wlan help

**toxoplasma** · 03-27-2007

i have a debian/windows duel boot, with an amd64 processor.
im trying to get my wlan card working, but i dont know how. can someone help?

**japlha** · 03-27-2007

I'll refer you to this section of the forums. The sticky should get you started.
Linux Forums > GNU Linux Zone > Wireless Internet

What have you tried doing? Do you have the correct driver for your wireless card? Do you have any security on you wireless network?

**toxoplasma** · 03-29-2007

i have tried kismet so far. i have a broadcom wlan card, and no, i dont have any security. where do i get a driver for it?

**antidrugue** · 03-29-2007

Originally Posted by toxoplasma

i have tried kismet so far. i have a broadcom wlan card, and no, i dont have any security. where do i get a driver for it?

Can you provide more details?

What is your card exact model? (output of "lspci")
Which version of Debian are you using? Etch? Sarge?

**toxoplasma** · 03-29-2007

result from lspci:
broadcom corporation BCM4310 UART (rev 01)

i am using etch

**traeskapa** · 03-29-2007

http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/Wireless_networking

Maybe that'll help you

**farslayer** · 03-30-2007

Ahh I JUST did that a couple days ago... and I wrote up a how to using the native bcm43xx driver (the link in the previous post used the NDISWrapper and windows Drivers) . My card is the 4318 but it shouldn't make a difference it's the same driver. My writeup looks a bit cluttered because I included the output you got back when using the commands, but it's really not that hard.

UGH this forum says my reply is too long..

OK Reply is trimmed to fit and is in next post..

One of the MODS can feel free to add it to the Tutorials section

**farslayer** · 03-30-2007

HOW-TO install the Broadcom bcm43xx Driver in Debian Linux and enable WPA Encryption.

Author: Mark Hepler 3-27-2007

My Configuration:
Debian etch with kernel 2.6.18-4-686
Network card is a Belkin Wireless G Plus - Part Number F5D7011 ver. 2000
Wireless Access Point: Linksys WRT54GL

Code:

inspiron:~# lspci
0d:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4318 [AirForce One 54g] 802.11g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 02)

You may want to ensure you have the wireless tools and wpa security tools installed before you begin, these should already be installed by default.

Code:

aptitude install wireless-tools wpasupplicant network-manager network-manager-gnome

Go to http://bcm43xx.berlios.de/ and download the bcm43xx-fwcutter tool
bcm43xx-fwcutter-006.tar.bz2

Extract the Source

Code:

default@inspiron:~/bcmwireless$ tar -xjvf bcm43xx-fwcutter-006.tar.bz2

In order to have everything in one place I copied the Driver folder from the CD that came with my wireless card to the Laptop.

My directory structure now looks like this

Code:

bcmwireless/
|-- Driver
|-- bcm43xx-fwcutter-006

Change into the directory the source was extracted to

Code:

default@inspiron:~/bcmwireless$ cd bcm43xx-fwcutter-006/

Compile the bcm43xx-fwcutter tool

Code:

default@inspiron:~/bcmwireless/bcm43xx-fwcutter-006$ make

At this point you may issue the list command for the bcm43xx-fwcutter tool ( bcm43xx-fwcutter -l ) to see what file in the Windows driver I was looking for.
According to the list command, and the files I have in the Driver directory, the file I want is called bcmwl5.sys

You should now use the Firmware Cutter tool to extract the wireless card firmware from the windows driver

Code:

default@inspiron:~/bcmwireless/bcm43xx-fwcutter-006$ ./bcm43xx-fwcutter /home/default/bcmwireless/Driver/bcmwl5.sys

you will need to be root in order to install the firmware into the directory it belong in

Code:

inspiron:~# cd /home/default/bcmwireless/bcm43xx-fwcutter-006

inspiron:/home/default/bcmwireless/bcm43xx-fwcutter-006#  make installfw
if ! [ -d /lib/firmware ]; then mkdir -p /lib/firmware; fi
install -o 0 -g 0 -m 600 bcm43xx_*.fw /lib/firmware

the firmware should now be located in /lib/firmware you can verify by looking at the directory listing.

Code:

inspiron:/home/default/bcmwireless/bcm43xx-fwcutter-006#  ls /lib/firmware/

At this point you need to ensure the Wireless card is listed in your /etc/network/interfaces file

Code:

inspiron:/# vim /etc/network/interfaces


# The loopback network interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

# The primary network interface
allow-hotplug eth1
iface eth1 inet dhcp

# The primary network interface
allow-hotplug eth2
iface eth2 inet dhcp

eth1 is my Wired network interface
eth2 is the Wireless network interface

check to ensure the Module for your wireless card is loaded

Code:

lsmod | grep bcm43xx 
bcm43xx               405920  0
ieee80211softmac       26304  1 bcm43xx
ieee80211              29416  2 bcm43xx,ieee80211softmac
firmware_class          9600  2 bcm43xx,pcmcia

if the module isn't loaded load it now

Code:

modprobe  bcm43xx

At this point you can check if the network card can see your Wireless access point. your access point should be configured without security at this point for testing.

Code:

inspiron:/# iwlist eth2 scan
eth2      Scan completed :
          Cell 01 - Address: 00:16:B6:1C:78:D4
                    ESSID:"linksys"
                    Protocol:IEEE 802.11bg
                    Mode:Master
                    Channel:6
                    Encryption key:off
                    Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 6 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s
                              11 Mb/s; 12 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s; 24 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s
                              48 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s
                    Quality=100/100  Signal level=-174 dBm
                    Extra: Last beacon: 68ms ago

If the Wireless card can see your access point you are in good shape.
Bring up the interface to see if you can connect and get an IP address.

Code:

inspiron:/# ifup eth2
Internet Systems Consortium DHCP Client V3.0.4
.
.
bound to 192.168.1.101 -- renewal in 83055 seconds.

Code:

default@inspiron:~/$ /sbin/ifconfig eth2

eth2      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:11:50:F4:90:E2
          inet addr:192.168.1.101  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
.
.
.

From the response it shows the card came up and was able to get an IP address from the Wireless Access Point.

WPA ENCRYPTION CONFIGURATION

Configure your Access Point so that it uses WPA encryption with Pre-Shared Key authentication (also called WPA-Personal) and AES encryption .

Make note of your SSID in the Basic Wireless Settings.

For the Wireless Security, I made up a secret key (64 characters 1-9, a-f), but you should use 32 bytes of secret that is really random.

One method to generate the secret on Linux is: dd if=/dev/random bs=32 count=1 2>/dev/null | od -An -tx1 then remove all spaces and newlines...

Make sure "Wireless SSID Broadcast" is set to "Enable", because that will be required later.

Disabling the SSID broadcast or filtering on MAC addresses only provide weak bandwidth/privacy protection anyway, and you are setting up the stronger WPA encryption which ensures that only somebody who knows the secret can interact with your Access Point.

Configuration of WPA

wpa_supplicant is installed by default, if not, install the package "wpasupplicant".

Create the file /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf and insert the following:

Code:

network={
        ssid="myssid"
        key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
        pairwise=CCMP
        group=CCMP
        psk=1234567890abcdef1234567890abcdef1234567890abcdef1234567890abcdef
}

Make this file readable only for root

Code:

 chmod go-rwx /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf

Edit /etc/network/interfaces and add the lines for the wireless and WPA encryption

Code:

auto ethX
iface ethX inet dhcp
wireless-essid <your accesspoints essid>
wpa-driver wext
wpa-conf /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf

Test the WPA configuration by restarting the wireless interface

Code:

ifdown ethX
ifup ethX

Verrify the connection is up and encryption is enabled

Code:

inspiron:~# iwlist eth2 scan
eth2      Scan completed :
          Cell 01 - Address: 00:16:B6:1C:78:D4
                    ESSID:"myssid"
                    Protocol:IEEE 802.11bg
                    Mode:Master
                    Channel:6
                    Encryption key:on
                    Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 6 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s
                              11 Mb/s; 12 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s; 24 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s
                              48 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s
                    Quality=100/100  Signal level=-135 dBm
                    IE: WPA Version 1
                        Group Cipher : CCMP
                        Pairwise Ciphers (1) : CCMP
                        Authentication Suites (1) : PSK
                    Extra: Last beacon: 28ms ago

The SSID Mathches my configuration
Encryptionh Key is ON
WPA is enabled

You are DONE !!

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