Linux - Wireless NetworkingThis forum is for the discussion of wireless networking in Linux.
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Just as a disclaimer I am a newbie to Linux. I am having trouble with my Linksys Instant Wireless PC card WPC11 after installing Suse 9.0. Actually I am having trouble with it after turning on the WEP encryption. After the initial install I didn't have WEP encryption turned on and was able to use the graphical configuration under Kwifimanager to set up the connection to my access point and get onto the internet with no problems. I then turned on the 40 bit encryption on the Linksys router and tried to change the settings under Suse to use the encryption (doesn't seem to have anything to differentiate between 40 bit and 128 bit encryption). I also tried it with the 128 bit encryption set on the router. That is when the problems started. It didn't seem to connect after that so I turned off the encryption on the router and in the Suse configuration but after doing so I was still unable to connect to the internet. I could see with Kwifimanager that it was seeing the network as I could see the signal was strong and showing the correct managed mode but I was unable to ping the router. I could probably get it working again if I re-installed but I would rather learn how to set it up correctly and learn from whatever I did wrong to mess it up. Here is some info I have seen similar posts asking for:
linux:/ # iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.
wlan0 IEEE 802.11-DS ESSID:"Network" Nickname:"linux"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.457GHz Access Point: 44:44:44:44:44:44
Bit Rate:2Mb/s Tx-Power=15 dBm Sensitivity:1/3
Retry min limit:8 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xx Security mode:restricted
Power Management:off
Link Quality:0/92 Signal level:134/153 Noise level:134/153
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0
(of course the encryption keys have been x'ed out and network name changed for paranoia reasons)
Thanks in advance for any help you can give me that would prevent me from having to re-install.
It's been a bit since I had time to try anything but here's the story.....After changing ifcfg-wlan0 as beyer42 had suggested except for the 40 bit encryption part the WPC11 blinked and wouldn't go solid connect. I tried turning off the encryption on the router and then turning if off in the settings and restarting but it still blinked with no solid connect. I then tried using suseplugger to "eject" the WPC11 but it just froze up. I then pulled the card hot and reseated it. At this point it came up and connected ok without the encryption. I then set the key as tomasj19 suggested and turned the encryption back on in the router. Wifimanager seemed to see the router and showed signal but I couldn't get to the internet through Konqueror. I tried to ping the router and got network not reachable right away. I tried to open up the configuration under wifimanager and immediately the WPC11 started blinking again. So now I am back at step 1. Any suggestions?
Ok so after I made the last post (in w2k) I rebooted to linux and the WPC11 light was solid connect. I changed the ifcfg-wlan-pcmcia file to remove the key. But I didn't restart networking (not that I know how to yet from the command line anyway). I then opened Konqueror and connected immediately to linuxquestions.org. So the key line in ifcfg-wlan-pcmcia didn't seem to have any effect. Now I really don't know what to do to get encryption working. Just for comparison here are the now working (without encryption) iwconfig, ifconfig and ifcfg-wlan-pcmcia:
linux:/etc/sysconfig/network # iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.
wlan0 IEEE 802.11-DS ESSID:"Network" Nickname:"linux"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.442GHz Access Point: 00:06:25:6D:67:35
Bit Rate:11Mb/s Tx-Power=15 dBm Sensitivity:1/3
Retry min limit:8 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality:70/92 Signal level:-32 dBm Noise level:-149 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0
The IP of the router is the default 192.168.0.1 but I don't know how to find my wlan-pcmcia ip from the command line in linux (still learning). I believe it to be 192.168.0.100 from the info in my last post but I don't know what command would tell me that for sure. What is the linux approximate equivalent of ipconfig /all? I'm betting its ifconfig.
Ok I can connect to the internet without encryption turned on but when I turn encryption on in the router and then change ifcfg-wlan-pcmcia to include the key I then can't connect to the internet any longer. The WPC11 gives solid connect and Wifimanager shows that it sees the router. However when I try to ping the router it says network unavailable. Here is all the settings and results:
I only see a small number of TX (transmit) packets being sent and a relatively large number of errors.
This leads me to believe (given that the gateway IP address is correct) that the problem is with your specification of the key.
KEY='restricted [1] xxxxxxxxxx'
don't add the s: in front of the key.
Once you get the settings configured by hand in the configuration file(s) you won't need to use any Manager programs to setup or use your wireless interface.
Ok I tried changing the WIRELESS_KEY='s:xxxxxxxx' to WIRELESS_KEY ='restricted [1] xxxxxxxx' and then used suseplugger to restart networking. The WPC11 began flashing showing no connection after that. I changed the setting back to 's:xxxxxxxx' and used suseplugger again to restart but it was still flashing no connect. I then tried rebooting and the WPC11 went solid connect again but still had nothing under route -n. I think I'll try to manually input the hex value of the key and try again. By the way what are the commands to start and stop networking from the shell?
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Suse 9.0 Linksys WPC11
