cant connect to wifi from Cent OS

[iinfi]

i have a dell vostro 1510 and trying to connect to my wireless router.

i installed ndiswrapper and installed the driver from winxp drivers
the wifi LED glows on my lappy but cant connect to the wifi.
following are my settings

[root@laptop ~]# lspci | grep Broadcom
06:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g (rev 01)

[root@laptop ~]# ndiswrapper -l
bcmwl5 : driver installed
        device (14E4:4315) present
[root@laptop ~]# iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

sit0      no wireless extensions.

vmnet1    no wireless extensions.

vmnet8    no wireless extensions.

wlan0     IEEE 802.11g  ESSID:off/any  Nickname:"laptop"
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.462 GHz  Access Point: Not-Associated   
          Bit Rate=54 Mb/s   Tx-Power:32 dBm   
          RTS thr=2347 B   Fragment thr=2346 B   
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality:0  Signal level:0  Noise level:0
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

[root@laptop ~]# iwlist scan
lo        Interface doesn't support scanning.

eth0      Interface doesn't support scanning.

sit0      Interface doesn't support scanning.

vmnet1    Interface doesn't support scanning.

vmnet8    Interface doesn't support scanning.

wlan0     Scan completed :
          Cell 01 - Address: 00:21:29:DA:70:80
                    ESSID:"linksys"
                    Protocol:IEEE 802.11g
                    Mode:Managed
                    Frequency:2.462 GHz (Channel 11)
                    Quality:70/100  Signal level:-51 dBm  Noise level:-96 dBm
                    Encryption key:on
                    Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s
                              24 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s; 6 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s
                              12 Mb/s; 48 Mb/s
                    Extra:bcn_int=100
                    Extra:atim=0


[root@laptop ~]# cat /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-wlan0


DEVICE=wlan0
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
HWADDR=00:23:4D:20:28:4F
ONBOOT=yes
IPADDR=192.168.5.12
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
GATEWAY=192.168.5.1
TYPE=Wireless
ESSID=linksys
CHANNEL=11
KEY=S:67A4C25587
or i have used
WEP=67A4C25587
both dont work





[root@laptop ~]# cat /etc/modprobe.conf
alias eth0 r8169
alias wlan0 madwifi


[root@laptop ~]# service network restart
Shutting down interface eth0:                              [  OK  ]
Shutting down loopback interface:                          [  OK  ]
Bringing up loopback interface:                            [  OK  ]
Bringing up interface eth0:                                [  OK  ]
Bringing up interface wlan0:  Error for wireless request "Set Encode" (8B2A) :
    SET failed on device wlan0 ; Invalid argument.

Determining IP information for wlan0... failed; no link present.  Check cable?
                                                           [FAILED]

can someone please guide me on this.

[iinfi]

meanwhile i installed a utility called wifi-radar, and that too doesnt help.

[iinfi]

no one has a clue??

[Rubberman]

It looks like the Linksys access point is using encryption - don't know if it's wep or wpa; however, your laptop is not using encryption, so it won't connect. You need to configure the wireless on the laptop to use the proper encryption and input the key, or you need to disable the encryption on the access point to see if it will connect without a key.

[iinfi]

thank you for your reply

[root@laptop ~]# cat /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-wlan0


DEVICE=wlan0
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
HWADDR=00:23:4D:20:28:4F
ONBOOT=yes
IPADDR=192.168.5.12
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
GATEWAY=192.168.5.1
TYPE=Wireless
ESSID=linksys
CHANNEL=11
KEY=S:67A4C25587
or i have used
WEP=67A4C25587
both dont work

i have given the wep key. is this not enough. do i need to install any separate packages.

[Rubberman]

If the access point is using 128bit encryption, then your key is too short. If it isn't, then it is using 40-bit WEP. Doesn't your network manager have a GUI for setting up the wireless links? I know my CentOS/RHEL 5 system does handle wireless devices, and should ask for a key when I ask it to connect to a specific access point SSID. They usually detect what encryption is being used so you know what type of key or passphrase to use. I don't have wireless on my CentOS system, but it does have that stuff in the network setup GUI, and my Ubuntu laptop certainly handles that stuff without problem.

[iinfi]

there is nothing in the network manager to show the wireless accesspoints.
system-config-network shows my wlan0 as network card but there is nothing to show the accesspoints.
plz help

[Rubberman]

Nothing there about scanning for networks? Right now, I am at the limits of my knowledge of the tools you are using. Anyway, I don't see anywhere in this thread where you mention the distribution+version of Linux and the desktop environment that you are using. That information can be pretty important to get you sorted out. Each system + desktop (especially desktop) have differnent tools to manage wireless and wired network connections.

[iinfi]

ok .. i m very sorry ..
the subject does say cent os but not the version
i am using centos 5.3 and gnome desktop (will add this in the first post)

eeks ... i cant edit the first post... hence a red font here so that its catchy

[Rubberman]

My eyes aren't what they used to be (and never very good) - I looked before that last post of mine, but missed it. TAL.

I too am running CentOS 5.3, but with the KDE desktop. Unfortunately, that is on my workstation, which has a wired link, no wireless, so I can't really talk you thru the process. My laptop runs Ubuntu w/ Gnome and it absolutely has a rescan option in the wireless connection tool. I wish I could be more help. I have been considering getting a wireless card so I could check some of this stuff out, but no time to do so right now. My general opinion is that CentOS/RHEL are better suited for fixed-location workstations and servers that are hard-wired to the network, especially since they aren't running the latest kernel and desktop code that have better wireless support.