I'm using RHEL5

After wrestling with the driver, I eventually made my bcm4318 card work on unsecured networks. However, RHEL's network configuration utility did not allow me to access my secure wireless connection. (Yes, I did attempt to configure the SSID, encryption key, ect...)

I decided to try different programs to manage networking.

I installed wifi-radar (from source) but never managed to connect with any network.

Unfortunately, now neither my ethernet nor my wifi work.

The network gui shows that my ethernet is connected and active but my programs cannot access the internet. My pings get no response. Firefox cannot connect and the add/remove programs utility reports an error.

I attempted to uninstall wifi-radar by deleting the files in the makefile and it no longer runs, but I don't know if I got it all.

Can anyone help?

Could and should have tried running make unistall from the wifi-radar source directory.

You can also try removing the alias ethx <some driver> and alias wlan0 ndiswrapper line entries from /etc/modprobe.conf file. Also try removing the ifcfg-ethX and ifcfg-wlan0 files from /etc/sysconfig/networking-scripts directory.

In the /etc/modprobe.d/ directory edit the blacklist file and add;

#wireless
blacklist bcm43xx

When done reboot the system, the wired Ethernet interface should be reconfigured hopefully by kudzu.

Bring your system current by typing yum update when done reboot

For the wireless broadcom interface install the rpmforge-release package as directed here;

http://dag.wieers.com/rpm/FAQ.php#B

When done type yum install dkms dkms-ndiswrapper

See the instructions on how to install the Windows XP drive for use with ndiswrapper;

http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/j...,installation/
(starting at the "Install Windows driver" section)

Add the line alias wlan0 ndiswrapper to the /etc/modprobe.conf file if needed. Create a file named ifcfg-wlan0 to the /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts directory, sample below;
When done restart the network service service network restart

Both network devices cannot be on the same subnet at the same time so one or the other has to be shutdown, this is why the ONBOOT line is set to 'no' in the example above. To try the wireless interface type something like;

ifdown eth0
ifup wlan0

Thanks for replying.

Make uninstall failed, that's why I resorted to a manual uninstall.

I already have ndiswrapper/xp driver, that's how I got the unsecured wireless working.

Turns out 2 restarts and fixing the DNS entries solved my Ethernet problems.

I still cannot get the secured network to work. iwlist shows it but I cannot connect. There is no key entry in my ifcfg-eth1 and every time I save my settings it is deleted so it must be stored somewhere else.

My software (except for vlc player) is up to date.

Any ideas why my wireless can't use secured networks?

The keys may be in the file /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/keys-wlan0 file. The format for 128-bit WEP is;

#This is a 128-bit HEX key;
key=1234-5678-ABCD-EF01-DDEE-78CF-21
#This is a 128-bit string key;
key=s:MyPassword123

The case is important in any case "a" does not equal "A" for example.

I should tell you that all the encryptions have been broken and it only takes a matter of a few minutes to gain access. Keeping the unauthorized wireless off the router can accomplished simply be using MAC filters on the wireless router. This will keep out 80-90% of unauthorized access by adding 64/128-bit WEP encryption will increase this to around 95-98%.

I found my key. It was in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/keys-eth1. (I know, I should have seen that right away)

KEY=D1C2C4D4E5

When I try other forms like

D1C2-C4D4-E5
or
D1-C2-C4-D4-E5

from the gui I get an error. If I put it directly into the file there is no error but it still won't connect.

It's 64-bit and I only use it to keep my non-tech savvy neighbors from leeching my bandwidth. I know if someone cared enough about my network they could sniff the key and my mac address.

Is this 64-bit key WEP? Is it HEX or plain text?? If plain text the the 's:' is required in front and please change is key on both ends. MAC address filtering only on the router works to keep most non-tech savvy people off the wireless router.

If you can get a non-encrypted connection than just use the the MAC filtering for now.
Check your /var/log/messages file for your wireless MAC ID;

It is a WEP hex key.

I should not change the security scheme because I am not the only user on the network.

Also, if I keep using linux, I will probably have to use an encrypted wireless router eventually so I would like to get it working. I have noticed that once I try to use a WEP key, my wireless won't connect at all, no matter how I change the settings, until I restart, but iwlist still shows all the available networks.

Any other ideas?

Nope, you just have to match up your keys at both ends of the wireless connection. The key casing is important, HEX is usually all upper case lettering while plain text (pass phrase) is usually mixed case.

It does not hurt to try the plain text method: KEY=s1C2C4D4E5

I tried every combination of it with s: and without. I tried non-capitalized and capitalized. I tried it with and without dashes and every combination of these and it still won't work.

I am sure I have the right key as I set it after I determined my card could connect to the network when it was unsecured.

This is driving me insane.

OK, one last thing to try then I'm out of ideas.............

If the wireless router is set to Open or Shared try setting it to both if possible.

These wireless problems (drivers, management programs, wep ect) have been nagging me for weeks. I think this may be the last one.

Thank you Lenard, you guru of networking, I really appreciate helping me find this workaround.

(Apparently something in my system has a problem with open)

Glad to hear you got the issue resolved, you are welcome enjoy!