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Old 08-13-2002, 08:28 AM   #1
orgcandman
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Unhappy Wireless Blues....


<conceited-statement>
This is one of those rare occasions where I can't do something
myself.
</conceited-statement>

I've recently purchased a Netgear MA401. Why I didn't simply look online to discover the fact that this particular card is raw un-adulturated crap, I'll never know. However, it DOES use the PrismII chipset, which is the reason that I purchased this POS. I installed pcmcia, wlan-ng, and kismet. I've been trying to get the prism2 drivers to work with kismet, however, I've had no such luck. Apparently, the prism2 drivers work, but kismet_server throws this exception:
"FATAL: Prism2 open socket() failed. (Address family not supported by protocol)"

It's a Netgear MA401RA....does this mean I'm forced to use the orinoco cards? if so, how do I apply Snax's patch?

I'm running kernel 2.2.21, pcmcia 3.1.34, and wlan-ng 0.1.14

Thanks,
Aaron
 
Old 08-13-2002, 10:52 AM   #2
orgcandman
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heh...solved this one...

Apparently, a Netgear MA401 and a Netgear MA401RA are TOTALLY different. Netgear MA401 uses the prism2_cs driver from wlan-ng, whereas MA401RA uses the orinoco driver from the pcmcia package. I found Snax's patch, and it seems to add the monitor function to my card, which will now work with libpcap and the orinoco option under kismet

The solution: apply snax's patch and edit kismet.conf to reflect device=eth0, captype=pcap, and cardtype=orinoco

Aaron
 
Old 10-15-2002, 05:33 PM   #3
aminom
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I have the same card (MA401) except I'm an extreme Newbie and I don't know where to start. Would ANYONE know how to install drivers for my wireless card. I'm running RedHat 8.0

thanks
Moe
 
Old 10-16-2002, 08:02 PM   #4
finegan
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First thing is to figure out whether this is a vanilla MA401 or a 401RA, you can find this out with the command, as root:

/sbin/cardctl ident

Crap, just a sec, I'll edit in the rest.
 
Old 10-16-2002, 08:14 PM   #5
aminom
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ran:

/sbin/cardctl ident

and got:

socket 0
product infor: "Netgear MA401RA Wireless PC", "Card", "ISL37300P", "Eval-RevA"
manfid: 0x000b, 0x7300
function: 6 (network)
socket 1:
no product info available


I guess this means that its the MA401RA!!


Last edited by aminom; 10-16-2002 at 08:15 PM.
 
Old 10-16-2002, 09:36 PM   #6
finegan
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Okay, for when we get there, what's the type of wireless Router, are you using WEP, and do you get your IP from the router using dhcp (in windows land, that's setting the card to "obtain settings automagically"), or are you hand configuring the thing with static IPs?

I'm having a hell of a time actually getting to any sites here at work as they're monkeying about with the firewall and I can get to Tournhilles page, but not bloody shmoo.org to check any of the mailing lists!!!

First off, when the machine boots, with the wireless card in, does it give the two happy beeps, or the one happy beep and then a well... bonk?

The first beep is it seeing the pcmcia bus and loading its driver, the second sound is it seeing the card, if its the happy beep, it loaded the drivers, if its a hard toned bonk, it couldn't figure the card.

Yeah, I know, sounds juvenile, but its pretty smart in the long run.

Now, if you've got two happy beeps, or even if you don't, try and post the output of the last dozen or so lines outputed by the command:

dmesg

That'll give me more info on the card.

Cheers,

Finegan
 
Old 10-16-2002, 10:14 PM   #7
aminom
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I'm using a Netgear MR314 Wireless router, no WEP yet and it configured for DHCP. I did however lock access to the router to the MAC address of the wireless card that I have (MA401).

I only get one beep and on the boot up it "failed" to activate the Orinoco_cs driver on eth1 because the device does not seem to be present......delay initilizaiton.

It also fails to detect an IP address for the first (built in) ethernet device. I don't have this one plugged in.

Is there any way I can view that long startup log that the system goes through?

the last 12 lines of the command dmesg go something like this:

socket status: 30000010
yenta IRQ list 0a98, PCI irq10
socket status 300000006
cs: IO port probe 0x0c00-0x0cff: clean.
cs: IO port probe 0x0c00-0x04ff: excluding 0x170-0x177 0x370-0x37F 0x398-0x39F 0x4d0-0x4d7
cs: IO port probe 0x0c00-0x0aff: clean.
cs: IO port probe 0xa0000000-oxa0ffffff: clean.
maestro3: version 1.22 built at 13:45:29 Sept 4 2002
PCI: Found IRQ 5 for device 00:0d.0
maestro3: Configuration ESS Maestro3(i) found at I0 0x1800 IRQ 5
maestro3: subvendor id: 0x0010103c
ac97_codec: AC97 Audio codec, id: 0x8384:0x7609 (SigmaTel STAC9721/23)

hope I got it all right!!
Do you need specific lines from the output?


Moe
 
Old 10-17-2002, 02:18 PM   #8
orgcandman
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k, can you do a few things for me?

1) breathe real deeply, because things are about to suck....
2) log in as root and type "cardctl ident 0" and "cardctl ident 1", then post the output
3) type "lsmod" and paste in the output

we already have your pertinent dmesg output.

you may have some problems with the hermes driver :X

Aaron
 
Old 10-19-2002, 09:06 PM   #9
aminom
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Finally got it............sorry it took so long. There are the results I got from running

firts I ran, "cardctl ident 0":

product info: "NETGEAR MA401RA Wireless PC", "Card", "ISL37300P", "Eval-RevA"
manfid: 0x000b, 0x7300
function: 6 (network)

then, "cardctl ident 1":

no product info available

Finally, "lsmod":

Module Size Used by Not tainted
nls_iso8859-1 3516 1 (autoclean)
nls_cp437 5116 1 (autoclean)
vfat 13084 1 (autoclean)
fat 38712 0 (autoclean) [vfat]
maestro3 30832 1 (autoclean)
ac97_codec 13384 0 (autoclean) [maestro3]
soundcore 6532 2 (autoclean) [maestro3]
autofs 13348 0 (autoclean) (unused)
ds 8712 4
yenta_socket 12960 2
pcmcia_core 54784 0 [ds yenta_socket]
3c59x 30640 0
ipt_REJECT 3736 6 (autoclean)
iptable_filter 2412 1 (autoclean)
ip_tables 14936 2 [ipt_REJECT iptable_filter]
mousedev 5524 1


Tried to complile the prismII driver myself.......(mistake!!), still no luck.

Moe
 
Old 10-19-2002, 10:23 PM   #10
jhover
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I think I may have your solution. I'm using Redhat 8.0 and a Netgear MA401RA. In order to get it to work, I had to add the following to /etc/pcmcia/config (from the linux-wlan mailing list):

card "NETGEAR MA401RA Wireless PC"
manfid 0x000b, 0x7300
bind "orinoco_cs"

Once that was in, and the connection was created in Network Configuration as a "Lucent Orinoco and Prism-II based" card, all was well.

PS.
There were also errors in the /etc/pcmcia/config file:
Line 1053, delete the ":"
Line 2126 has an incomplete entry:

card "Xircom RBM56G Modem"
manfid 0x0105, 0x1000

I just commented it out.

I'm not sure if the errors were causing any real problems or not, I had fixed them before finding the main problem.

Good luck...
 
Old 10-20-2002, 07:40 AM   #11
neillans
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Unhappy

I have the same card (NetGear MA401RA) and have been trying to install it in Mandrake 9 for the last few days.

Thankfully, after finding this site through a google search I feel I am getting nearer!

I followed the instructions in the previous post to add the details to the config file, rebooted and the card was detected!

Unfortunatly, my network uses WEP, so the card doesn't establish a link - the light just flashes as it is search for a wireless access point
 
Old 10-20-2002, 07:54 AM   #12
finegan
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If you got the MA401 to work under the orinoco_cs module, then it should just be a matter of:

iwconfig ethX enc 1234567890

Then check to see if its associated itself with an AP with:

iwconfig ethX

If there is an AP MAC address other than 00:00:00:00:00:00 or 44:44:44:44:44:44 then it associated.

Cheers,

Finegan
 
Old 10-20-2002, 08:21 AM   #13
neillans
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Thumbs down

Well, I tried but no change.

iwconfig eth1 output (after reboot):

eth1 IEEE 802.11-DS ESSID:"" Nickname:"Prism I"
Mode:Managed Frequency:42.9497GHz
Access Point: 00:00:00:00:00:00
Bit Rate:11Mb/s Tx-Power=15 dBm Sensitivity:1/3
Retry min limit:8 RTS thrff Fragment thrff
Encryption keyff
Power Managementff
Link Quality:0/92 Signal level:-68 dBm Noise level:-122 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

Also noticed this in /var/log/messages

kernel: eth1: channel out of range (0)!

Where do I set the channel??

Also, my encryption key 1 that is entered in windows is for the 64bit mode, is 1011121314 - i tried iwconfig eth1 enc 1011121314 and the encryption mode appeared as open and the key appear next to encryption key - hyphenated every 4 digits.
 
Old 10-20-2002, 08:44 AM   #14
finegan
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Quote:
Originally posted by neillans


kernel: eth1: channel out of range (0)!

Where do I set the channel??

Also, my encryption key 1 that is entered in windows is for the 64bit mode, is 1011121314 - i tried iwconfig eth1 enc 1011121314 and the encryption mode appeared as open and the key appear next to encryption key - hyphenated every 4 digits.
That's fine, it should be how the key looks. It just occured to me, I don't think you've actually brought this device up yet.

ifconfig eth1 up

then assign it an essid (usually called the network name in wireless land).

iwconfig eth1 essid whatever

then add the encryption.

I'm thinking you don't have a channel setting because the device is down right now. Regardless, if this is an infrastructure network, as most are, you don't need to set a channel, it'll scan through the 11 available.

Cheers,

Finegan
 
Old 10-20-2002, 09:07 AM   #15
neillans
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Ok - my wireless appears to be sycned with the AP now!
Appalling signal strength but thats simply because there is loadsa wireless noise in the room

Only problem now is.... its not getting an IP address from DHCP when it comes up.. Ideas?

(Thanks all for your help so far - much appreciated!!!)
 
  


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