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elvenson 09-25-2007 03:25 AM

fresh install Slackware 12 with BCM4318 problems
 
i have read a million posts on here and other places about how to set up the bcm4318 cards with ndiswrapper.... i have succeeded with that part... my card is up and it works, BUT after tooling around with wpa_supplicant for a week, i still cant get connected to anything... im not getting an IP, i dont know if its because my configs are screwed up or if its a dhcpcd problem (pretty sure its wpa though).

so i guess what im asking is this:

does anyone care to tell me the steps to take from a fresh slackware 12 installation to get the bcm4318 card up and connected to a WEP network? (going without wep/wpa support is not a possibility since i need it at school and in other networks i am on often, including my home)

all the info i can find so far is pieced together and assuming too many things, or it simply doesnt apply to me and my case... but a ground up install tutorial from a FRESH slackware 12 installation would benefit many i think... so, can anyone help out?

xowl 09-25-2007 08:40 AM

Hi.

I have a
Quote:

30:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM94311MCG wlan mini-PCI (rev 01)
working with
Quote:

Module Size Used by
ieee80211_crypt_tkip 14336 2
snd_seq_dummy 6788 0
snd_seq_oss 32896 0
snd_seq_midi_event 10112 1 snd_seq_oss
snd_seq 50640 5 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi_event
snd_seq_device 10508 3 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq
snd_pcm_oss 42784 0
snd_mixer_oss 18048 1 snd_pcm_oss
ipv6 254496 12
capability 7304 0
commoncap 9344 1 capability
lp 13736 0
parport_pc 27812 0
parport 34760 2 lp,parport_pc
pcspkr 6528 0
psmouse 39048 0
pcmcia 34988 0
tifm_7xx1 10496 0
tifm_core 10368 1 tifm_7xx1
serio_raw 9220 0
yenta_socket 27148 1
rsrc_nonstatic 14848 1 yenta_socket
sdhci 18828 0
tg3 107780 0
pcmcia_core 36500 3 pcmcia,yenta_socket,rsrc_nonstatic
mmc_core 25988 1 sdhci
bcm43xx 428064 0
k8temp 8320 0
hwmon 6404 1 k8temp
ieee80211softmac 30464 1 bcm43xx
ieee80211 34248 2 bcm43xx,ieee80211softmac
snd_hda_intel 20248 0
snd_hda_codec 209152 1 snd_hda_intel
snd_pcm 72068 3 snd_pcm_oss,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec
ieee80211_crypt 8576 2 ieee80211_crypt_tkip,ieee80211
snd_timer 22532 2 snd_seq,snd_pcm
snd 47204 9 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_seq_device,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_pcm,snd _timer
soundcore 9824 1 snd
snd_page_alloc 11528 2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm
i2c_piix4 11276 0
pata_atiixp 9600 0
ata_generic 9220 0
ati_agp 10892 0
agpgart 31432 1 ati_agp
sg 30364 0
shpchp 33172 0
evdev 11904 1

Connected to a network using WPA-PSK-TKIP.

The procedure I followed was:
- I installed the firmware of the wireless card, I used the bcm43xx-fwcutter.tar.bz2 util and the wl_apsta-3.130.20.0.o file. I installed the firmware extracted to /lib/firmware

- I configured the wpa_supplicant.conf, something like this.

Quote:

# See /usr/doc/wpa_supplicant-0.5.7/wpa_supplicant.conf.sample
# for many more options that you can use in this file.

# This line enables the use of wpa_cli which is used by rc.wireless
# if possible (to check for successful association)
ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant
# By default, only root (group 0) may use wpa_cli
ctrl_interface_group=0
eapol_version=1
ap_scan=1
fast_reauth=1

# WPA protected network, supply your own ESSID and WPAPSK here:
network={
scan_ssid=0
ssid="YOUR_SSID_HERE"
proto=WPA
key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
pairwise=CCMP TKIP
group=CCMP TKIP WEP104 WEP40
psk="YOUR_PRE_SHARED_KEY_HERE"
}

# Plaintext connection (no WPA, no IEEE 802.1X),
# nice for hotel/airport types of WiFi network.
# You'll need a recent version of wireless-tools for this!
network={
ssid="any"
key_mgmt=NONE
priority=2
}
Be sure to change the essid and the PSK.

I run wpa with
Quote:

wpa_supplicant -Dwext -i eth0 -dd -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
Notice that the interface is eth0 not eth1 for my configuration.

When it connects, I used
Quote:

dhcpcd eth0
And it works like a charm.

If you think that your problem is wpa, try using wpa_gui:
Start the wpa_supplicant first, then use wpa_gui and look for the network you need. Put your password and hit connect.

Luck.

LinX

Hangdog42 09-25-2007 12:02 PM

The 4318 chipset has difficulties under the bcm43xx driver, so ndiswrapper may be a better choice. However, if you haven't blacklisted bcm43xx (it is part of some of the stock Slackware kernels) then you may be seeing conflicts between ndiswrapper and bcm43xx.

So first thing to do is blacklist bcm43xx by editing your /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist file. Then compile and install ndiswrapper. To be honest, the instructions on the ndiswrapper wiki are pretty foolproof, provided you have the kernel source package installed.

You could also post your wpa_supplicant.conf file and maybe we can give some pointers. You are using the wpa_supplicant that comes with Slackware, right?

elvenson 09-25-2007 03:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hangdog42 (Post 2903365)
The 4318 chipset has difficulties under the bcm43xx driver, so ndiswrapper may be a better choice. However, if you haven't blacklisted bcm43xx (it is part of some of the stock Slackware kernels) then you may be seeing conflicts between ndiswrapper and bcm43xx.

So first thing to do is blacklist bcm43xx by editing your /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist file. Then compile and install ndiswrapper. To be honest, the instructions on the ndiswrapper wiki are pretty foolproof, provided you have the kernel source package installed.

You could also post your wpa_supplicant.conf file and maybe we can give some pointers. You are using the wpa_supplicant that comes with Slackware, right?

blacklisting bcm43xx was done, ndiswrapper was properly built and configured, and i used the wpa_supplement source from the official site, i didnt know it came with slackware 12... my conf file is some cut and pate crap i found in another tutorial here but with my essid and psk... that might be where the problem is though...

also, i cant get the wpa_gui to run... i added it into the make file as i was instructed to in another tutorial, but it wont run...

i also havent set up my ethernet card yet, so i have NO networking on my laptop right now... (havnt gotten around to figuring that out yet, but the netconfig utility doesnt work for me with my ethernet card... so i need to look into that more too)

ill get you some log output later tonight on anything i think may help... iwconfig, ifconfig, dmesg, and the like...

pappy_mcfae 09-27-2007 04:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by elvenson (Post 2902908)
does anyone care to tell me the steps to take from a fresh slackware 12 installation to get the bcm4318 card up and connected to a WEP network? (going without wep/wpa support is not a possibility since i need it at school and in other networks i am on often, including my home)

I have a document that provides step-by-step instructions on how to do it with either Slack-11 or Slack-12. The document originally started this thread. Please note that it has been edited for accuracy. I removed a few steps from the original that were redundant or unnecessary. There are code samples and so much more. I have also placed the document on my web site if you're interested.

Hope that works for you. I also ask Hangdog42 to check it out and see what you think.

Blessed be!
Pappy

truckers_atlas 09-29-2007 12:19 AM

I feel your pain.
 
Hi, looks like the guys above have given you some great advice. I'm only adding because I have a bcm4318 and got it working with wpa in Slack 12. It is possible! This is how I have been doing wireless with Slackware: I always get the ndiswrapper and wpa_supplicant source and build it (use removepkg to remove anything you already installed from .tgz). I don't know why I can't get the slack-packages that come with the install disk to work, but building these from source seems to be necessary for me. I have the bcmwl5.sys and bcmwl5a.inf files 'cause I have done this through the last few iterations of Slackware. I don't remember where I got them, but I do remember having to try several versions of these files obtained from various sources before finding the ones that worked -- and then I held on to them. (I can send these to you if you need them.) Anyway, I put the driver files in /usr/local/wifi/ for safe-keeping. Once you have these drivers installed with ndiswrapper, I edit /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf. In the 'wlan0' section, I uncomment IFNAME, IPADDR, NETMASK, USE_DHCP,DHCP_HOSTNAME and add entries as appropriate. I don't know how much of that is necessary, but it doesn't seem to break anything. I think I have to add the following in the same section:
WLAN_WPA[4]="wpa_supplicant"
WLAN_WPADRIVER[4]="wext"
WLAN_WPACONF[4]="/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf"

My wpa_supplicant.conf looks like this:

ap_scan=2
network={
ssid="network-name"
scan_ssid=1
proto=WPA2
key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
pairwise=CCMP
group=CCMP
psk="your wpa passphrase goes here"
}

The types of encryption listed in the .conf file correspond to the settings on my router. And like the other guys said, I blacklist the bcm43xx module and add the ndiswrapper module so everything works on boot. I should mention that while this works great at home, where I use this machine 99% of the time, I have to edit config files by hand if I want to log into someone else's network. So I will be interested to see if there are tools (like the WPA gui thing) that make this easier. It just doesn't come up often enough to motivate me to seek another solution... Also I used to use ndiswrapper as the driver for wpa_supplicant, but that didn't work with the Slack 12 install so I used the wext driver. I probably did something differently this time. I hope this helps. I'm no expert, but I've gotten pretty good at installing Slackware on my hardware (due to lots of practice.) :-) Jay.


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