Wireless Installation

[syed_salman]

Hi
I am using Debian Linux etch kernel 2.6.18-5-686 in my laptop with Intel Pro Wireless 2200 card and we have WPA-PSK TKIP wireless network with hidden ssid. I am unable to connect wireless? I installed ieee80211, ipw2200 and wpa_supplicant but I cannot find right configuration. Can anyone guide?

[er0c13]

Hi
I am using Debian Linux etch kernel 2.6.18-5-686 in my laptop with Intel Pro Wireless 2200 card and we have WPA-PSK TKIP wireless network with hidden ssid. I am unable to connect wireless? I installed ieee80211, ipw2200 and wpa_supplicant but I cannot find right configuration. Can anyone guide?

I just spent a LONG time (about two weeks 5 hours a day) configuring my Trendnet card to work with WPA-PSK. Heres a few basics that you need. First you need to make sure your wpa_supplicant.conf file is configured correctly. Mine looks like this.
#
#
ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant
ctrl_interface_group=root
#(my essid) network; allow all valid ciphers
eapol_version=1
ap_scan=1
fast_reauth=1
network={
ssid="my essid"
scan_ssid=1
mode=0
auth_alg=OPEN
key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
pairwise=TKIP
group=TKIP
proto=WPA
#psk="my wpa key"
psk=my passphrase generated from wpa_passphrase (essid) (wpa key)
}
next make sure your interfaces file is configured correctly. mine is as shown

# This file describes the network interfaces available on your system
# and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5).

# The loopback network interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

# The primary network interface
allow-hotplug ath0
iface ath0 inet dhcp
pre-up wpa_supplicant -Dmadwifi -iath0 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
post-down killall -q wpa_supplicant
auto ath0

auto eth0

you don't need the pre-up command if you intend on running wpa_supplicant manually every time you connect, that gets to be a pain though. Now that you have that taken care of, time to configure the wireless card itself.

First iwconfig in terminal, you should get something like this for your card

ath0 IEEE 802.11g ESSID:"you essid"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.437 GHz Access Point: 00:00:00:00:00:00
Bit Rate:36 Mb/s Tx-Power:18 dBm Sensitivity=0/3
Retry:off RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:0926-7665-D4DA-0BFA-4D38-3FA5-DCD7-F838 Security mode:restricted
Power Management:off
Link Quality=31/94 Signal level=-64 dBm Noise level=-95 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:27159 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon

Or it may not show anything like this. If it doesn't you need to reinstall your driver. Or if it doesn't show this then try this.

wlanconfig xxx create wlandev wifi0 wlanmode managed

where xxx is put your card information. mine is ath0 for the atheros chipset, im not sure what yours is but thats available at the manufactures website, or in the drivers manual.

if you have a card shown in iwconfig, but there is no mac address or anything in the ssid try this.

wlanconfig xxx list scan

that will show available access points. or use this
iwlist ath0 scanning

that will also list available access points.

now that you have the bssid and the ssid use iwconfig

iwconfig xxx ap (mac address for access point)
iwconfig xxx essid (your essid)
everything else should be automatic.

now with your wireless card preconfigured you can run wpa_supplicant like this

wpa_supplicant -D(your driver, can be found in man wpa_supplicant for drivers supported, or wext for linux generic) -ixxx -c/etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

with that running you can open another terminal and use wpa_cli for interface action. see man wpa_cli for more detail

that should be enough for you to get it up an running, if you still have issues, post the output of your wpa_supplicant.conf file and your interfaces file from /etc/network/interfaces. Good luck. also read the man pages for wpa_supplicant and for wpa_supplicant.conf. it gives some good hints on proper configurations.