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Old 06-20-2004, 03:41 PM   #1
SilverGator
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Wireless - can't connect to access point


Hi all, so I'm out of my normal area for the summer and my only internet access is wireless through an old laptop. I have a wireless network card but I'm having trouble connecting to a router / access point in Linux (Slackware 9.1). The drivers are installed fine (thanks to linuxant). The problem is finding the router.

At home, I was able to connect through Linux by adding the following lines to the top of my /etc/pcmcia/wireless.opts (just under the 'case "$ADDRESS" in' line):

*,*,*,<my router's MAC address>)
INFO="My Netgear Router"
ESSID="any"
MODE="Managed"
RATE="auto"
KEY="<my router's encryption key>"
CHANNEL="<my router's channel>"
;;

The odd thing was, I could not force my card to connect to *my* router. The best result I could get was connecting to a router belonging to someone else in my building (even though the information I entered was for my router). Yet, if I removed that chunk of code, I could no longer connect at all.

Now in my new location (as I said, I'm not at home for the summer), I can't connect at all. I'm now using a friend's router/access point instead of mine. I am able to use the wireless card to connect to the access point using Windows - this tells me (1) my wireless NIC is still working, and (2) all the information I need to know about the access point.

I've tried changing the information listed above (router's MAC address, channel, etc.) to match the new router / access point, but it doesn't work. One thing maybe of note is the new access point I need to connect to does not use encryption (but then, neither did the one I was able to connect to at my old location).

Does anyone know of a way I can modify this (or do something else) to get on the internet through Linux? Right now I'm stuck on Windows because I need internet access. That's annoying enough, but I'm also taking a summer course where the homework has to be done in Linux - which means I'm rebooting between Windows and Linux constantly.

Thanks in advance.
 
Old 06-20-2004, 03:43 PM   #2
david_ross
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Moved: This thread is more suitable in Wireless Networking and has been moved accordingly to help your thread/question get the exposure it deserves.
 
Old 06-20-2004, 04:49 PM   #3
Hangdog42
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I guess the main question is do the setting you have in your wireless.opts file get used by the card? Does the output of iwconfig match your settings? If they don't, maybe try setting up the card with iwconfig commands.
 
Old 06-20-2004, 06:16 PM   #4
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Ok I'm trying to get it working using iwconfig. How can I tell iwconfig and/or ifconfig to use DHCP to get my IP address instead of statically assigning it?
 
Old 06-20-2004, 07:07 PM   #5
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By the way, I did some tests and the answer is no, the wireless.opts file does not affect the iwconfig settings. I was able to set iwconfig through iwconfig itself, but no success connecting so far. Perhaps because I chose my IP address statically when I should be getting it dynamically.

Here is what I tried:
ifconfig eth0 <IP address> # last IP address I was assigned dynamically
iwconfig eth0 mode managed rate 11M channel 6
iwconfig essid <essid name>
route add default gw <gateway IP address> eth0

I'm not too sure about the "rate 11M" option but I tried without that and it didn't help. Also, the mode on my Windows connection manager shows up as "infra" but there's no option for that in iwconfig. I know that the other settings are correct.
 
Old 06-21-2004, 07:48 AM   #6
Hangdog42
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You should be able to set your IP address manually, but it could be that your gateway is not set. Anyway, here is what I do (I actually run these commands from a startup script):

iwconfig wlan0 essid MyEssid
iwconfig wlan0 key MyWEPKey
dhcpcd wlan0
ifconfig wlan0 up

Note that I don't set my channel, or rate and I don't seem to need to set my mode. Try issuing these commands from a console and run iwconfig to make sure they are set.

Quote:
Also, the mode on my Windows connection manager shows up as "infra" but there's no option for that in iwconfig
That's just windows-speak for managed mode I think. Basically all wireless connections are either managed mode or ad-hoc and the vast majority of people don't want ad-hoc.
 
  


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