WEP passphrase

cclavey · 07-26-2003, 06:52 PM

Well, I am kinda between a rock and a hard place. My dad insists that we put a 128 WEP key on our wireless network. The question is, how can I input the WEP passphrase with Linux? I am running SuSE 8.2 personal and Slack 9. I can either put in the passphrase or convert the passphrase to hexidecimal, if anyone knows how to do that.

Thanks

cclavey · 07-26-2003, 07:36 PM

Update: Ok, I figured out how to enter the code in hexidecimal, which I did. So, I put it in using "iwconfig eth0 key XXXXXXX (etc)". So, then I do dhcpcd eth0. The lights on the card start flashing and then, after about 5 mintues, they stop and go out. I tried this two or three times. So, now, my question is, what am I doing wrong? This WEP on my dad's windoze laptop, and on my windoze hd, but not on Slack or on my SuSE box. Any ideas? Thanks.

finegan · 07-27-2003, 02:03 PM

Its failing to get a lease as the router is working under a passphrase created WEP key and the client is working on a straight, manually entered WEP key. Right now wireless tools, "iwconfig" and the kids don't support passphrase hashing (as its actually "windows" passphrase hasing and has nothing to do with the 802.11 standards). There has to be a way you can hand enter a hex key into the wireless router, then you can iwconfig the client to match.

Cheers,

Finegan

cclavey · 07-27-2003, 02:07 PM

So, if I enter the hex on the router end of things instead of doing it with the passphrase, then it might work? I think the windows utility will let me do that. Thanks mate

cclavey · 07-27-2003, 04:59 PM

Ok, well, I got it to work on my Slack box (Slack pulls through as usual) with little problem. This was using the atmel wlan driver tool lvnet for my WUSB11. I can not, however, seem to get it to work on my SuSE box. I try iwconfig eth0 enc XXXXX and with hyphens and with colons, but the jerk wont work. Any ideas what I can/should do differently?

mlp68 · 07-27-2003, 09:22 PM

I use nwepgen which is part (at least that's how I got it) of the linux-wlan-ng project (http://www.linux-wlan.org/). It will convert the passphrase to a hex key according to some "Neesus" standard.

Quote:

# nwepgen hello 13
cc:e5:5c:5c:21:b8:b1:3b:2a:ec:68:5b:40
84:4e:e0:49:e3:06:75:94:27:09:3d:04:b9
ec:0c:71:22:e2:d8:4b:21:81:6a:80:fa:c9
59:a0:10:62:39:40:b6:25:10:9c:43:de:09

I don't know too much about neesus except that it's a company big in the wireless market so they seem to have hashed out some industry standard how to make a hex key out of a passphrase.

Hope it helps,
mlp