.0-1.mdk10.1.thac.i586.rpm -- and then dmesg, I *STILL* get "ndiswrapper version 0.8 loaded". Maybe this is the problem?]

Then when I iwconfig, I get:

Code:

lo        no wireless extensions.

eth1      no wireless extensions.

sit0      no wireless extensions.

wlan0     IEEE 802.11b  ESSID:""
          Mode:Managed  Channel:0  Access Point: FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF
          Bit Rate:54Mb/s   Sensitivity=-200 dBm
          RTS thr:2346 B   Fragment thr:2346 B
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality:100/100  Signal level:-76 dBm  Noise level:-256 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:1   Missed beacon:0

now I make an ifcfg-wlan0 file in /etc/sysconfig/networking/ . In the file is:

Code:

DEVICE=wlan0
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
onBOOT=no
MODE=Managed
ESSID=WLAN

and I make a link to it called ifcfg-wlan0 in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/

Then when I try ifup wlan0, the light on my d-link dwl g510 starts flashing away, but the computer nevertheless freezes up. I can't type anything else in the console and I have to force a reboot. Is my ifcfg-wlan0 file written wrong?

Interestingly, if instead I change the ESSID in the ifcfg-wlan0 file from WLAN to "any", and then try ifup wlan0, I get:

Code:

Error for wireless request "Set ESSID" (8B1A) :
    SET failed on device wlan0 ; Invalid argument.

Determining IP information for wlan0... failed.

The LED on my wireless card does *not* flash while this is happening.

Thanks for your help.

~daveZ

djzanni · 08-22-2005, 02:45 PM

OK. I've gotten it working. In case this is any help to anyone in the future I will describe how I did it.

I was frustrated and though I prefer doing things through rpms I decided to compile ndiswrapper instead. First I uninstalled (urpme in mandrake) ndiswrapper, then I followed the instructions for uninstalling on the ndiswrapper website, getting rid of all the remnants of previous versions.

Then I basically just followed the instructions for installing from source. This included building the headers for the kernel source. To do this I cd'd into /usr/src/linux-<version> and just did "make menuconfig" and then saved the configuration without changing anything. Then I did "make dep" and "make clean".

I compiled and installed the rest exactly how is says in the instructions.

make distclean
make
make install

I then checked to make sure that my driver was still there "ndiswrapper -l". I was and it said hardware was present. Then ran "modprobe ndiswrapper" to insert the module. This, however, gave me an error. I checked dmesg and it said to check the system log. When I checked the system log (/var/log/syslog in mandrake), it said that it had tried all the drivers I had but none worked. This got me to thinking that I did, after all, have the wrong driver, even though this exact same driver worked with my other router. So I downloaded a new driver from the d-link website and installed it into ndiswrapper ("ndiswrapper -i mydriver.inf") and then I modprobed again. This time it worked!! I then made sure that I had a proper ifcfg-wlan0 file in /etc/sysconfig/networking/ and that I had a link to it in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts.

I then ran ifup wlan0. It didn't work, but I then changed the essid in the ifcfg-wlan0 file to "WLAN" from "any". I guess my wireless card doesn't pick up just any signal. The WLAN essid worked. Yihaa!!!

~daveZ