tuning wireless configuration Slackware 12.0
 

Just wondering what advice the Slackware gurus out there can give me on wireless configuration. I switch often between different wireless networks -- some with WEP encryption, some without, and am looking for some help making switching easier. A this point I find myself having to constantly re-edit /etc/rc.d/rc.wireless.conf in order to get an internet connection. I typically re-edit rc.wireless.conf with WEP key #1 or #2 or no key, then restart /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1, then openup wifi-ranger and connect from there. If I leave out one of those steps I can't seem to get a connection, unless I happen to be booting up in the place with the WEP key already listed in wireless.conf. There's got to be a better way to do this kind of thing, right?

Thanks,
-geomatt

You could take a look at Wireless Assistant : http://www.kde-apps.org/content/show...095d4011ef985f

Or WiFi Radar : http://wifi-radar.systemimager.org/

I got a rather simple 20 line script that does the whole sha-bang for me, take a look at my signature, go to that page and look up wireless and then let me know how you made out.

- Perry

Thanks for the suggestions. I am already using wifi-radar (sorry, that was a typo in the original post where I said "wifi-ranger"). What I am after is a way of using it more effectively in combination with the native Slackware configuration scripts. It can be run in daemon mode right? How can that be setup to play nicely with the Slackware scripts? Or is it possible to use wifi-radar instead of rc.inet1?

-geomatt

Well...
 

In light of how much trouble (i thought) it take for me to setup wireless on my system, not having to fool around with rc.wireless or rc.wireless.conf is like a breath of fresh air. I'm using ndiswrapper, and ndiswrapper is handling all the details for me. If your wireless comes with an .inf file, seriously look into what I'm suggesting. I'm not sure what your looking for other than that.

I got it easy,
Doesn't get any simpler... if it does, let me know!

Cheers

- Perry

ps.
as far as wep is concerned, /sbin/iwconfig can help you with that. perhaps you can elaborate on a version of rc.wlan0 that would take two parameters with the 2nd specifying the type of encryption to use..!

Perry,
Thanks! Didn't see your post -- I must've been responding to was responding to witz while you were writing. I'll look through your info on setting up wireless config stuff tomorrow when I am more awake than now... My NIC is an Intel 3945 mini pci card and I have a driver that seems to work fine. Isn't ndiswrapper a tool for using windows drivers under linux?

Cheers and good night!
-geo

You don't want to edit the network configuration files (rc.inet1.conf or rc.wireless.conf) yet you advise people to edit the Slackware init scripts themselves (rc.M and rc.6)?
That way, every time you upgrade parts of Slackware you run the risk that your modified rc.M and rc.6 are overwritten and you loose your wireless access. Plus you indicate that your home-made script only allows for unencrypted networks, WEP and WPA envryption are not supported by your script.

And yet it is so simple to add wireless configuration to rc.inet1.conf ... without having to write additional scripts, or hack the Slackware init scripts.

An example:
Suppose you have a wireless card. Either it gets detected by UDEV and a driver for it is loaded automatically, or (in the case of ndiswrapper) you need to load the driver yourself.
If you need to load the wireless driver, you add a single line to the end of the file /etc/rc.d/rc.modules like this (example is for ndiswrapper):
This guarantees that your card is properly working by the time the wireless/network configuration script kicks in.
Now for that configuration; suppose the wireless card is known as wlan0, it uses DHCP, the Access Point has an ESSID name of "any" which means any Access Point will do, the encryption is off, then an entry in rc.inet1.conf will look like:
I picked 'slot' number 4 but any unused one is OK for you to use usually, only 'slot' 0 is being used for eth0)
Now, add WEP encryption with a passphrase of "mysecret" for an access point called "wolfram" and the above will look like:
And if instead this Access Point uses WPA encryption, the section will look like:
and you have to add your ESSID and Pre-Shared Key (the WPA key) to the file /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf

If you configured WPA on your Access Point using a passphrase, then it is simple to calculate the WPA PSK using wpa_passphrase: this command will generate a few lines of output which you can directly paste into /etc/wpa_Supplicant.conf. Example:
Some more information about configuring your wireless network in my Wiki.

Eric

Eric,
Thanks for the suggestions as well. How would you handle the multiple access points issue (some encrypted, some not) with a minimum amount of reconfiguring things?

-geo

Alien Bob already gave you your answer:
Use wpa_supplicant to configure network settings (both encrypted and unencrypted) and use the third version of rc.inet1.conf (the one with wpa encryption - with the line WLAN_WPA[4]="wpa_supplicant" ).

OK. I'm new to wpa_supplicant. Guess I should do my homework on it. :)
-geo

Your being a little unfair...!
 

We are talking about wireless communications here not Internet, not Network.

When I went out and asked the Internet how to setup wireless communications on my system all I got was volumns and volumns of information and one fireworks show after another on how to setup wireless!

Sitting back and shooting at me because (as an option) you would make an addition to rc.M & rc.6 is only manditory and a major part of using the Linux kernel the way it was meant to be used. To simple additions as outlined are all thats required and then you never have to look back.

Further as far as using Windows drivers are concerned, I have been told that under ndiswrapper they are far more reliable that native wireless support provided for Linux to date. Further, the developers of those drivers could only wish that they had something as reliable as Linux to write their drivers for. Writing software for hardware is an exact discipline that requires skill. So using Windows drivers by way of ndiswrapper is simply a matter of rescuing the efforts of a lot of skill, hardworking engineers (with or without the ring).

My advice is simpler and by way of iwconfig, wep encryption can be configured to the users descretion. Given the flaky nature of wireless encryption there is not much point in providing much of a standard way to do that do the issues involved.

For a new user to Linux, my way is simpler and therefore superior!

Cheers

- Perry

Well you asked for it... I am going to answer you here, and further discussion should take place on Freenode's ##slackware IRC channel as far as I am concerned.

Well then instead of asking The Internet you could have asked here, and I would have given the same advice as I just did in this thread...

I think you need to realize that 'wireless' equals 'networking' and on a Linux box, Internetworking and LAN networking is essentially the same thing. This is also the reason that you can use rc.inet1.conf as the single source of all your network configuration... wireless and non-wireless; encrypted as well as non-encrypted.

On the contrary - you propose a hack to Slackware system files which run the risk of being overwritten by the next package upgrade, whereas I show how to use the Slackware way of configuring your wireless card - and by doing it like this you do not have to write a single line of shell script to support it. Now that is a one-time edit and then never look back!
And um, pardon me... "using the Linux kernel the way it was meant to be used", what does that have to do with it?

Whoever told you that wireless networking under ndiswrapper is far more reliable and stable than the native drivers may now bow his head in shame. The ndiswrapper is a hack so that a Linux box can use a wireless card even if the manufacturer refuses to release the hardware specs, and is arrogant enough that only Windows drivers are offered. Ndiswrapper is well-known for kernel stacksize problems where the kernel crashes in the wireless driver because the Linux kernel was never meant to co-operate with Windows code - the Windows driver needs a much larger stacksize for some cards (some run in 32K) than the 8K of the Slackware kernel and under high network load you will experience crashes.
A native Linux driver is almost always the preferable. Almost: because some native drivers need time to mature and get equipped with enough features to make them useable.
I respect the authors of open source wireless drivers much more than any company refusing to support anything but the MS Windows platform.

You're a new user to Slackware Linux and try to find your own solutions to the problems you encounter. I think that is good. You will learn a lot.
But your solutions are not always the proper, or the best, or the most elegant, or the simplest. Your other thread in this forum shows that several times - you should not tell people to use Vector Linux as a Slackware rescue disk when the Slackware boot disk can do all the rescuing you need.

In this case of the wireless support, you wrote a script, and hacked two system files, when all that was needed was editing the configuration files Slackware offers you on a plate. I've just shown you how simple it is. Both ways work equally well, let that much be clear, but your way lacks encryption support and is targeted at your specific machine.

Eric

Hi all,

I'm new to this too, and I'm wondering if I'm missing something fundamental. So here is a very basic question:

Is it possible to log onto open networks like at my local pizza shop or Borders book store without knowing the details of how their wireless access point is configured and/or editing configuration files on my hard drive?

Regards,

-Drew

Two comments

After you have your wifi card working, checkout kwifimanager to manage it for you.

And if you've tried everything to get your BroadCom miniPCI laptop wifi card to work and it still won't, go on eBay and purchase for under $25 an Intel IWP2200 card. The Intel driver comes with Slackware and all you need to do is install (actually just copy to /lib/firmware) the firmware then reboot the laptop or restart the network.

Dennisk

RE: #1 -- I'd rather avoid using kwifimanager, since I find KDE apps a bit clunky. But that's an aesthetic judgment, not a functional one. I have been using wifi-radar and the results have been unreliable.

RE: #2 -- The wifi card is in fact an Intel IPW3945 card. I am using the iwl3945 driver and am thinking of switching to the slackbuild version of the ipw3945 driver to see if it makes a difference. I'd rather wait a bit before ripping open my new laptop and sticking a used piece of hardware in it, though I am not averse to that in general. ;)

The problem has been that I find myself having to re-edit too many config files, and restart too many services too often, and I was just looking for a more trimmed down way.

-geo

Hi,

I don't use KDE to connect my lan but you could use the Wireless Assistant App. wifi-radar would be another KDE application. These links and others are referenced at 'Slackware-Links' formerly 'Slackware LQ Suggestions Links!' for other good online references.

Thanks!
 

Eric:

I'm not disputing your way of doing things, it's just that when I went to get wireless working on the system I kept running into this:
And what you see there is Santa Clause in comparison.

Thanks to you, I now know of a very simple way of setting up wireless however no where was this info made apparent. No where on LQ.org or anywhere else. Everything had to be installed from scratch and this was only a few short months ago.

I'm tempted to try your way of doing things, but I got the script written now and for none encryption purposes it's fine. Not arguing that your method of doing it is right or wrong... just completely unknown to me due to 10,000 reasons.

For the record, I appreciate your input.

- Perry

That google search did indeed return nothing useful ;-)

I just realized that I will have to write a proper README_WIRELESS.TXT for inclusion in the next slackware-current tree when Pat goes public again.
Your google-search results are reasons enough for writing that...

I am glad you did not take my rant as a display of arrogance. It was meant as positive feedback. Please have a look at some of the articles on wireless here: http://alien.slackbook.org/dokuwiki/...ware:slackware - they did not show up in your search.

Eric

If you guys don't mind me chiming in here -- I really appreciate your discussion (I was kind of hoping that this would happen so I could learn more about what's going on under the hood when Slackware starts...). At this point I am wondering whether my difficulties in getting access to different wireless networks might be issues with a not-yet-fully-mature driver. I was using the iwl3845 driver and have just switched to the ipw3945 driver (thanks for the slackbuild Eric!) and so far things seem much more straightforward. The problems have been not seeming to be able to find one setup or routine that would work consistently in all cases, even though the Slackware config files should be simple to set up properly. I'll continue testing on various wireless access points today.

-geo

Actually...
 

Were it not my only link to the web, I'd love to see if Eric's method would work for me. I cannot seem to find the CONFIG_4KSTACK in my .config file (on the web you'll find it and for a 2.6.21.5 kernel, but not mine!) so I'm stuck with that complication which, I would have to say, would perhaps be the #1 reason why I made the jump from my Slackware 10.1 2.4.x kernel to Slackware 12.0 2.6.x series. Had I only know about that "hack" I would not have took the chance on Slackware w/o Gnome... and where would I be today...?

I simply LOVE my Slackware 12.0 / Dropline Gnome, even over a Mac and that's saying something.

There is something about doing it yourself that gives you so much more of a *connected* feeling, albeit to your machine. Now if I could only figure out how to compile a kernel for the girlfriend....

- perry

Hi Perry

The "CONFIG_4KSTACK" is indeed not found in the kernel config, and this is the reason why an ndiswrapper compilation complains.
However, this is not at all a problem. The default for the kernel is to use 8K stacksize, and "CONFIG_4KSTACK" is by default never present in the .config. You can enable "#CONFIG_4KSTACK is not set" in the advanced kernel features and this will silence the compilation of ndiswrapper, but this is basically a pointless exercise for the kernel's configuration. Really the ndiswrapper should check the stack size in a different way.
To summarize: your stock Slackware kernels are completely fine, and ndiswrapper does an incorrect check for stack size.

Eric

Update:
Using the ipw3945 driver seems to have solved my problem. In the /etc/rc.d/rc.wireless.conf file I use the minimal settings, including my home WEP key. And then when open up X I use wifi-radar to switch to other networks if I happen to be elsewhere. No problems. No need to reedit the conf file or restart /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1 or reload the driver. And best of all the little wireless LED also works. ;) Now that that's fixed I'll start messing around with wpa_supplicant...

-geo

I gave it a shot...
 

Eric:

i didn't do a reboot however, i thought a simple rc.inet1 stop/start would be fine. as i need to do this in order to manually toggle the wireless due to it's nature. previously i had a netgear wireless router that sometimes went down about every five minutes, my new linksys router (i have a linksys router and a linksys wireless adaptor) is up pretty much all day (but does manage to get jammed at least once a day).

- perry

Does "ifconfig -a" still show a "wlan0" interface? Now that you no longer use your own script, you would have to add a line of "/sbin/modprobe ndiswrapper" to for instance the end of the file "/etc/rc.d/rc.modules" or else your wireless card won't get activated.

What does "iwconfig -a" tell you?

Eric

The March 2005 issue of Linux Magazine has a nice introductory article (link is to the PDF) about Kwifimanager. It's a small app that sits in the tray and lets you configure up to 10 acess points. Kwifimanager can also automatically connect to any up AP if you want.

Makes sense if your card is not simply accessed thought an easy to open door. Price quote was for a new card. Bluetooth is also very cheap and (again depending on the laptop) easy to install.

Check out the article above and decide for yourself if kwifimanager will do the job for you.

Dennisk

dennisk,
Thanks for the further info on kwifimanager. I'll check it out. It seems that the problem had less to do with the particular tools I was using, than it did with the driver. Since I switched to the ipw3945 driver I can easily get connected. For some reason the iwl3945driver from intellinux must have been the reason I couldn't get reliable connections without multiple redits and restarts of config files scripts. Hopefully the ipw3945 driver will follow the earlier ipw2100 and 2200 into the kernel.

cheers,
-geo

All's well that ends well, so they say. Glad it's working.

Dennisk

The -a switch is only applicable to ifconfig, not iwconfig. It was probably just a typo in Eric's post.

In my experience the CONFIG_4STACK warning can be ignored.

It seems like your wireless is working fine now?

Brian