Arch Linux

Celti

Member

From: Phoenix, AZ, USA

Registered: 2004-02-28

Posts: 42

Website

madwifi refuses to connect to encrypted network

I've got a laptop with an Atheros card that refuses to connect to a network using WEP, despite trying everything up through voodoo.
It associates with the AP just fine, but does not get an IP (other than a link-local) from dhcpcd, nor is it able to reach anything on the network if I give it a static IP. It works fine on an unsecured network, or on a secured network in Windows. I've tried setting `iwpriv ath0 authmode` to every setting it has, with no change other than it refusing to associate with the AP if I set it to anything but '1' (open).

I have no idea what hardware the AP is using.

Output from iwconfig ath0 and ifconfig ath0:

ath0      IEEE 802.11g  ESSID:"WolfPack"  Nickname:""
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.412 GHz  Access Point: 00:1C:F0:E9:11:4B   
          Bit Rate:54 Mb/s   Tx-Power:18 dBm   Sensitivity=1/1  
          Retry:off   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:12E4-5678-90   Security mode:restricted
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=41/70  Signal level=-45 dBm  Noise level=-86 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:32644  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

ath0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:90:96:BB:84:C8  
          inet addr:169.254.154.5  Bcast:169.254.255.255  Mask:255.255.0.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::290:96ff:febb:84c8/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:99 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:23872 (23.3 Kb)

~celti

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A stupid person can make only certain, limited types of errors; the mistakes open to a clever fellow are far broader. But to the one who knows how smart he is compared to everyone else, the possibilities for true idiocy are boundless. - S. K. Z. Brust

Celti

Member

From: Phoenix, AZ, USA

Registered: 2004-02-28

Posts: 42

Website

Re: madwifi refuses to connect to encrypted network

Well, at this point, I've narrowed it down to the fact that the AP hates Arch. A completely different machine, with completely different hardware and a different card, has the same issue; the only common factor is they're both running Arch. A Ubuntu livecd works fine, Windows works fine. I'm at a loss.

~celti

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A stupid person can make only certain, limited types of errors; the mistakes open to a clever fellow are far broader. But to the one who knows how smart he is compared to everyone else, the possibilities for true idiocy are boundless. - S. K. Z. Brust

fwojciec

Member

Registered: 2007-05-20

Posts: 1,411

Re: madwifi refuses to connect to encrypted network

Could you post here your configuration from rc.conf (and whatever else, like /etc/conf.d/wireless, that you use to connect to the network)?  I also have atheros based card and WEP connection and it works fine.

Celti

Member

From: Phoenix, AZ, USA

Registered: 2004-02-28

Posts: 42

Website

Re: madwifi refuses to connect to encrypted network

Nothing relevant in rc.conf (i.e., all interfaces commented out).

I've mostly been running iwconfig/ifconfig by hand, as it's quicker than editing the network profile and rerunning netcfg.

The commands that should work:

iwpriv ath0 authmode 1
iwconfig ath0 essid WolfPack key restricted XXXXXXXXXX channel 1
dhcpcd ath0

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A stupid person can make only certain, limited types of errors; the mistakes open to a clever fellow are far broader. But to the one who knows how smart he is compared to everyone else, the possibilities for true idiocy are boundless. - S. K. Z. Brust