SUSE working with Skybroadband (UK)

[Nerderello]

This mini howto is about getting Suse Linux to work with SkyBroadBand, via a WiFi card (PCI).

The card is a Belkin Wireless G Desktop Network Card (F5D7000uk). These are cheaply sold at the moment in Curry Digital (used to be Dixons) in the UK. The box has the part number F5D7000uk on the bottom, nexst to the large bar-code. And ver.6000uk as the version number (in a rectangle near the part number).

Suse Linux version 10.1 (that is the Open or free version of Suse 10.1) does not have the required drivers fore this card (version 10.0 is reported to have them, but not 10.1), so I had to follw the instructions in the following, excelent, howto - http://susewiki.org/index.php?title=...Wireless_Cards

Be warned, you need the kernel source files, as well as the GCC compiler (I installed these when I installed Suse, they're on the CDs/DVD).

As you can see , from the link, the Belkin card has the RT61 - Ralintech chipset. This means that I needed to rt61 kernel module loaded (which wasn't in Suse 10.1), but (big but) I didn't need the WEP stuff (as described in the above link.

The Skybroadband router uses (over WiFi) the WPAPSK authorisation type and the TKIP encryption mode. So, if you follow Kamutsu's instructions (link above) you just need to use these "iwpriv" lines instead of his.

iwpriv ra0 set NetworkType=Infra
iwpriv ra0 set AuthMode=WPAPSK
iwpriv ra0 set EncrypType=TKIP
iwpriv ra0 set SSID="SKYnnnnn"
iwpriv ra0 set WPAPSK="XXXXXXXX"
iwpriv ra0 set SSID="SKYnnnnn"

Here the "SKYnnnnn" is the SSID that you will find on the bottom of the router and on a little card that comes in the box. It is effectively the name of the router or rather, of the network that the router is in.

The "XXXXXXXX" is the WPAPSK authentification code (effectively the password). This can be found, again, on the bottom of the router and on the little card, and is called the Network Key.

The last thing you'll find on the card (and router's base) is the chaneel number (mine is 11). I put this in the "rt61sta.dat" config file, but I'm not convinced that it is needed.



The SkyBroadband router is a badge engineered Netgear unit. It has Wifi (standard 802.11b and 802.11g) and four ethernet ports (you get a yellow ethernet cable with the router, along with three ADSL dongles/filter units (one needed for router, and two others for normal phones)). So, if you haven't got Wifi, or don't want to use Wifi, you can always ethernet straight into the router (note: the router has the numbers 1-4 on the front. These light up when an ethernet attached device come active. They do NOT light up when you connect via WiFi).

Once everything is working, a quick netstat -r shows ;

Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags   MSS Window  irtt Iface
192.168.0.0     *               255.255.255.0   U         0 0          0 ra0
loopback        *               255.0.0.0       U         0 0          0 lo
default         192.168.0.1     0.0.0.0         UG        0 0          0 ra0

The last line of the netstat -r shows that my default route is via the gateway (ie. the SkyBroadband router) which has given itself the IP address of 192.168.0.1 (my PC has ended up as 192.168.0.2). The "dhcpcd" program on my Linux PC gets the IP addresses from the router.

The last line also shows that the route to the gateway (Skybroadband router) is Up (ie. active) and is the Gateway (UG).

Another command that shows what is happoening is "iwconfig" :

ra0       RT61 Wireless  ESSID:"SKYXXXXX"
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:11 MHz  Access Point: 00:14:6C:B5:D7:06
          Bit Rate=54 Mb/s
          RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:B019-2FF2-D4AA-6AE4-6954-E2C6-8143-3A57-06D6-ED7C-0932-D8FE-4ECA-C9D6-1E27-633D
          Link Quality=95/100  Signal level:-44 dBm  Noise level:-79 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

Here you can see that the SSID name is the one from the iwconfig commands, and the signal strength is 95% (95/100).


hope this is of some use.

Nerderello

[petergriffin]

That's excellent! Thank you Nerderello

[Nerderello]

In addition to the above post:-
1) You can use KWIFIManager to monitor your wifi connection.

2) You can manage the router by entering http://192.168.0.1 into your favourite web browser. A password prompt will pop up, username is admin and password is sky (suggest you change that.

The web based management lets you configure, monitor and even reboot the router.

nerderello