hey all,

I'm sure this has been posted on 30003453 times before across the various forums...though I've spent the last day searching for the necessary information without much luck. It's getting rather disheartening and my add is kicking in.

After quite a lot of work I have gotten my d-link dwl-g520 pci wireless card working, using the madwifi driver. I am running gentoo on an old athlon setup, and using the 2.6.9-r3 kernel (can't update without syncing portage).

So where do I go next? I have the drivers working, and the device recognized by the system; iwconfig ath0 returns some stuff that is really nice to see. The wireless router I am trying to connect to has been encrypted and a password needed to be entered to access it. I am fairly new to the wireless land, and the plethora of varying information and lack of standarization makes it very difficult to understand and figure out.

On my ibook laptop I need to tell the airport card to use the WEP 40/128-bit ASCII when I entered the password. Any light in my otherwise dark room is much appreciated! If anything a link or other direction to something I may have missed.

THANKS~

I use 64-bit encryption. When I tried 128 I had problems so I just went the easy route. Here's what I do to make my card work:
iwconfig ath0 mode Managed
iwconfig ath0 essid <name>
ifconfig ath0 <ip_address> netmask <netmask) up
route add default gw <gateway_ip>
ifconfig ath0 key <key_here>
iwconfig ath0 rate <11M, 54M, etc>

Maybe that will help you.

thanks for the info~

I'm going to try to get the needed information inside windows, then try these commands. I know I have had luck with a few of them...mainly setting the essid name. I have tried the password (curtesy of man iwconfig for future information), though I can't test it out till I can get an ip setup and stuff.

Is it possible to use dhcp to get this information from the wireless router, more or less automatically?

How about setting up wireless on boot? I can't imagine we haven't a way to have it done everytime on boot...

:-D

thanks

Whatever you end up doing to make this card work for you, add those commands to /etc/rc.d/rc.local or whatever your equivalen 'local' file is.
As for dhcp, try skipping everything regarding the IP. Once ifconfig shows an adapter (I'm guessing here as I'm not on my laptop) you can then issue the dhcp command (dhcp eth0 or dhcp ath0). That should work but I can't say with 100% certainty. Try dhcp --help if you need to but yes, you can get automatic settings from your router. I just like using static at first so that I can rule out that part of it if things don't work. I also turn off encryption until I get it working so that then I can be sure any further problems are in my key settings.

hey...back again

I'm still having problems with this. I have tried your suggestions, and all of the other things that I can come up with.

Here's what I'm doing and what I get (first I got the ip I have gotten from the router, from within windows)

modprobe wlan, ath-hal, and ath-pci (in that order)
iwconfig ath0 essid "myid"
iwconfig "myip" (it seems like iwconfig wants me to use quotes)
route add default gw 192.168.1.1
iwconfig ath0 key s:mykey
then I use iwconfig ath0 to see how things look between each command.

So what I get from this?
First: trying to set my ip with iwconfig doesn't seem to work. and even though I think I get "connected" to the router, dhcpcd ath0 seems to work, but when I try ifconfig ath0, I don't see an ip. Inaddition, trying to add/set the gateway returns the error:
SIOCADDRT: network is unreachable

Aside from these two things, I have sucessfully set the device, router and key. After doing all of that, iwconfig ath0 shows signs that it is connected in some way to the router...or maybe just receiving a signal.
iwconfig ath0 shows the router, the "Acess Point" changed from FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF to a seemingly correct value (00:E0:98:C2:E1:42), link quality went from 0/94 to 20/94 and bitrate went from 0 to 1mb/s

the router has a wep (I believe) password enabled (I had to enter a password when I set this up on my ibook). I know it would be easier if I turned this off, though I don't have that luxury. Blah.

Any ideas? I've kinda lost it on this one. I must be doing something wrong. Thanks!

(sorry for the long post)

did you include the 'up' in iwconfig "myip" like I showed above? Are the modules you loaded what madwifi said to load in the README file? You seem to be close so just keep trying.

using "up" in iwconfig is not an option, I get an "unrerognized value" sort of error, and I don't see any "up" option in the man page. I have to use ifconfig ath0 up for the card to use the essid key and rate settings I specify using iwconfig.

I am close. I think the problem lies in encryption. I need to tell it to use a peticular type of encryption, but I haven't, so it's trying to use something different from what the router uses. I have seen snippets of info on this but nothing specific. Any ideas?

Oops! My bad. I edited the above instructions and it should read
ifconfig ath0 <ip> netmask <netmask> up
Try that. IF you still get errors, lose the encryption just to check it out. Should work.

When you get it working you can also try:
iwlist ath0 scan
to scan for access points.

ok well some more news...maybe you or someone else has some ideas.

The device works wonderfully. The router not so well. Unfortunately it isn't my router, and I can't do anything TO it. (I would have disabled the encryption if I could have). So using:
iwconfig ath0 essid "router" key s: mypassword rate "54M" && ifconfig ath0 up

then using iwconfig ath0 everything looks good. Though ifconfig ath0 shows no ip. using ifconfig 192.168.1.44 up I get nothing. (ip from the dhcp lease the system obtained when in winows, which has been the same for the past few days, and will be good until tomorrow) ifconfig ath0 will show an ip, though I'm not really connected. And dhcpcd ath0 does not seem to work correctly.

While in windows I noticed some interesting things...when I connected to the network, windows had to "repair" the connection...it wasn't really given an ip and all the proper information. I am running windows server 2003, though I don't think it makes a difference, xp is very similar (so don't be scared if you have never seen server 2k3). If I left the unrepaired connection everything would be fixed by windows after a short delay. Another interesting thing...the wireless connection works WONDERFULLY from my ibook. I get 100% siganl strength. This is on a westel dsl/wireless router.

I am stumped. I don't know what the problem is...I am suspecting the router, but everything works wonderfully from my ibook...I plan to hit some windows networking forum...though I don't know if I'll get any where.

Thanks for the help so far :O)

any networking gurus have any ideas?

I'm getting confused as to exactly what commands you're using so far. Can you just show exactly what you're using? Is the key 128-bit? Did you try entering it without the "s:"?

this is what I'm doing...

modprobe wlan, ath-hal, and ath-pci on boot
iwconfig ath0 essid "43oriole" key s:mypassword rate "54M" && ifconfig ath0 up
then dhcpcd ath0 (I have also tried dhcpcd ath0 -h 'hostname')

I have also tried using ifconfig ath0 (ip) up in place of dhcpcd. I have double checked my key with an online conversion tool. The key is 5 characters, not a very good password (router isn't mine). I had to specify wep 128bit ascII in osx to use the text version of the key.

If you're using static addresses I'm pretty sure a netmask might help; a gateway would be nice too.
If you're using 128-bit, the key has to be 16 characters I believe. I use 64-bit and mine has to be 10 for it to work. Maybe I'm wrong...my router automatically generates a key for me and that's the length of them. I use them exactly as shown and I can connect to mine.
I have no idea what to tell you at this point. The instructions I gave above, exactly as I gave them, work for me. That's all I know. Good luck!

well I thank you for the help!

I will only need to use this wireless network for the next 2 weeks (home on college break). I will just get by updating linux through downloads done in linux.

I find it amusing...but right now, the signal strength is so terrible in windows, so instead, I use my ibook (which gets a great signal) to share that connection to windows via a wired connection. Crazy eh~

Eventually, when I get back to school, I will use this card in an access point. Whether or not the card will handle that is yet to be found, though it's looking promising.

Anyway, I really appreciate the time you have given me!

You're welcome. Hope it works out for you.