Hi there,

I have a Dlink DWL-G510 wlan interface to get working on Suse 11.1. Mode is ad-hoc.

The command:
iwconfig wlan0

gives me a cell number : ef:33:45:....
and a signal level of 0 (no db unit but just an 0)

The "activity" LED keeps flashing.

Does the cell number mean my dlink-card has connected to the access point ?

thank you for your help

Mario

In IBSS(Ad-Hoc) mode (that is network without an AP) the cell number indicates the cell the node has joined. It should be the MAC address of the first node started and all nodes should have the same value (apart if they are out of range).
In your case, it means you are joined with a Ad-Hoc network.

If you want to connect to AP, which is BSS mode, you will have to configure SSID and security:

For OPEN secutiry:
sudo ifconfig wlan0 down
sudo iwconfig wlan0 channel <Channel_Number>
sudo iwconfig wlan0 essid <SSID_of_AP>
sudo ifconfig wlan0 up

For WEP:
sudo iwconfig wlan0 key s:<WEP_KEY>

For WPAv1, WPAv2
You will have to use wpa_supplicant. Save the following as wpa_supplicant.conf

#
# File: wpa_supplicant.conf
#
ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant
ctrl_interface_group=root
network={
ssid="SSID_OF_AP"
key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
psk="Your_Passphrase"
}

Then start wpa supplicant with:
sudo wpa_supplicant -c wpa_supplicant.conf -i wlan0

hello piratas !

thank your for your help. I learned that my network is a managed one. So I need to change the mode from ad-hoc to managed.

All the iwconfig commands do NO change at all to my network card configuration. I run them as root:

iwconfig wlan0 mode managed
iwconfig wlan0 channel <Channel_Number>
iwconfig wlan0 essid <ESSID_of_AP>

Whatever parameter I give to iwconfig - it gets ignored.
The driver is properly installed. So what am I doing wrong ?

thank you,
cheer, Mario

In your case, you don't need specifically set your wireless adapter to managed mode. Once your successfully done association and authentication, the mode will be managed mode.

I guess you haven't succeed with authentication.

To make things simpler, set the AP to OPEN security(if you can), and then use iwconfig to association with it. If you can get onto the network, then you know which part the problem is.

I'm happy to tell someone my trouble :-)

If I run

iwlist wlan0 scan

the cell I want to connect to does not get found. The access point is 100m away and can be seen clearly.
The folks around me in the same cell have windows boxes and don't complain.
Another cell is found with a very weak signal (-80dbm) which tells me the driver is working fine.
The antenna seems ok to me. I'll test the dlink card and the antenna in a windows 98 box tomorrow.

Could it be still a driver problem with Suse 11.1 ?

cheers and thanks, Mario

It doesn't seem like a driver problem for me. Have you tried other wireless adapter on your Suse box, does it works?

Can you provide more info to narrow down the problem, what security type the AP is, what commands you use, what error message you see and what's the output of ifconfig, iwconfig, iwscan, and etc.

Hello piratas,

I'm sorry for make you waiting. The Dlink DWL-G510 doesn't work on Win 98, so the experiment on Windows is still pending.

No, I haven't tried another Wlan-adapter on the suse machine yet. It's the first time I set up a wlan.

The AP security mode is WEP.
In the following you'll read my log about the commands I use:

linux-rt1w:~ # ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:30:84:0D:C1:98
inet addr:192.168.4.10 Bcast:192.168.4.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::230:84ff:fe0d:c198/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:44 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:9475 (9.2 Kb)
Interrupt:11 Base address:0x4000

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:32 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:32 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:2296 (2.2 Kb) TX bytes:2296 (2.2 Kb)

wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:22:B0:ED:BF:08
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:16 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:6 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:828 (828.0 b) TX bytes:576 (576.0 b)

wmaster0 Link encap:UNSPEC HWaddr 00-22-B0-ED-BF-08-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00
UP BROADCAST RUNNING 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)

linux-rt1w:~ # iwconfig wlan0
wlan0 IEEE 802.11bg ESSID:"Egstedt"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.462 GHz Access Point: Not-Associated
Tx-Power=-1 dBm
Retry min limit:7 RTS thrff Fragment thr=2352 B
Encryption keyff
Power Managementn
Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

linux-rt1w:~ # iwlist wlan0 scan
wlan0 No scan results

linux-rt1w:~ #

Regarding ifconfig:
There are some bytes received and transmitted shown. This is a leftover of another network I occasionally see with iwlist (see below).

Regarding iwconfig:
I still wonder why the signal level is just zero. There should be something like -120dbm or so. When Suse 9.3 was still running on this box I used the driver provided by ralink. No success either, but the signal level was constantly -120dbm (almost nothing).
I turned the encryption off and power management on (probably usesless).

Regarding iwlist:
It finds a network occasionally with -80dbm but another ESSID. So I assume antenna and network card are ok.

I got me another wlan antenna today which doesn't change the outcome of my experiments. The network card is new from the shelf.
Tomorrow I'll look for the kernel messages. Maybe there is something wrong deep down in the driver.

Hi,

in addition to my log there is the following:

linux-rt1w:~ # lsmod | grep rt61
rt61pci 18588 0
crc_itu_t 1880 1 rt61pci
rt2x00pci 6792 1 rt61pci
rt2x00lib 26616 2 rt61pci,rt2x00pci
eeprom_93cx6 2204 1 rt61pci
linux-rt1w:~ #

linux-rt1w:~ # dmesg | grep rt61
rt61pci 0000:01:05.0: PCI INT A -> Link[LNKC] -> GSI 5 (level, low) -> IRQ 5
Registered led device: rt61pci-phy0:radio
Registered led device: rt61pci-phy0:assoc

If you need I will send you the messages file from /var/log/ . It would be too much of information for now I think.

have a great weekend !

The following command should do the work:

sudo ifconfig wlan0 down
sudo iwconfig wlan0 channel PUT_CHANNEL_NUMBER_HERE
sudo iwconfig wlan0 essid Egstedt
sudo iwconfig wlan0 key s:PUT_YOUR_ASCII_WEP_KEY_HERE
sudo ifconfig wlan0 up

Then, start dhcp client:
sudo dhclient wlan0

Note: If you use HEX wep key, use the following command replace the above one:
sudo iwconfig wlan0 key s:PUT_YOUR_HEX_WEP_KEY_HERE

Hello piratas,

thank your for your help. The issue is on hold at the moment because of lots of other things around my business... as soon as I have time for further experiments I'll get back to you.

cheers, Mario

Hello Piratas,

today I got back to this issue and tried to get the card working on Windows 2k. Result is the same as with Suse. So I assume the card is faulty or the Windows driver shipped with it is faulty. Bad thing that...