Problems with encoding: WEP key not accepted
 

Hello everybody,

a week ago I installed Etch on my laptop. Everything went smoothly, but I could not establish a connection with my WLAN access point (my wired interfaces got connected within seconds). Additionally I noticed that I have problems with reaching the control center of the access point with a browser. After entering login and password (quite ordinary routine) a page was shown to me saying that the connection was rejected. I have to press F5 several times in roder to reach my page (= the control center).


After many tests and tries I can say, that when I switch off WEP on the access point, I easily set up a connection. It means, that my WEP key is not accepted. taking into account the troubles with login on the router, I suspect, that encoding of my data is wrong and doesn't match the one of the router.

And here is my question: has anybody experienced something like this before? Is there any solution for the problem?

I will appreciate any help or hint!

Thanks in advance,
Andrey

Glad you have narrowed the problem down to the encryption key (I was following your previous thread).
Maybe you should try WPA? It is more secure, and you just use "anyoldsecretpassphrase". The "interfaces" file to set this up is on the old thread, here http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...d.php?t=521497 Post# 13, and of course you'll have to tell your wireless router to use WPA, not WEP. If you have trouble setting that up, please post a link to your wireless router's manual (PDF).

Wpa
 

Hello.

At the present I have not too much time to switch to WPA. Perhaps, I will come to it this week-end. Anyway, I will post my results here...

And you know, if the ipw2200 driver would work properly with WEP encryption, I would be able to set up WEP without any single problem... As I did it already in the past with my two previous laptops... ;-)

Regards,
Andrey.

It's not a problem with the ipw2200 driver. I am writing this on a WEP protected network via an ipw2200 right now.

As I believe I wrote in your last thread, it is possible the keys don't match. The fact that according to your other thread, you could connect with an unencrypted network suggests that the card and firmware is fine, but something is getting twisted in the encryption process.

You also mentioned that you could "sometimes" load your router's webpage. That is only possible if everything is working. I know you said you would sometimes fail to connect, but reaching it even once shows the encryption and everything else was/is working.

I would make sure you purge all the nonessential ipw2200 programs you added. In short, that is everything. The kernel has a built in driver that works, and the firmware (I have it both in /usr/lib/hotplug/firmware and in /lib/firmware) also works, making everything cool. The problems connecting to a local IP sound like there is some conflict happening within your system.

Peace,
JimBass

WLAN does not work.
 

Hello.

Then it's a problem of kernel. I found several forums about Mandriva and SuSE where people told that they could not use WLAN with ipw2200 with "actual verison of the kernel". In most cases it happened after update and "actual version of the kernel" was/is 2.6.18.

I wrote it several times: I use my wired interface. Under Linux I always use a cable and I never could get an IP address for my WLAN.

There is a difference between unstable connection and no connection at all. If I would have unstable connection, I would name it "unstable" or "unreliable" connection.
I didn't add anything.

Once again: I have no problems when I use a cable. I connect to the router within seconds, I get my IP and that's all - I'm online. And it never worked with WLAN with WEP. It worked without any encryption - same seconds to retrieve IP, no problems with Web. But as soon as WEP is used, everyting is dead.

As I said, I will switch to WPA soon. I hope, this will work "out of the box".

Regards,
Andrey

Are u using NetworkManager or manual iwconfig/ifconfig/iwlist?

edit:
WEP and WPA works perfectly with a manual configuration on my machine with ipw2200
For WPA there are some reauth message with wpa_supplicant but it's probably meant to be like this.

Tools
 

I used everything - both NetworkManager (from GNOME) and terminal commands. Mostly terminal.

Regards,
A.

Ok let's try again ;)
Forget about GUIs there are not good for debugging.
Also try to disable DHCP for debugging.
killall NetworkManager
ifdown eth0
ifdown eth1
ifconfig eth0 down
ifconfig eth1 down

Say your wireless is eth1:
ifconfig eth1 192.168.1.5 up adapt w/ your adress..
iwconfig eth1 essid "myssid" ..
iwconfig eth1 mode ad-hoc ..
iwconfig eth1 channel 6 ..
iwconfig eth1 key s:"mykeyastext"

ping 192.168.1.1 <-- your router

I didn't check these commands (I don't have wireless now) but that's a start.

man iwconfig and have a look at the key part.

Short response
 

Hi.
When I started to post my issue, many people told me "WEP is insecure, use WPA". As soon as I declared that I was going to use WPA, you asked me to try WEP again. :-) It looks like you, guys (Linux-gurus), are just having some fun with my problem. :-) Your systems are running perfecty, and you are glad to see any unresolved issue and fix it, aren't you? :-) :-)

It was just a joke. Unfortunatelly, I had no time last week to try your hints. I hope - I really hope - to do it this evening. To be honest, I'm quite pessimistic about my success, but I will do it any way. If it fails (or "when it fails..."), I will start to set up WPA-PSK with wpa_supplicant. The only thing that I need is working PC - it soesn't matter with WEP or WPA. First what works wins. :-)

Regards,
Andrey.

Try wep first and then wpa.
I don't see why it wouldn't work for you while it works for a lot of people with this hardware! Otherwise its a a bug and should be corrected.

WEP does not work
 

Hi.
I tried the commands you wrote down in the previous post. WEP didn't work - as I expected.

I would like to meet anybody who uses exactly the same model of T43p with exactly the same installation of Etch - to find out, if WLAN (with WEP) is working on another machine. But I personally would claim, that there is a bug in the software, because - as I said several times earlier - I found several posts about same issue in other distros - SuSE and Mandriva.

As I said, the story with WEP is over for me. I'm going to change to WPA - first under Windows, and then under Linux. Hopefully, it will work.

Regards,
Andrey

Strange..

You answered by WEP does not work. I assume you mean that only WEP does not work?

If you Set router without wep and remove the line iwconfig eth1 key.. it works?

Are you sure about the encoding of your key?

If you need more in-depth support, go to ipw2200-sourceforge.net, they have a (quiet but still) mailing list. Maybe just create a bug report.

While reading here or here I just realized that you don't have the same card as me, it's a mini-pci.. you should have mentionned this earlier probably.
Did you check this:
http://www.srcf.ucam.org/~mjg59/thinkpad/tables.html

Hi.
Exactly. Everything works without WEP. With WEP works nothing.

Wha do you mean? That my key is a HEX-key? Yes, it is. I use exactly the same key under Windows and (what is more important) I used this key with my previous notebook, where WLAN was provided via PCMCIA-card and ndiswrapper.

First I will set up my WPA. Afterwards I will report my problem to that project - perhaps, the solution is already on the way.

I wrote that I had T43p in my signature. Somehow it is not visible when you are not logged in. Perhaps, you didn't notice it - exactly like I did.

Besides, I think, I wrote in my first thread, that I had T43p.

I looked at that page. What should I gain from there? As far as I understand it, it is nothing else than compatibility list.

Regards,
Andrey.

Yeah I'm just suspicious about the encoding of the key. If you doublechecked with all methods for putting a key given in man iwconfig then I just don't understand why wep doesn't work... Probably somebody has an idea.
I know that some people had encoding problems due to a bug in NetworkManager, that's why I suggested to try several things from the CLI.

Yes I read that you had a T43p but I still don't know all the hardware of all notebooks ;p I don't know if it makes a difference for WEP but you have a miniPCI while there is a
What you can gain from these links? I dunno, I just have a friend that has a Tsomething and sometimes he goes there. I have looked very briefly at these pages.

Anyway, WPA is the minimum for a good security, WEP is only a little layer.

Good luck!

WPA-PSK does not work either!
 

Hi.

Finally I found some time to play with WPA. It doesn't work too! :-( I found this thread, which shows me that I'm not the only one who has this issue.

I know, it sounds stupid - (nearly) everyone gets it working, and I cannot. But I ask anyone, who managed to get WLAN working on T43p with Intel PRO/Wireless 2915ABG (either WEP or WPA-PSK) let me know HOW he/she managed it.

I will research further on...

Regards,
Andrey