Primary Issue: Get Enterasys RoamAbout DS card working for wireless internet access.
Secondary Issue: Get Enterasys RoamAbout DS card working with airsnort/other wep cracking tools.

Greetings. I received my Enterasys RoamAbout DS card in the mail today, and I am having issues getting it to work. Mostly this is due to my understanding of wireless, which is very small. It would appear that according to documentation on various sites and sources, that I am somewhere deeper in the installation routine than the start.

From what I know about wireless, the operating routine is that first you scan for a wireless network which you would like to connect to. Once located, you configure your card for this network. Then, it should work and you should be able to access the internet. I am not considering WEP networks at the moment.

When I run iwlist eth1 scanning, it states:
eth1 Interface doesn't support scanning : Network is down

If the card does not support scanning, I am totally unfamiliar with how to operate it. However, I think it is probably due to my configuration steps, below...

Here are some details you will want to know:

System: Debian Unstable
Modules loaded: orinoco, orinoco_cs, hermes
Installed programs using aptitude: wireless-tools, airsnort
Kernel-Image packaged installed: 2.6.7-386

What I have done to configure it:
Placed Enterasys RoamAbout DS card in the pcmcia bay.
Make sure it was recongised by the system by running iwconfig. It is there, as eth1.
Unplugged card to see if it disappears from iwconfig list. It does.
Plugged card back in to see if it reappears. It does.
I have downloaded the orinoco-0.15rc2 drivers and run the commands make, make install. I am not very familiar with modules, so I don't know really if anything more is needed besides these two commands. I also did modprobe orinoco, modprobe orinoco_cs, and modprobe hermes. I donot know much about modules, but these seem to be the wireless modules related to my card.
I type iwconfig eth1 mode Managed.
I try iwlist eth1 scanning, and get error message.

I am very new to these aspects of linux (wireless, modules), so I am not familiar with what to do at this point. From the various guides all over the internet that I have read, they would seem like I am at various different points at the recommended installation howtos.
Since I use Debian, I am curious just how far along I am in this install, and what my next step should be to get my wireless card working.
I do my best with realtime help, so I encourage anyone who wants to help me to AIM me at WhiteFennec, or to shoot me an email at crysys@gmail.com.

If you want me to run a command and post the output, plz let me know, because I want to respond as fast as possible to assist anyone who wants to assist me in getting this working. School starts Wed, and I'd like to have my laptop able to get onto the school network by then.

My secondary goal is to understand the problem with WEP by running airsnort against my own home network. I have windows machines on a dell ap with WEP, which I set up specifically for this purpose (also why I installed linux on laptop and got a linux supported card). Any help with this topic would also be appreciated.

Thank you for your time.

In searching for modules (drivers...well sorta) for your wireless card, it would be helpful to know what kind of chipset your card has.

I would recommend finding out the exact name of the chipset from the wireless manufacturer's site...is it a prism, prism2, prismGT, hermes or other card...

Another option if we can get it to work is to use something called ndiswrapper. It lets you use WindowsXP drivers on Linux...It wont work with airsnort, but it'll get you wireless card up and running.

=================
In response to Technochef:
The chipset is the Hermes chipset. Enterasys RoamAbout cards are Orinoco Silver cards repackaged.

I am determined to avoid ndiswrapper at all costs. It would mean that I blew 50 bucks.
I bought this laptop from Dell, and I asked for the 1150 card but got the 1180 wireless card.
The 1180 is a Broadcom chipset wireless card, which is unsupported by linux. I can use ndiswrapper to get it working, but then the whole point of why I bought this card (promiscious mode) is lost yet again.

I was told that this card could be used with Airsnort, which is why I bought it. I am hoping I was not ripped off, since as a college student I'm going without food for the later half of this month in order to afford this card.
=================

More developments:

cardmgr does not appear to be working correctly. I was told that it would make beeps when I put in the card, and took it out, according to the man pages for cardmgr.

If I kill cardmgr and run cardmgr -ov when the card is seated in the pcmcia bay:
cardmgr[4324]: could not adjust resource: IO ports 0x100-0x4ff: Device or resource busy
cardmgr[4324]: could not adjust resource: IO ports 0x800-0x8ff: Device or resource busy
cardmgr[4324]: could not adjust resource: IO ports 0xc00-0xcff: Device or resource busy
cardmgr[4324]: could not adjust resource: memory 0xc0000-0xfffff: Input/output error
cardmgr[4324]: could not adjust resource: memory 0xa0000000-0xa0ffffff: Input/output error
cardmgr[4324]: could not adjust resource: memory 0x60000000-0x60ffffff: Input/output error
cardmgr[4324]: could not adjust resource: IO ports 0xa00-0xaff: Device or resource busy

Personally, I'm not sure what this means.
Another thing:
I looked at /etc/pcmcia/config, and found this entry for my card:
card "Enterasys RoamAbout 802.11 DS"
version "Enterasys", "RoamAbout 802.11 DS"
bind "roamabout_cs"

I cannot find this roamabout_cs module. I try insmod roamabout_cs and insmod roamabout_cs.o, but:
insmod: can't read 'roamabout_cs': No such file or directory
insmod: can't read 'roamabout_cs.o': No such file or directory

Despite all this, one thing I'm sure of is that the Enterasys RoamAbout DS card is getting power. I see the light on.

Question:
If these are just Orinoco Silver cards repackaged (what I've been told and read), then can I just switch the bind statement over to "orinoco_cs"?

More information, based on emails:

Running the command cardctl ident produces:
Socket 0:
no product info available
Socket 1:
product info: "Cabletron", "RoamAbout 802.11 DS", "Version 01.01", ""
manfid: 0x0156, 0x0002
function: 6 (network)

Which is kind of strange considering that I also have an entry for
Enterasys RoamAbout DS cards in my /etc/pcmcia/config.
Could be due to trying to use alien to install roamabout rpms.

I'll uninstall that alien-ified RedHat package that I have been experiementing with.

I also have the most current pcmcia-cs package, just to let ya know.

On both my Slackware and Fedora 2 my wireless interface is wlan0, not eth0.
It may be somehow different for you, seeing as how the iwconfig man page uses
eth0 as an example, but I would recomment running ifconfig to list all interfaces (up and down).

# ifconfig -a
or
# cat /proc/net/dev

And check to see if you have a wlan0 in there.

Also running iwconfig by itself on my system lists my interfaces, and has a
"no wireless extension" next to my loopback (lo), ethernet card (eth0),
and a device called "sit0".... anyone know what sit0 is? For my wireless card
(wlan0), it lists my setup information.

# iwconfig
or
# cat /proc/net/wireless

Let me know if that helps at all, good luck

Fixed it. I got it up and going just recently, as well as working 100% with Airsnort.
Thanks for all the help guys!

Basically I narrowed down several problems based off of things people suggested here or by email. I learned a lot, had some additional configuring to do. A big clue was that the card was physically labelled a Enterasys, but was actually a Cabletron. Very interesting fact, and it also helped using the orinoco_cs drivers to get it going rather than the bind "roamabout_cs".

Thx again for all the help all.

Could you add a short reply or email me what you did to get your card to work? My laptop loads the right modules but configuration fails. I'm guessing I've missed something in the setup.

Thanks in advance

(edited)
Sorry never mind. I reset the bios in the laptop to factory presets and the card works perfectly.

hi WhiteFennec, I have the same card...

Socket 0:
product info: "Cabletron", "RoamAbout 802.11 DS", "Version 01.01", ""
manfid: 0x0156, 0x0002
function: 6 (network)

and cant get this working... I have tried various livecd's, installed helix to hdd, knoppix, etc.. am downing slackware as we speak...

I'm glad you got yours working.. any chance you can post up how you did it and the extra configuratoins you had to do...

cheerz m8 ....


basically.. been trying to get this going since it arrived last week.. read all the posts on the board .. but as a linux noob.. not really getting much further than when I started...

you can catch me on gmail also... lavey666uk@gmail.com