Help setting Up Wireless on my HP Compaq 6710b

[samuraijack]

one of the Netscout apps.

[reed9]

I'm assuming you don't have a current Red Hat subscription? If you do, I think you can upgrade to the newer version for free. If not, I would consider moving to CentOS. If it runs on Red Hat, it will run on CentOS. I'm not familiar with netscout, but I would contact their customer service and see what they have to say about support on newer releases.

[samuraijack]

yeah, I dont have the subscription.

I've tried the howto and ran into a few issues.

- First they ask I think in step 5 to insert your wireless mac address. I dont seem to have one using ifconfig -a

- Second, iafter I chkconfig wpa_supplicant on I dont have it installed

- and third, after install wpa_supplicant, it gives me the error that I dont have libpcsclite.so.1. I installed the wpa_supplicant_gui...seems to install fine.

Should I get the libpcsclite.so.1?

[root@localhost network-scripts]# ifconfig -a
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:1A:4B:83:70:08
          BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)
          Interrupt:185

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:2470 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:2470 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:2785624 (2.6 MiB)  TX bytes:2785624 (2.6 MiB)

sit0      Link encap:IPv6-in-IPv4
          NOARP  MTU:1480  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)


=====================================================

[root@localhost network-scripts]# chkconfig wpa_supplicant on
error reading information on service wpa_supplicant: No such file or directory

===================================

[root@localhost wpa_supplicant]# cd /var/run/
[root@localhost run]# ls
acpid.socket            gpm.pid         ppp            tog-pegasus
atd.pid                 haldaemon.pid   rpc.statd.pid  usb
cardmgr.pid             irqbalance.pid  saslauthd      utmp
console                 klogd.pid       sendmail.pid   winbindd
crond.pid               mdadm           sm-client.pid  xfs.pid
cups-config-daemon.pid  mdmpd           spamassassin   xinetd.pid
cupsd.pid               messagebus.pid  sshd.pid
dbus                    netreport       sudo
gdm.pid                 nscd            syslogd.pid
[root@localhost run]#

=====================================

[root@localhost tmp]# rpm -Uvh wpa_supplicant-0.5.8-16.el4.i386.rpm
warning: wpa_supplicant-0.5.8-16.el4.i386.rpm: V3 DSA signature: NOKEY, key ID 66534c2b
error: Failed dependencies:
        libpcsclite.so.1 is needed by wpa_supplicant-0.5.8-16.el4.i386
========================================================

[samuraijack]

Netscout is an network and application management tool.

[samuraijack]

I've been able to install everything needed as required with the link in the posts above. But im not finding my wireless adapter MACid...

what now?

[reed9]

I'm getting a little out of my depth here, but I would guess that ifconfig wasn't showing a mac address because it's not yet detecting your wireless card. What's the output of

iwconfig

Also check if the module is loaded.

lsmod | grep ipw

If it's installed successfully on your system you should be able to load it with

su -
modprobe ipw3945

From what I gleaned from google, libpcsclite.so.1 is provided by the package pcsc-lite, so I would see if you can find an rpm for that. wpa_supplicant is necessary to connect to a WPA encrypted network, which I assume you're using because WEP sucks. I'm surprised the gui for it installed ok; I would have assumed it required wpa_supplicant as a dependency.

[waterhead]

I can guarantee that you are going to have problems getting wireless to work on such an old version of Red Hat. Even the newest version, RHEL 5.3 only uses kernel 2.6.18. To install the latest compat-wireless driver package, you need at least kernel version 2.6.22.

If you are able to install the driver, you will still need a method to connect to wireless networks. I recommend using Wicd.

wicd - home

[samuraijack]

Hi just an answer to reed9

[root@localhost ~]# iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

sit0 no wireless extensions.

[root@localhost ~]# lsmod | grep ipw
[root@localhost ~]# modprobe ipw3945
FATAL: Module ipw3945 not found.

As for attempting something over complicated. Should I change to CentOs?

What would give me the feel of redhat and but the installed wireless drivers? Fedora?

I prefer a similar redhat setup as I use redhat more than most of the others...

[reed9]

What do you need out of your computer? It's a laptop, so I assume you're not looking for a mission critical server or mainframe kinda thing. You need a desktop environment, and you need to run your network management software. Fedora would be a good solution for that - it's sponsored by Red Hat, and the technologies introduced in Fedora eventually filter their way into Red Hat. I imagine you should be able to get netscout running under Fedora, but again, you should check with the vendor. Or find other alternatives. I don't have a need for network management tools, so I don't really know what's out there, but I'm sure there are options. If that's something you need for you work, maybe you won't have an option, I don't know.

[waterhead]

I didn't mean to discourage you from trying! I just thought that a little warning was justified. You most likely will have to install the driver from source, meaning compile the driver. This is because of the older kernel that you have. Actually, I can't find a version for your kernel. The oldest is for a 2.6.13 kernel:
Intel® PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Driver for Linux

For some reason, Red Hat disables the wireless drivers in it's kernel. If you want a Red Hat base distro that has wireless enabled, then use Fedora. Fedora 10 is the latest, and Fedora is the testing ground for the next release of Red Hat.