Please read to the bottom of the page as most of this weird stuff has been resolved.

Hello all,
I'm currently trying to follow the O'reilly Recipe for a Linux Wireless Network. (can't post URL as I've not enough posts on this site)

I've tried to follow every step as accurately as possible. So far I have done the following:

Installed network cards, both wired (eth0, working fine with outbound internet access) and eth1 (Buffalo-Melco, wavelan type chipset, not working at all).

Installed RedHat Linux 7.2. Installed kernel-source and recompiled without pcmcia card services. Built and installed pcmcia-cs, built and installed wireless_tools package. Configured wireless subsystem by editing /etc/pcmcia/wireless.opts.

This is as far as i've gotten, my problem now is this:

eth1 returns the following: eth1: error fetching interface information: Device not found.

I've tried ifconfig eth1 0.0.0.0 and other IP addresses but card is totally dead. There are no lights on either. I'm sure it's something quite simple that I've screwed up. This section is from the boot log:

Mar 16 20:17:08 localhost pcmcia: Starting PCMCIA services:
Mar 16 20:17:08 localhost kernel: Linux PCMCIA Card Services 3.2.7
Mar 16 20:17:08 localhost kernel: kernel build: 2.4.7-10custom #1 Sun Mar 14 23:40:34 GMT 2004
Mar 16 20:17:08 localhost kernel: options: [pci] [cardbus] [apm]
Mar 16 20:17:08 localhost pcmcia: modprobe: Can't locate module yenta_socket
Mar 16 20:17:08 localhost rc: Starting pcmcia: succeeded

What's that modprobe thing all about?

lsmod returns:

Module Size Used by
ppp_synctty 5312 0 (unused)
ppp_async 6704 1
ppp_generic 19136 3 [ppp_synctty ppp_async]
slhc 4864 0 [ppp_generic]
nls_iso8859-1 2816 1 (autoclean)
ide-cd 26464 1 (autoclean)
cdrom 29408 0 (autoclean) [ide-cd]
soundcore 3952 0 (autoclean)
binfmt_misc 5904 1
pcmcia_core 41696 0 (unused)
autofs 10464 0 (autoclean) (unused)
eepro100 16928 1
ipchains 33696 0
ext3 60720 1 (autoclean)
jbd 38240 1 (autoclean) [ext3]

What's missing? Anything?

modprobe -t net * returns:

modprobe: Can't locate module wireless_tools.26.tar.gz

I opened iwconfig see the mess below, to have a look and it 'looks' horribly corrupted-should it look so strange-I doubt it's ok or is it a binary?


LF[indexhÿÿÄ?éHó¥WjE~ìh¥Ùèöÿÿ1ÿÄðèÀôÿÿÄìh¥Ùè°ôÿÿuìh¢Ùé~h`Öè_ñÿÿÄ ìhÍÞèOñÿÿeô[^_]Ãvtìh&ÚUÿ4èðÿÿÄÀuÆEÝéeÚUÿ4èäîÿÿÄHthnÚéïÿÿ}/ìEÞP?XÿÿÿWUÿ4ÿuÿuèÎ+h*fÇEÞöèÁæÿÿÄEÿtüéoÿµüÿÿèXçÿÿÄÿµüÿÿhuè;æÿÿÄÀyh!ÿÙ??þÿÿ?þÿÿƵþÿÿÙ_?þÿÿ?þÿÿÛ°þÿÿÙ_ ?þÿÿs°þÿÿ;uEØÆEÜ}!ìh?ÚEÿtèÃäÿÿÄÀuÆEÜöìh?ÚEÿ4èÑãÿÿÄÀu
ÆEÜÀy(h#Hth"âÿÿÄÀVUÿ4èjâÿÿÄÀuÆEÝéÊÄÀu
ÆEÜUÿ4è!âÿÿÄÀu^VjÿuÿµüÿÿèâÿÿÄÿµüÿÿh%C;]|h,ÿÛ_Xüÿÿt
ÞùÝ üÿÿëÝØÝØìjmEÿ4èAÝÿÿÄÀtÝ üÿÿÜ5øÛÝ üÿÿÝ üÿÿÙ??þÿÿ?þÿÿƵþÿÿÙ_?þÿÿ?þÿÿÛ°þÿÿÙ_?þÿÿ°þÿÿEØfEÞ©µøüÿÿVÿuÿuèéÿ5\öèØÙÿÿÄUÿ4é;]Èhÿ5\öè3Öÿÿ?þÿÿÿé©Uì¶Bèhu¶BÀtEìÆ¿ÄÛ¹è_ÕÿÿÄÀ¬ûÿÿÄVÿµ¬ûÿÿhj}:Ày
?ÿÿÿÿéèÏÿÿ?ÿÿÿÿéòÄHuìÿµäûÿÿhàáèÏÿÿÄìVè©ÏÿÿÄjuVè°ÏÿÿÄjÿu]ÈSè¿ÏÿÿÄShèFÏÿÿÄSh·EÜFP·EÞFTF`EØPjÿuSfÇEÜ!Shì°éÛÿÄÀy1ìè1ÌÿÿYÿ0èÌÿÿÄPh·Üÿ5\öèõËÿÿÄÇTÿÿÿÿÿÿÿV ÒtjPEØPÿv(ÿv$èIÈSèËÿÿÄ}ÖfEÖ%ÿóÄUuìÞñÝ$h^Ýë7ÝÙÝðÛÙÉÝáßàöÄuìÞñÝ$heÝëöÝÙìÜ5øÛÝ$hlÝRèÇÿÿÄÉÃöUå1Àºè ÆÿÿĵäþÿÿVÃhsÝSèÅÿÿUäþÿÿfY[hÞjVèRÃÿÿÄÀóýÿÿìÿµàþÿÿèÃÿÿ?ÿÿÿÿeô[^_]ÃUåSREÀ]UM?vÿuè)ÂÿÿéGöEìEð}èEð7G9Ñ}è~ÓëìhÝj[^_]Ãv$hÛÝSè¿ÿÿÄëvWVSì}÷ÇÝSè?ÿÿÄë;vÑQhvÞÿuèj?ÿÿeø[^]Ãvh|öÿuèµÿÿÿ?|öÉÃöUåWVSìuÇEðÀt5¶Ê=`öFöDOté0ëB<wéWëB¿<w é7éyÿÿÿè÷¹ÿÿÇEEðfǹEðÇ@öìÿuè_ºÿÿÂÄÒt,BfÁÈÁÈfÁÈìMðAÿ2ÿuè3»ÿÿÄ?ÿ [channel N]
[power {period N|timeout N}]
uest "%s" (%X) :
%c%s nulticastREQ: %s
receivedogram is using version %d.
%-8.8s Driver has no Wireless Extension version information.

Also when I have a look at /etc/modules.conf I see:

alias parport_lowlevel parport_pc
alias eth1 eepro100
alias eth0 eepro100

Surely the above is telling the kernel to use the eepro100 driver for BOTH my wired PCI card and wireless PCMCIA card?
That's got to be wrong, right?


Please be gentle on me, i'm a newbie but determined to get this internet gateway to my laptop up and running. I thought the compile troubles I had were bad! BTW, the card lights up like a xmas tree when the original distribution kernel is booted but the pcmcia services are supposed to be poor in comparison to the ones I've compiled. Any other info that's required to diagnose the trouble-jut let me know! thanks for your help guys, some of you helped me through my compile issues so I'm quite confident of success!!!Please read to the bottom of the page as most of this weird stuff has been resolved. Please read to the bottom of the page as most of this weird stuff has been resolved.

I've been able to resolve some issues after R'ingTFM a bit and I'll keep posting in case anybody else <other newbies like me> has similar problems!

I spent the whole of Saint Patrick's day at this and found why I couldn't get the wlan card to come alive. Because it lives in a PCI adapter the object file i82365.o (part of pcmcia card services package) MUST be loaded using 'insmod' if you want a little lesson on insmod (I needed it) look here http://linuxnewbies.editthispage.com/tips/20000202. The i82365.o program allows the computer to 'see' the PCI adapter's controller card, in my case some sort of RICOH chip is on it but I can't remember the number. This i82365 module is ABSOLUTELY necessary IF you compiled your kernel, as I did, WITHOUT built in pcmcia support and instead opted for using the pcmcia-cs package. You need 'Yenta socket' module loaded if you have a PCI adapter in your desktop and have support for pcmcia built in to the kernel (According to the pcmcia card services documentation). Ok, once you've insmod'ed the i82365.o module you need to insmod ds.o. I'm not 100% sure what this does but I think it stands for 'driver support'-anybody? and it HAD to be loaded for me anyway. Then I insmod'ed the actual pcmcia wlan card driver, in my case wvlan_cs.o but this will be dependent on the brand/chipset of the card.

Ok, so now when I do lsmod I see all these nice drivers loaded into memory and eth1 is almost alive, I type cardmgr and the thing lights up like a Christmas tree, hurrah! Typing iwconfig returns that eth1 is alive and well. ifconfig shows both eth cards up and running now and I've been able to assign the fixed IP address to the wlan card by editing /etc/pcmcia/network.opts and it takes the address ok, as verified by ifconfig eth1.


Now, I hope the above will be of some use to struggling newbies like myself but I STILLneed some help, though i think most of the troubles have passed. I need to make sure iptables is masquerading packets, can anyone walk me through that please?

I also need to get dhcp running on the wireless network, again a walk through would be fantastic?

And almost finally I need to know how to 'Turn off' services on my future internet gateway, it's advisable for security, no?

Finally, Happy Saint Patrick's day from Dublin, Ireland everyone!!

I'm at the stage where iwconfig and ifconfig eth1 look good. The IP address assigned to eth1 in wireless.opts is showing up with ifconfig eth1. cardctl also looks good, returns reasonable looking stuff. Now I want to try to set up a Bufallo 802.11b card in my windows laptop to use the Linux gateway. The problem is, does anybody know how to test the connection other than using Bufallo's own software? Can I assign the card to my chosen ESS and assign it an IP of my choosing and then just try to ping the eth1 card in my Linux box with DOS commands-I guess not?
Once again, any help would be much appreciated.

Ok,I have the following from lsmod:

Module Size Used by
orinoco_cs 4480 1
orinoco 32304 0 [orinoco_cs]
hermes 4912 0 [orinoco_cs orinoco]
ds 6960 1 [orinoco_cs]
i82365 27920 1
ppp_synctty 5312 0 (unused)
ppp_async 6704 1
ppp_generic 19136 3 [ppp_synctty ppp_async]
slhc 4864 0 [ppp_generic]
soundcore 3952 0 (autoclean)
binfmt_misc 5904 1
pcmcia_core 41696 0 [orinoco_cs ds i82365]
autofs 10464 0 (autoclean) (unused)
eepro100 16928 1
ipchains 33696 0
ext3 60720 1 (autoclean)
jbd 38240 1 (autoclean) [ext3]

Which seem fine to my inexperienced self? comments, positive or negative?

I have the following from ifconfig eth1:

eth1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:02:2D:A6:FA:4D
inet addr:192.168.1.5 Bcast:10.0.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
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:100
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)
Interrupt:3 Base address:0x100

Which also seem fine to my inexperienced self? comments, positive or negative?

I have the following from iwconfig eth1:

eth1 IEEE 802.11-DS ESSID:"a" Nickname:"localhost.localdomain"
Mode:Ad-Hoc Frequency:2.432GHz Cell: 02:E0:87:44:50:F1
Bit Rate:11Mb/s Tx-Power=15 dBm Sensitivity:1/3
Retry limit:4 RTS thrff Fragment thrff
Encryption keyff
Power Managementff
Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0
Rx invalid nwid:0 invalid crypt:0 invalid misc:0

I have made sure the card is in 802.11 compliant IBSS Ad-Hoc mode as opposed to demo-mode Ad-Hoc using iwpriv. I have made sure the card in the Linux box is on the same channel (10) as the one in the Windows laptop. I have made sure the Windows laptop shares the same ESSID as the Linux box and I have turned encryption off at both ends. I have manually assigned IP address 192.168.1.6 to the Windows laptop. I try 'ping 192.168.1.5' from the laptop and it times out. I try pinging the laptop, it tells me the host is unreachable. I'm a complete networking novice-are these IP addresses ok? am I pinging the right thing by pinging the card's IP address? Is there any way the firewall rules I applied when I installed redHat or roaring penguin could be stopping packets getting through? where can I check the setup of my firewall rules to see if they block eth1?

I would REALLY appreciate some suggestions, I'll try anything. Please guys, thanks.

look at
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth1

make sure that you have GATEWAY set to you gateway, guessing 192.168.1.1

also should have
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
BROADCAST=192.168.1.255

Thanks for the reply Beyer,
I eventually got it going taking a different tak.....
I set up XP on both systems and let it configure itself and noted all IP addresses. I reinstalled RedHat 7.2 on the router and decided to go against what the O'Reilly recipe states and used the kernel PCMCIA package. I let the system use wvlan.cs instead of the more fully featured orinocco driver but it does all I need. I also decided NOT to use rp-pppoe as my modem is capable of the pppoe protocol and set my eth0 to be simply a dhcp client receiving it's IP address from the modem. I just used ipconfig to give the same IP address to eth1 as XP had defaulted to and was instantly able to ping the laptop. It was only another few minutes work configuring the NAT and I am writing this from my laptop nowhere near my modem! yippee. I have a couple of questions about the NAT setup script I used and will post them elswhere as they are NOT wireless specific.
Happily sitting behind a UNIX firewall now-don't trust XP's firewall I'm afraid.
If any other newbies have any questions about my experiences I'll happily reply to emails-
murphaph@hotmail.com