Hey guys,

I'm currently trying to get my wireless connection up. I'm currently running gentoo on a Broadcom 4302 wireless card using the BCM43xx drivers. After a week of screwing around, I FINALLY got my card up and active!!! I can scan for networks and even add an ESSID, but when I try to add a wep key, I get this error:

Error for wireless request "Set Encode" (8B2A) :
SET failed on device eth1 ; Operation not supported.


So, I know my card works because when I do iwconfig essid myserver, I get


lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

sit0 no wireless extensions.

eth1 IEEE 802.11b/g ESSID:"myserver" Nickname:"Broadcom 4306"
Mode:Managed Frequency=2.447 GHz Access Point: 00:13:10:A1:9A:74
Bit Rate=11 Mb/s Tx-Power=19 dBm
RTS thrff Fragment thrff
Encryption keyff
Link Quality=136/100 Signal level=-7 dBm Noise level=-62 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:113 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0



but as soon as I try to do iwconfig eth1 key EECA962F9DE777E1F934C4E729, it gives me this error:

Error for wireless request "Set Encode" (8B2A) :
SET failed on device eth1 ; Operation not supported.



Somebody know how to fix this?

Thanks

A few ideas:
- Check your log files (the output of dmesg and /var/log/syslog and /var/log/messages) and see if bcm43xx is complaining. There might be a firmware problem.

- What file did you extract your firmware from?

- Are you root when you try to set your key? I know, I know, but I gotta ask.

-What is the output of lsmod? I'm specifically looking for the ieee80211_crypt_wep module.

- Is your kernel stock or custom? Your distro might help too.

ok, sorry about the other thread guys, it was another problem that was cause by my overall n00bness. I think gentoo while being a newbie from the windows world is a bad idea, but it has had its challenges benefits. Now I understand way more linux than if I was using my prior installation of Suse and I'll now have a super fast distro for live laptop audio performance.


Here's the bottom part of dmesg

SoftMAC: Scanning 14 channels
SoftMAC: Scanning finished
SoftMAC: Queueing Authentication Request to 00:13:10:a1:9a:74
SoftMAC: Cannot associate without being authenticated, requested authentication
SoftMAC: Sent Authentication Request to 00:13:10:a1:9a:74.
SoftMAC: Open Authentication completed with 00:13:10:a1:9a:74
SoftMAC: sent association request!
SoftMAC: associated!
ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): eth1: link becomes ready
eth1: no IPv6 routers present
eth1: could not initialize WEP: load module ieee80211_crypt_wep




lsmod ouputs the following relating to interweb stuff:

bcm43xx 429664 0
ieee80211softmac 32704 1 bcm43xx
ieee80211 44084 2 bcm43xx,ieee80211softmac
ieee80211_crypt 5952 1 ieee80211



So apparently, ieee80211_crypt_wep is not loaded. I'm fairly certain I enabled it when I recompiled my kernel yesterday, but I must of chosen it as a module.


so, I did modprobe ieee80211_crypt_wep and checked lsmod again. Here's the output:

bcm43xx 429664 0
ieee80211softmac 32704 1 bcm43xx
ieee80211 44084 2 bcm43xx,ieee80211softmac
ieee80211_crypt 5952 2 ieee80211_crypt_wep,ieee80211


So it's loaded! One would naturally think that it would work now! But...
When do iwconfig eth1 key MYNETWORDKEY, I get that blasted blasted

"Error for wireless request "Set Encode" (8B2A) :
SET failed on device eth1 ; Operation not supported."

I figured I woulda needed to restart my card, I don't really know know how, so I tried

ifconfig eth1 down

And then

ifconfig eth1 up

iwconfig eth1 essid MYROUTERSESSID


And now, the moment of judgement.....

iwconfig eth1 key MYWEPKEY

Just to be greeted with the smirking devil of an error:
Error for wireless request "Set Encode" (8B2A) :
SET failed on device eth1 ; Operation not supported.

I promptly attempted to throw my laptop against the nearest wall, but was stopped by my wallet. It's frail complexion and lack of density always could convince me not to destroy my own things.

So lastly, I am in root and my kernel is the latest "gentoo-sources" kernel from portage. gentoo-2.6.19-r5

Ideas, anyone?

After loading ieee80211_crypt_wep, you might have to reload bcm43xx. Cycle through modprobe -r bcm43xx and then modprobe bcm43xx and see if that makes a difference. I agree it is odd that ieee80211_crypt_wep didn't get loaded when bcm43xx did. On my rig, loading bcm43xx causes all the ieee80211 modules to load.

You might also check /var/log/messages and /var/log/syslog to see if bcm43xx is complaining about the firmware. At the moment, an incomplete set of firmware is my leading suspect. Any details you can provide on how you created and loaded firmware would be helpful.

Well, I just did make modules in the source folder to make sure I had done it when I recompiled the kernel. I restarted the computer and found that ieee80211_crypt_wep doesn't load up. I had to modprobe it to load it, the did rmmod bcm43xx then modprobe bcm43xx. I could do iwconfig and everything else afterwards, but I still get that STUPID error.

Here's the lsmod output after having done all this.

Module Size Used by
bcm43xx 429664 0
ieee80211_crypt_wep 5184 1
snd_seq_oss 33600 0
snd_seq_device 6928 1 snd_seq_oss
snd_seq_midi_event 7744 1 snd_seq_oss
snd_seq 55904 4 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi_event
snd_pcm_oss 43680 0
snd_mixer_oss 16320 1 snd_pcm_oss
ieee80211softmac 32704 1 bcm43xx
ieee80211 44084 2 bcm43xx,ieee80211softmac
ieee80211_crypt 5952 2 ieee80211_crypt_wep,ieee80211
nvidia 5429780 12
i2c_core 20352 1 nvidia
snd_intel8x0 33384 1
snd_ac97_codec 110872 1 snd_intel8x0
snd_ac97_bus 2944 1 snd_ac97_codec
snd_pcm 81032 3 snd_pcm_oss,snd_intel8x0,snd_ac97_codec
snd_timer 21320 2 snd_seq,snd_pcm
snd_page_alloc 8656 2 snd_intel8x0,snd_pcm


I did checked /var/log/messages and /var/log/syslog and apparently, they don't exist on my system. I dunno, you tell me, I'm running gentoo (which I'm now thinking was a bad idea...)

Here are 3 other threads on this subject but none of them have the same hardware and only the last one was solved,but I don't understand how he did it. I really don't know if this applies to me but maybe it can help you guys figure out what's wrong.

This guy uses gentoo....
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...d.php?t=445696

Gentoo again
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...d.php?t=502961

Slackware while using ndiswrapper
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...d.php?t=426606

Debian with an Atheros card (BUT HE SOLVED IT... but I don't know how to apply what he did to my setup)
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ght=%288B2A%29






Like these guys, my card reads networks fine, but it's only as soon as we add a wep key that we get the bloody error of denial!

Errors around setting a WEP key are usually a sign of a bad driver, and that is probably the common thread for the links you found. For ndiswrapper it usually means either the Windows driver doesn't work at all under ndiswrapper or it functions only moderately. For bcm43xx it is likely bad firmware. The fact that ieee80211_crypt_wep isn't loading on boot suggests that bcm43xx isn't requiring it, which tends to point to a bad driver/firmware. Which leads me back to asking this question one more time:

How did you install firmware and what file did you get it from? Just in case I'm causing confusion by not being clear, there are two parts to the bcm43xx driver. There is the bcm43xx kernel module and there are the firmware files you need to cut from a Windows driver with fwcutter. The bcm43xx driver needs both of those to function.


That sounds like you didn't do a complete Gentoo install. You really need log files in order to troubleshoot stuff like this, so you might want to investigate how to get the logging system installed.

I loosely followed this guide.

http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t...c-start-0.html

The only difference is I bcm43xx-cutter..ed it before I enable the IEE8201 in the kernel and recompiled. I'm going to cut the firware and see if that does the trick. I'll give an update.

ARG!!!!!!

lsmod outputs this after I recut the drivers and restarted:

Module Size Used by
snd_seq_oss 33600 0
snd_seq_device 6928 1 snd_seq_oss
snd_seq_midi_event 7744 1 snd_seq_oss
snd_seq 55904 4 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi_event
snd_pcm_oss 43680 0
snd_mixer_oss 16320 1 snd_pcm_oss
nvidia 5429780 12
i2c_core 20352 1 nvidia
bcm43xx 429664 0
ieee80211softmac 32704 1 bcm43xx
ieee80211 44084 2 bcm43xx,ieee80211softmac
ieee80211_crypt 5952 1 ieee80211
snd_intel8x0 33384 1
snd_ac97_codec 110872 1 snd_intel8x0
snd_ac97_bus 2944 1 snd_ac97_codec
snd_pcm 81032 3 snd_pcm_oss,snd_intel8x0,snd_ac97_codec
snd_timer 21320 2 snd_seq,snd_pcm
snd_page_alloc 8656 2 snd_intel8x0,snd_pcm


the IEEE wep crypt doesn't load!!!! ARG!!!


To be clear, I had enabled all the IEEE8211 options in menuconfig for the kernel except for TKIP, I then enabled it, recompiled and installed it. I had cut the firmware before doing any of this. I just recut the firmware and restarted to no avail.

BTW, I got the firmware from http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers/bcm43xx as listed on the tutorial.

Oh, the output of iwlist encryption is as follows

lo no encryption keys information.

eth0 no encryption keys information.

sit0 no encryption keys information.

eth1 2 key sizes : 40, 104bits
4 keys available :
[1]: off
[2]: off
[3]: off
[4]: off
Current Transmit Key: [1]
Authentication capabilities :
WPA
WPA2
CIPHER TKIP
CIPHER CCMP

So, I have no wep ability... I don't understand why wep crypt just doesn't load up.


How do I setup the log files? I followed the gentoo handbook during hte installation but I don't think there was mention of a logger

Oh, one last thing. I might of screwed up the compiling process for the kernel when I added the TKIP encryption options. Here's what I did.

After I was done with menuconfig, I did the following commands:


make clean
make mrproper

make && make modules

and then I finished with

cp arch/amd64/boot/bzImage /boot/2.6.19-gentoo-r5

Then I reboot.



I had renamed my old kernel as 2.6.19-gentoo-r5.old, so I didn't need to edit grub

I try to connect to my router, get the Essid no problem, but as soon as I try the key, it poops on me. I then promptly growl.

Ah, there may be a problem here (and I'm hoping this is it). For a 2.6.x kernel, once you've done the configuration, you only need to run make, make modules is redundant. What is missing however, is make modules_install. Your copy command moves the kernel to /boot, but there is nothing in that sequence that would move the modules to /lib/module/2.6.19-gentoo-r5. If the modules aren't in the proper directory, the kernel can't find them, it can't use them. Since you obviously do have modules, I'm guessing that at some point, you did run make modules_install (or you're still dealing with the same kernel version as you originally installed and those are the modules you're using).

Sorry, but since I'm not familiar with Gentoo, I'm going to have to punt on this one. I'd ask in a Gentoo forum, you should be able to get a good answer there.
The link you posted is good, provided you used the wl_apsta.o driver as the target for cutting. You might also want to double check the /lib/firmware directory to make sure that the firmware files were indeed copied into there.

I just did make modules_install, restarted and got the same damn thing. Wep crypt didn't load and I got that stupid error!!
So I recompiled my kernel another time, and noticed that beside the IEE21.. box for WEP there was --- instead of < >, but when I went to the top of the IEEE21 list and chose it to load up with the kernel, that prior option became selectable. So I compiled the kernel with all the IEEE options selected to be compiled with the kernel and not as seperate modules.

I did make and make modules and make modules_install and compied the image over, renamed it to the current kernel and restarted.

STILL GOT THE ERROR!

I'm contemplation going to Ubuntu because this is getting out of hand...

Sorry, but I missed this before, copying over just the bzImage isn't enough. You also need to copy over the System.map file. Also, double check that you're actually booting from /boot/2.6.19-gentoo-r5 and not just /boot.


Beyond that, any advice I would give would only be a complete guess. I suspect something went wrong during the Gentoo install, but without the system logs to look at, we aren't going to find out what. So if the above doesn't work, I'd suggest either spending time getting the system logs to work (that is probably best done at the Gentoo forum) or move to Ubuntu.

Ok, I'll give that a go and post an update. I was just so excited about have a custom made kernel compiled for my system for the best possible audio processing and fastest setup available on my hardware, but it's really been hell to set up. I think I'm going to go to Kunbuntu for a few months and see how it goes. If I get better at linux, I'll go back to Gentoo.

But I'll try copying over system map.