Accessing schools wireless network & configuring ndiswrapper

niteshadw · 09-17-2004, 03:31 PM

I have few questions reguarding accessing my school's wireless network and getting ndiswrapper working.

I followed a lot of instructions to get ndiswrapper working, most were old and never got modprobe ndiswrapper to print out anything, but when I ran dmesg I got whole bunch of crap including:

Code:

ndiswrapper: using irq 11
divert: allocating divert_blk for eth1
eth1: ndiswrapper ethernet device 00:0e:35:16:2f:72 using driver w22n51.sys
ndiswrapper device eth1 supports  WPA with TKIP cipher
ndiswrapper: driver w22n51.sys (Intel,01/02/2004,8.0.12.9000) added
ndiswrapper (hangcheck_bh:364): Hangcheck returned true. Resetting eth1!
loop: loaded (max 8 devices)

I don't know if this is good at all since I am not in school to try anyting and its resetting. If this is incorrect, anyone has any suggestions?

I added the following to /etc/modprobe.conf (before ran modprobe):

Code:

options ndiswrapper if_name=eth%d
alias eth1 ndiswrapper

I also created /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth1 with the following:

Code:

IPV6INIT=no
ONBOOT=no
USERCTL=yes
PEERDNS=yes
GATEWAY=
TYPE=Wireless
DEVICE=eth1
HWADDR=00:0e:35:16:2f:72
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
NETMASK=
DHCP_HOSTNAME=
IPADDR=
DOMAIN=
ESSID=cuairnet
CHANNEL=1
MODE=Managed
RATE=54Mb/s

Now, my question is, what do I replace the ESSID with (how do I get it)? The MODE says that its managed, but I don't know if this applies since the schools network is open.

Then I created /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/keys-eth1 and added:

Code:

KEY=

Here I know I have to add 26 hex characters which hold WEP Key and MAC address.

I also need to know how to get those...

I can access the network under windows xp, I've seen some type of password typed and seen poly11 as the network name. I have to check the exact settings for it under windows.

Well any help would be appreciated, I would really like to get this working. Thank you.

Hangdog42 · 09-17-2004, 04:48 PM

If you type iwlist eth1 scan, that should list out the ESSID for the wireless access points you can see.

Quote:

The MODE says that its managed, but I don't know if this applies since the schools network is open.

Actually this setting does matter. Most networks are managed (the alternative is ad hoc) so leaving this as managed will probably be best.

Quote:

Here I know I have to add 26 hex characters which hold WEP Key and MAC address.

I also need to know how to get those...

Forget about the MAC address, odds are you don't need to know this. As for the WEP key, if the network you want to connect to uses WEP encryption, you need to get the key from the system administrator. If they won't give it to you, you can't access their network. However, if they aren't using WEP encryption, entering in the ESSID will probably do the trick. Since you say the network is open, they probably aren't using WEP encryption so you can leave the key blank.

JayCnrs · 09-17-2004, 04:50 PM

Once you have your laptop booted up try running this command

iwlist eth1 scan

This should bring up the essid and if it is WEP protected.

niteshadw · 09-19-2004, 03:56 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Hangdog42
If you type iwlist eth1 scan, that should list out the ESSID for the wireless access points you can see.

Actually this setting does matter. Most networks are managed (the alternative is ad hoc) so leaving this as managed will probably be best.

Forget about the MAC address, odds are you don't need to know this. As for the WEP key, if the network you want to connect to uses WEP encryption, you need to get the key from the system administrator. If they won't give it to you, you can't access their network. However, if they aren't using WEP encryption, entering in the ESSID will probably do the trick. Since you say the network is open, they probably aren't using WEP encryption so you can leave the key blank.

Thanks, I'm going to try that tomorrow but I just ran, iwlist eth1 scan and it says that the command was not found? What?

And I was wondering if my settings/steps taken above enable the wireless card every time I boot up or must I do something to activate it to make it work so I can scan for a network. Thanks.

Hangdog42 · 09-19-2004, 05:50 PM

You do need to have wireless tools installed, but I thought fedora would have them. You may want to check and see if they are installed. That gives you iwlist and iwconfig. The other possibility is that you need to be root to run iwlist. If you were a normal user, su to root and try again.

As for the settings gettting set at boot, I think you have it, but I don't use Fedora so I may be wrong. You may need to edit one of the boot up scripts to modprobe ndiswrapper as well.

niteshadw · 09-20-2004, 11:14 AM

Alright, the wireless-tools are installed, I don't know why the command did not work but it works fine now. Well at least when I was home. When I got to school this morning, I booted up FC2 and turned on the wireless card, have to press FN+F1...anyways after few second the computer freezes...and when I do manage to type in the command, it freezes without finding anything...I don't know what is wrong. If I boot up with the card on, it won't allow me, a whole bunch of errors scroll and computer freezes.

Hangdog42 · 09-20-2004, 12:27 PM

You need to check your syslog and messages (both in /var/log) to see what is happening. There are a variety of reasons that could cause the lockup and hopefully there are errors in those logs pertaining to your wireless card.

niteshadw · 09-27-2004, 02:31 PM

Okay, boot.log does not display anything useful, at least it does not seem to because it seems that it only displays the info for a sucessful boot....I've also looked in the messages log...but I see only one record of the boot, but I've booted twice, once with the wireless card activated and that gave some errors and the other without and that' s what it recoreded because yet again it seems to be successful...so is there any other place I should look or how can I get this to work?

Okay, this is what I get when I trun on the wireless on boot or while shutting down...there is bunch of stuff above this that scrolls real quick then some other remaining things that I can see but did not write down, but only the end:

Call Trace:

Stack pointer is garbage, not priting trace.

Code: 0f ba 68 08 03 e9 f4 02 00 00 81 3d a0 9e 02 3c 46 24 1d

<0> Kernel panic: Fatal exception in interrupt
In interrupt handler - not syncing

Its something with the wrieless and how it is identified? The irq is incorrect or something, but I copied it from after probing ndiswrapper, maybe the drivers are bad even though I took them off the Intel CD and they work fine under windows...

Hangdog42 · 10-03-2004, 08:15 AM

Sorry for the delay, I was away for a week.

Quote:

<0> Kernel panic: Fatal exception in interrupt
In interrupt handler - not syncing

This error suggests that there is a module that is not compatible with the kernel. Did you compile ndiswrapper against source code that matches the kernel you are using?