Interesting. Are you inserting the dirver first or second? You might try reversing the order.

Not sure what's changed in 2.4.21-xx so it *could* be that. Possibly and IRQ thing?

regarding WEP ...
unless I'm reading it wrong the card only does 40 and 104?? Still working on that one.

I've installed the driver first, then the priv_part.o. Doing it the other way gives alltypes of errors for priv_part not finding symbols it needs in the driver. So I've tried both ways.

I didn't realize that the 2.4.21 kernel was still in release candidates (strange now that i think about it that mandrake decided to use it when it wasn't a stable release).

I don't think it's an IRQ thing, but I could easily be wrong. The PCMCIA slot seems to be Cardbus (not sure what that implies exactly...) and there are many devices assigned to IRQ, though in different memory regions. It seemed fine to me from what I could understand of the PCI and PCMCIA howto's, but I'm not completely sure.

It's too bad that the priv_part.o isn't open source. Oh well.

Thanks,
steven

As far as the WEP goes, 40 = 64bit and 104=128bit, its some silly translation between hex and ascii or somesuch, I've never read up on it, but don' worry, it follows the standard. Steven and ucntcme, could you guys for posterity's sake, post the exact command list, front to back from ifconfig through all of the iwpriv commands to get the card up?

Also, a back note on iwpriv, Jean Tournhilles (I butchered that name again), wrote the kernel wireless configuration API so driver writers could add in driver specific commands if they wanted to, technically for non-802.11b spec stuff like monitor mode for packet sniffing. This guy went halfway and instead of just not working with the kernel API like the www.linux-wlan.net project, he just made every configuration aspect work through iwpriv and be specific to his driver.

Hey, whatever works...

I've been following this dialogue with interest, wish I had $40 to plunk down on a 4th wireless card, but right now I need another one of those around like I need a cat growing out of my chin.

Cheers,

Finegan

My initializing script:
--------------------------------------
insmod rtl8180_24x.o
insmod -f priv_part.o
iwpriv wlan0 enable
iwpriv wlan0 wlan_para networktype=infra
iwpriv wlan0 wlan_para wepmode=off
ifconfig wlan0 192.168.1.16
route add default gw 192.168.1.13
----------------------------
if running on dhcp drop the ifconfig, and do:
dhclient wlan0

That's it?!?! No bizarre magic and 14 bizarre "iwpriv" commands? Turn off WEP and activate the device, that's all...

That's anti-climatic, like the run-up to Episode I anti-climatic.

Cheers,

Finegan

Yeah, that's it. In fact, the priv_part seems to only be necessary if you do *not* recompile the driver. I just tried w/o priv_part, and am posting through the link!

And yeah, that is episode 1 level anticlimactic. Here I was hoping to wind up with this really cool hack ... well at least it's working and I can be happy about that. I should have WEP in about 5-10 minutes, presuming I ge tit right. Then I'll be looking at Kismet and other wireless profiling tools. :^)

Well, still no luck here. I keep getting crashes if I use either just the driver or with priv_part.o. I'm downloading 2.4.20 kernel and will try compiling it to see if the different kernel is the issue.

Sidenote: The driver compiled for Suse that got circulated here is now up on realtek's website (http://www.realtek.com.tw) for 8180.

Wish I'd found this thread earlier, would have saved me a lot
of hassle. But I thought I'd add my info, just as an extra
data point.

I've managed to get this (mostly) working on my elderly
RH 7.1 system with these package versions:
kernel-2.4.20-13.7
kernel-pcmcia-cs-3.1.27-18
hotplug-2001_04_24-11
wireless-tools-21-1
and the Suse version of the driver from the RealTek
site (it matched my kernel version, the RH version didn't).

Neither cardmgr nor the hotplug stuff recognizes the card
when it's plugged in, so the driver doesn't get loaded
automatically. However, the "wlanup" script provided
with the driver does an explicit "insmod", and that
seems to work fine (I don't need to use "-f" or to load
the "priv_part.o" separately).

My "wlanup" script now looks like this:
---snip---
#Load module
/sbin/insmod rtl8180_24x.o

#Set SSID
/sbin/iwpriv wlan0 wlan_para ssid2scan=linksys
/sbin/iwpriv wlan0 wlan_para networktype=infra
/sbin/iwpriv wlan0 wlan_para channel=6

#Enable wireless lan driver
/sbin/iwpriv wlan0 enable

---snip---

Running this starts the "wlan0" device and somehow drives
the "ifup" script magic on RedHat, so I added a new
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-wlan0:
---snip---
DEVICE=wlan0
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
GATEWAY=192.168.1.1
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
PEERDNS=yes
ONBOOT=no
---snip---
to get everything set up.

So I can now connect to my LinkSys BEFW11S4 router
and thru to the DSL line. Performance seems pretty good.

I've now been messing around trying to get WEP working,
so far unsuccessfully. A couple of points for others trying
the same path:
- There's really no 'encmode' parameter, despite what
the readme and 'wlan_para help' text say.
- Edit the 'r8180_if.c' file and change the definition of
'wlan_debug' to:
char wlan_debug=RTL_DDEBUG_OUTINFO | RTL_DDEBUG_ERR | RTL_DDEBUG_INFO;
Rebuild the driver, and it will then spit out a lot more stuff
to the log. I'm currently trying to decipher some of it.

More news as it becomes available :-)

Hmm, spoke too soon, now WEP (64bit, aka 40bit) seems to
be working. Added these to my wlanup script:
---snip---
/sbin/iwpriv wlan0 wlan_para authtype=sharedkey
/sbin/iwpriv wlan0 wlan_para wepmode=wep40
/sbin/iwpriv wlan0 wlan_para wepdkeyid=0
/sbin/iwpriv wlan0 wlan_para wepkey40_1=8888888888
/sbin/iwpriv wlan0 wlan_para wepkey40_2=9999999999
/sbin/iwpriv wlan0 wlan_para wepkey40_3=aaaaaaaaaa
/sbin/iwpriv wlan0 wlan_para wepkey40_4=bbbbbbbbbb
---snip---

I had been choosing the wrong default key (wepdkeyid),
my router numbers them 1-4, but the driver accepts 0-3
instead. Doh!

BTW, that debug stuff I mentioned in a previous post
can be turned off at run-time with:
/sbin/iwpriv wlan0 msglevel 1
Looks like you ought to be able to turn it back up (without
even re-building the way I did), but I can't figure out the
right number to send in.

OK, now to deal with turning off SSID broadcasting on
the router...

Okay...most everything that was posted here, I did not understand in the least. I have the same card, but I run SuSE 8.1. When I insert my card, it is recognized as a Realtek Ethernet Controller in my Network Card Configuration utility. The problem is, that it does not have any options for being wireless. I cannot set up my ssid, or anything.
I am completely new to wifi, and completely lost. HELP

Note they have it for RH8 and RH7.3 as well.

Well, I'm only about a week ahead of you in wi-fi, but
I'll try to summarize what I've learned.

The WPC11 V4 uses a new chipset (the RealTek 8180), and
so is not yet supported "out-of-the-box" by any Linux
distribution. Even though the card can tell Linux it's
a RealTek Ethernet card, Linux doesn't have the necessary
code ("driver") to make use of the card.

So you can:
(a) Return the card and get a different one. My WPC11 V4 came
in a bundle with a router, and there's a little note in the box
saying something like "V4 doesn't work with Windows NT, if
you want to exchange it for a V3, call LinkSys". So presumably
they're prepared for such returns.
or:
(b) Download a driver that RealTek has made available
and add it to your Linux system. The driver's a little odd
to configure and use, but several people have gotten it
to work.

To get the driver, go to the RealTek site
http://www.realtek.com.tw
search for "8180", and follow the resulting "Downloads link".
Download one of the Linux packages into a temporary directory
on your system and unzip it.

Edit the "wlanup" script that's there and change the
"ssid2scan" line to name your SSID. You might also
want to add lines like these:
/sbin/iwpriv wlan0 wlan_para networktype=infra
/sbin/iwpriv wlan0 wlan_para channel=6
(assuming your router is in infrastructure mode and
broadcasting on channel 6).

Finally, just try it out:
$ su
Password: <whatever>
# ./wlanup

If it doesn't seem to work, post back here with whatever
output you get, along with any messages from /var/log/messages
that look relevant, and the output of "/sbin/ifconfig".

Hope this helps.

Okay, I do all that, easy enough. I have configured my wlanup script to reflect all of my network options. Now, I am not sure what kind of network type I am running. I used all of the basic options during my Linksys router configuration, and set my network name to linksys, since we are the only wireless family in the neighborhood its aight. I dont have any wep set up as of yet, so that couldnt be fouling it up. When i run wlanup, it tells me that the module is loaded and displays this

cap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:06:25:2C:36:20
inet addr:192.168.1.180 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::206:25ff:fe2c:3620/10 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:4 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:4 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)
Interrupt:11 Base address:0x4800

Now, it appears to me that everything went okay. The little link light on my card is now flashing, but not strong. I dont think that it can see my network broadcast. But I dont know, you tell me.

Sounds like you've got the wireless part working, now it's
just a matter of getting the actual networking stuff (IP address,
routes, DHCP if necessary, etc) going.

This odd driver exposes itself (so to speak) via some
special files. If you "cat /proc/rtl8180/status", it should show
you something like:

************ Current driver status ************
rtl8180_pci_driver loaded.
MacAddr = 00:06:25:xx:xx:xx
ioaddr = 0x4000
irq = 10


-- RTL8180 Link status --

Channel number = 6
beacon period = 100
BSSID = 0x00 0x06 0x25 0xhh 0xhh 0xhh
SSID = 0x6c(l) 0x69(i) 0x6e(n) 0x6b(k) 0x73(s) 0x79(y) 0x73(s)
Capability = 0x11
AID = 0x01
Operational rate = <1><2><5.5><11>Mbps

That BSSID should be the MAC address of your router, so
that would indicate you really are connected. Try using
your web browser to connect into the routers admin interface,
probably http://192.168.1.1

If something like "ping 64.179.4.146" fails, then you
probably have to set up your route table to go through
your router:
/sbin/route add default gw 192.168.1.1 wlan0

Others here will be better qualified than me to talk about
routing, it all just sort of fell into place on my RH 7.1 system
once I got the wireless bits working.

Hope this helps.