ndiswrapper and my bloody network

lethargic1 · 08-29-2005, 03:49 PM

i've been having a hell of a time getting my laptop onto the interweb since i've started using slackware. recently i installed ndiswrapper 1.1 because the install instructions recommended that instead of the newer version if i didn't want to upgrade to the new kernel.

let's...not go into why i don't want to upgrade that...

it was terrible.

anyway, as far as i can tell, everything's installed properly and working fine...

if i type in

Code:

iwlist wlan0 scan

i get all sorts of neat info on my network...and even my neighbor's essid(?) which i thought i was too far away to pick up...

but i still can't get connected. i think i need to input addresses into /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf, but i'm not sure which...or where...

and last time i messed with a script like this i had to reformat. the computer couldn't find any of my drives.

it's my parents network/wireless i'm trying to connect to, so naturally they don't know what their network settings are. i went to one of their windows machines and typed 'ipconfig -all' into the command promt. so i've got the default gateway, dhcp, and ip.

are those all the addresses i need? or does my laptop need it's own ip address? to be honest i've never set up anything like this before. when i first got my laptop it was running windows and did all of the connection settings for me.

i guess i got a bit too used to all of that. i sometimes miss how easy windows was to operate, but i'm willing to move on...

so...i was wondering if maybe somebody out there could give me a little help? and maybe once i'm able to get onto the interweb i'll start learning network basics...

pretty please?

chess · 08-29-2005, 04:16 PM

What is the output of iwconfig and ifconfig?

lethargic1 · 08-29-2005, 04:46 PM

hrmmm...

iwconfig gives me

Code:

lo  no wireless extensions.

wlan0  IEE 802.11b  ESSID: off/any
Mode:Auto  Frequency:2.412GHz  Access Point:  00:00:00:00:00:00
Bit Rate:11Mb/s  Tx-power:20 dBm  Sensitivity=0/3
RTS thr:2432 B  Fragment thr:2432 B
Encryption key: off
Power Management: off
Link Quality:100/100  Signal level:-95 dBm  Noise level:-256 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0  Missed beacon:0

i don't understand a lot of that, but the first two lines don't look good. shouldn't i be seeing my essid in there?

and ifconfig shows

Code:

lo  Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
RX packets:184 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:184 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
TX bytes:14316 (13.9 Kb)  TX bytes:14316 (13.9 Kb)

?

chess · 08-29-2005, 05:00 PM

How about doing these:

ndiswrapper -l

and also type in "lsmod" and see if the ndiswrapper module is listed.

chess · 08-29-2005, 05:04 PM

If it looks like the ndiswrapper is correctly loaded (it's in "lsmod") then do this:

iwconfig wlan0 essid MYESSID

where MYESSID is the name of your essid. Then, do this:

ifconfig wlan0 up

Then, do ifconfig again and see if wlan0 is now listed. If so, then do this:

dhcpcd wlan0

that gets an ip via dhcp. that should get you on.

check out the ndiswrapper instructions (scroll down to "configure interface"):

http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/m...p/Installation

lethargic1 · 08-29-2005, 05:08 PM

ndiswrapper -l says that the net8180 driver is present and the hardware is present. i'm using a netgear MA521 and driver that this page said to use.

lsmod shows the ndiswrapper at the very top of the list, but under "used by" there's a zero there...

edit: just saw that last post after i posted this message. lemme see...

lethargic1 · 08-29-2005, 05:26 PM

...and now i'm posting from my laptop.

thanks a lot.

i was originally going by those instructions on sourceforge, but i guess i skipped a step somewhere. it was seeing my essid when i typed "iwlist wlan0 scan", but i had to enter in manually?

and will this still work if i restart my laptop? the instructions say that i should use "ndiswrapper -m" to save the settings and to enter "ndiswrapper" into /etc/modprobe.preload?

and then everything should be good to go...?

anything else you might recommend?

oh...and thanks again. you have no idear how long i've been working on this.

Jaxån · 08-29-2005, 06:12 PM

iwlist shows which net are near you. But it can't tell which to connect to. How would it be able to do that? ESSID = any takes any node near. It isn't what you want to have.

You need to set your setting somewhere to have your net set up next time. I don't know how to do this in slackware, I'm using Debian myself. There it is /etc/networks/interfaces, which is where you also set up ordinary ethernet.

Your IP-number etc comes from a dhcp-server running in WLAN access node. You only need to have a dhcp-client running at your node.

ndiswrapper -m saves information about your settings, so you do not need to do it again. You need to tell your linux to load the driver ndiswrapper (not the same as the program ndiswrapper) when it boots. In Debian it's /etc/modules. Don't know where it is in slackware.

Now you know what to do. Try some settings and reboot. If you done somewhere near right, your WLAN access would work. Otherwise you have to do something else. You could also use GOOGLE to search (or slackware home page).

Good luck

chess · 08-29-2005, 08:39 PM

Glad it's working.

You can always save these settings in /etc/rc.d/rc.local, or perhaps take a look at your /etc/rc.d/rc.wireless.conf file.

lethargic1 · 08-30-2005, 07:26 PM

i couldn't save the settings for it, but i'm still looking for info on that...

when i tried "ndiswrapper -m" i get

Code:

modprobe already contains alias directive

i had it working last night and through most of this afternoon, but first i had to type "modprobe ndiswrapper" then go through the rest of those steps again.

but it's not working anymore

.

if i type in "iwlist wlan0 scan" i get info from the networks around me. but when i try "iwconfig wlan0 essid mydarnessid" it doesn't do anything. earlier, as soon as i hit enter on that command, the lnk light on my card came right on. now...nothing.

part of the problem might be that i had to do a hard reboot earlier today. actually it hasn't worked since then...but everything else is working normally. could that've screwed everything up? and, if that's so, is there a way i can restore things?

grrrr.

chess · 08-30-2005, 07:52 PM

Do a clean reboot and then after you've logged in, type as root:

lsmod

See if "ndiswrapper" is listed. If not, type as root:

modprobe ndiswrapper

Then check lsmod again. Once you see ndiswrapper listed in "lsmod" then type as root:

iwconfig

You should see "wlan0" listed. If so, then type as root:

ifconfig

If you don't see wlan listed there, then type as root;

ifconfig wlan0 up

Try "ifconfig" again and see if wlan0 is listed. If so, then type as root:

iwconfig wlan0 essid MYESSID

where MYESSID is your essid. You should be up and running at that point.

Once it is working, then edit your rc.local file located in /etc/rc.d (you need to edit it as root) and put the following in rc.local:

Code:

modprobe ndiswrapper
ifconfig wlan0 up
iwconfig wlan0 essid MYESSID

again where MYESSID is your essid. That will restart everything on boot.

lethargic1 · 08-30-2005, 08:25 PM

still nothing...

when i type in "iwconfig wlan0 essid phar66" i'm still not getting anything. and if i type in "iwconfig" after that it still shows my essid as off/any.

i did locate my rc.local file and have it open in kedit...but should i put those lines in there if it isn't working?

chess · 08-30-2005, 08:36 PM

so ndiswrapper is listed in "lsmod" and wlan0 is listed in "ifconfig"? maybe you can copy and paste here the output of lsmod, iwconfig, and ifconfig.

lethargic1 · 08-30-2005, 10:21 PM

well...if i type in lsmod right now it shows ndiswrapper at the top of the list, says it's size is 105044 and under "used by" there's a 1. then there's a whole list of other things...

hrmm...there's a "usbcore" in that list too, size 58860, used by 1, and then under "Not tainted(?)" it has "[ndiswrapper uhci]".

???

iwconfig brings up

Code:

lo  no wireless extensions.

wlan0  IEE 802.11b  ESSID: off/any
Mode:Auto  Frequency:2.437GHz  Access Point:  00:00:00:00:00:00
Bit Rate:11Mb/s  Tx-power:20 dBm  Sensitivity=0/3
RTS thr:2432 B  Fragment thr:2432 B
Encryption key: off
Power Management: off
Link Quality:100/100  Signal level:-60 dBm  Noise level:-256 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0

and ifconfig shows

Code:

lo  Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
RX packets:184 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:184 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
TX bytes:14316 (13.9 Kb)  TX bytes:14316 (13.9 Kb)

wlan0  Ling encap:Ethernet  HWaddr  00:09:5B:8C:94:6C
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500  METRIC:1
...

...then it continues on about RX and TX packtes...no errors, which...i'm assuming is good? i can give you the rest of that info if needed, but i'm typing it here by hand...

i notice that ifconfig shows wlan0 unlike what i posted earlier. i'm still confused by a lot of what i'm seeing, but (as far as i can tell) the problem is that my essid isn't going in where it should be.

is there another command besides "iwconfig wlan0 essid phar66"? as i said earlier, when i was typing it in yesterday, my network card'; return true;" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true;">network card</a> lit up as soon as i hit enter. now when i hit enter the console just moves onto the next line like nothing happened...

and thanks again. i realize you've taken a lot of time to help me out here.

i promise that i'm not completely helpless when it comes to this...

edit: heh, i tried my nieghbor's essid just to see if it would work. same thing. i type in iwconfig and the essid still "off/any".

i thought it was worth a try...

since i can see networks around me, does that mean that i can connect to the internet whenever there's a wireless router nearby?

chess · 08-31-2005, 08:27 AM

Did you end up editing /etc/rc.d/rc.wireless.conf? If so, maybe change it back.

You cut off the text of ifconfig before I could tell whether it had an ip. Try to provide the full output of these commands as you never know what someone might spot

Anyway, it probably does not have an ip sinceit looks like it is not connected to your router.

Did you try:

dhpcd wlan0

to see if you can get an ip?