Help! Confusion over how to setup intel3945 wireless and rc.conf

kilolima · 2008-02-02 21:15:46

Hi,

I'm very confused. I've already read through all the wikis and searched many forum posts. I can't get my wireless intel3945 to work on my dell vostro 1400.

Iwconfig says the wireless card is at wlan0 and dmesg | grep iwl says it has detected it. However, when I try a iwlist wlan0 scan it returns :

wlan0 Interface doesn't support scanning : Network is down

I think the problem is that I don't know how to setup rc.conf correctly or use the command line to test the wireless. Forum posts say many different things on how this is done.

These are the steps I have taken:

uninstalled the ipw3945 and ipw3945-ucode and ipw3945d.

installed iwlwifi and iwlwifi-3945-ucode

in my rc.conf modules, added iwl3945.

I'm not sure how to setup the networking section, this what I have now:

lo="lo 127.0.01"
eth0="dhcp"
wlan0="dhcp"
INTERFACES=(lo etho)
gateway="default gw 192.168.1.1"
ROUTES=(!gateway)

And in my dameons I have 'network'.

How can I scan for networks and connect to them on the commandline? I'd prefer not to use a gui tool because they never work and never tell me why they're not working.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

Cheers!

kilolima

wuischke · 2008-02-02 21:47:28

Iwconfig says the wireless card is at wlan0 and dmesg | grep iwl says it has detected it. However, when I try a iwlist wlan0 scan it returns :
wlan0 Interface doesn't support scanning : Network is down

You have to execute "ifconfig wlan0 up" (or set an IP address) first. I don't like the iwlwifi driver, but I usually execute wpa_supplicant manually upon boot, so I can't help you about the automatic configuration.

But do you see something?

INTERFACES=(lo etho)

Edit: I think you should add "wlan0" here and disable eth0 by prefixing a !

Anyway, the manual way should be:

iwconfig wlan0 essid xxx [key yyy] # (for wep)
ifconfig wlan0 up
iwlist wlan0 scan
dhclient wlan0

Last edited by wuischke (2008-02-02 21:48:13)

kilolima · 2008-02-03 02:54:27

Heya Wuischke,

Thank you for your clear directions. I now actually know how to turn the wireless card on, scan for networks, and connect!

Currently, I am doing all this as root. I there something I can add to sudoers to allow a user to manipulate the wireless?

And, one day eventually, it would be nice to have it all connect on boot automagically to ethernet if it is available, or the first open wireless, or a known wep wireless. Is that what the netcfg2 scripts can do? Do the netcfg2 scripts require further modification to rc.conf?

viel danke!

kilolima

floke · 2008-02-03 14:18:28

To start at boot:

(this works for me with the 3945)

Make sure you have ipw3945, ipw3945d etc. installed

In your rc.conf - add ipm3945 to your modules list and ipw3945d to your daemons array

In the networking section: Mine looks like..

eth1="dhcp"
wlan_eth1="eth1 essid nameofessid"
wlan_eth1="eth1 essid nameofessid key whateveryourwepkeyis"
WLAN_INTERFACES=(eth1)

INTERFACES=(lo eth1)

This should all start your wifi on boot

Hope this helps.

wuischke · 2008-02-03 14:52:01

Hey kilolima,

first of all: Thank you. In order to help you I finally took the time to read some more about netcfg2 (actually my only error was executing netcfg instead of netcfg2...) and I got it working now. I use the iwl3945 driver and WPA2.

Let's start with the most important point: The wiki page with all important instructions: http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Network_Profiles

Now a short step-by-step guide:
1. Create a profile and save it to /etc/network.d/ . It should work if you adjust the following:

CONNECTION="wireless"
INTERFACE="wlan0"
SCAN="YES"
SECURITY="none"
ESSID="MyNetwork"
IP="dhcp"
TIMEOUT=20

2. Add the profile (file)name to the NETWORKS=() line in /etc/rc.conf

3.

Ensure that net-profiles is in your rc.conf DAEMONS=() line.

regards

viel danke!

Keine Ursache. ("No reason" - You're welcome).

BTW: In German "der Dank" is a noun whilst "Danke" (short for: Ich danke - I thank) is a verb form. If you want to use the noun, say "Vielen Dank" (which in turn is inflected). If you want to use the verb, you can say "Danke", "Dankeschön" and "Danke sehr." There are more, but this should be sufficient.

scottro · 2008-02-03 22:31:56

Hrrm, fresh install of today.

No netcfg2 in testing. It is netcfg 2.0.5-1, so I assume that's the right one.
No /etc/network.d only /etc/network-profiles

No man page. No entries in /var/log/messages.

Easy enough to manually set by running wpa_supplicant with -D -i and -c flags, then running dhclient on ath0, but I'm a bit confused at what I'm missing.

My network-config directory has a somewhat different style of template. I haven't really kept up with Arch lately, so perhaps I've missed something, but this is a system that was updated today. It's like I'm looking at a totally different set of docs.

For the moment, I can do it manually, but I'm curious as to what I'm missing. The docs have always been quite good, so I'm assuming that as the old movie goes, "*I'm* the problem."

scottro · 2008-02-04 00:47:00

Ok, an update of a few minutes ago gave me netcfg2 and the examples. All is good.

Running netcfg2 main (which is what I called the profile) works perfectly.

Thanks to the developers

kilolima · 2008-02-07 00:02:24

Hi all,

What the heck is WLAN_INTERFACES ? I don't have that in my rc.conf. I have the suspicion that there are multiple versions of rc.conf floating around, because I see examples that are completely dissimilar to my own settings.

Anyways, thanks all for the help. I tried connecting wireless at boot but no matter what I do netcfg2 will not connect to any network on the first try. It ALWAYS takes 2 tries. So it won't work during boot. I think there was mention of this as a bug in the script on another thread. ETH0 (wired) does work at boot though.

Mein Deutsch sprechen und scrieben is mehr kaput denn mein wireless! Dankeschon!

kilolima

broch · 2008-02-07 00:11:17

I have ipw3945 and iwl3945 working with wpa2 (or vpn)
(less complicatd than the above)
don't use netcfg2

let me know if you are still interested in setting up wireless.

clarence · 2008-02-07 06:07:18

broch wrote:

I have ipw3945 and iwl3945 working with wpa2 (or vpn)
(less complicatd than the above)
don't use netcfg2
let me know if you are still interested in setting up wireless.

Please share. I'm interested

iphitus · 2008-02-07 08:11:21

broch wrote:

I have ipw3945 and iwl3945 working with wpa2 (or vpn)
(less complicatd than the above)
don't use netcfg2

Why?

broch · 2008-02-07 14:46:59

iphitus wrote:

broch wrote:
I have ipw3945 and iwl3945 working with wpa2 (or vpn)
(less complicatd than the above)
don't use netcfg2
Why?

no particular reason.
Simply when I configured wireless, netcfg2 wasn't available. Since then it (wireless) works, so not having any problems, I did not modify network setup. Next week or so I am going to install Arch on my daughter's laptop (per her request ) so I will try netcfg2.

So this is what I have for ipw3945 wpa2 or iwl3945 with wpa2

Below you will find a lot of words so read slowly but there is not much actual work
----------------
ipw3945 setup
kernel 2.6.23.x (Arch or vanilla)
or
kernel 2.6.24/2.6.24-gitX (patched with ipw3945 patch from gentoo -> compiling separate module for 2.6.24 may fail. if you want kernel patch I can post a link)

for default kernel install Arch packages for ipw3945, ipw3945d, ipw3945-ucode
or
if you want to compile modules, you will also need ieee80211 (first uninstall kernel's default, then install from sources otherwise ieee80211 from sources may refuse to install)

modify /etc/rc.conf
DAEMONS=(.... @ipw3945d @network ....)

that is all you don't need to add ipw3945 to MODULES=(.....)
because ipw3945d will automatically start ipw3945 module

do not list eth1 in network config section:
lo="lo 127.0.0.1"
eth0="dhcp"
INTERFACES=(eth0)

as you see, in my case only eth0 (wired) is listed and eth1 (wireless) is not listed

now you are done with basic network configuration for ipw3945, restart network/computer to bring up ipw3945d/ipw3945

check if modules are up and basic network is set:
#lsmod | grep ipw
#ifconfig -a
or
#iwconfig

if all is o.k. configure
WPA2:
configure router for wpa2
client: basically follow Arch wiki:

configure wpa_supplicant (installed already of course)
#wpa_passphrase your_ssid your_psk

keep terminal window open with created encrypted wpa passphrase and in the second terminal window edit /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
----------
ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant
network={
ssid="your_ssid"
scan_ssid=1
proto=WPA RSN
key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
pairwise=CCMP TKIP
group=CCMP TKIP
psk=whatever_output_from_wpa_passphrase
}
---------

Above pairwise and group setup will depend on your router (network capabilities)

almost done:
run
#wpa_supplicant -Bw -Dwext -i eth1 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf

the above assumes that your ipw3945 is set as eth1 (from iwconfig output)

to connect to the network I am using "wireless assistant" http://www.kde-apps.org/content/show.ph … tent=21832

that is all for ipw3945. You may automate network starting/connecting to wpa2 by writing simple script.

--------------
iwl3945
--kernel 2.6.23.x
install iwlwifi and iwlwifi-3945-ucode
--kernel 2.6.24.x
install only iwlwifi-3945-ucode as kernel has iwlwifi module incorporated

default iwlwifi does not support LED so I suggest to install something like knemo for kde to show active network icon. The latest iwlwifi does support LED but it is not yet incorporated into 2.6.24 vanilla kernel.

if you have kernel 2.6.23.x with external iwlwifi module
modify /etc/rc.conf
and add iwlwifi to
MODULES=(.....)

nothing else is required.

if you have kernel 2.6.24 with integrated iwlwifi module you don't have to edit /etc/rc.conf

As in the case of ipw3945, I do not list wireless interface (wlan0) in /etc/rc.conf

for kernel 2.6.23.x
load module/restart network or simply restart computer

check if module is up
#lsmod | grep iwl
#iwconfig
or
#ifconfig -a

WPA2
same wpa_supplicant.conf as above, so if you already have it no need for modifications.

start wpa2
#wpa_supplicant -Bw -Dwext -i wlan0 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf

the only difference in the command is wireless interface: wlan0
connect to the network, again I am using "wireless assistant"

vpn
I am using cisco vpn. Client is provided by vpn host, cisco does not provide vpn client for individual download, but you can find it on line.
vpn host will provide pcf file for you

- install vpnclient
- copy your VPN profile (vpn.pcf) to the
/etc/CiscoSystemsVPNClient/Profiles
directory
-- start vpn client
/opt/cisco-vpnclient/bin/vpnclient connect vpn pcf_file_name

provide username and password and off you go

From my experience none of linux gui for vpn works reliably so you will have to resort to the command line.

That is all, a lot of writing, but actual ipw3945 and iwl3945 configuration is straightforward and very short.
Hopefully this will work for you.

forgot to add regarding vpnclient (cisco)
you will have to modify
/etc/init.d/vpnclient_init

line 38 and line 101
replace
/sbin/lsmod
with
/bin/lsmod

Last edited by broch (2008-02-07 15:55:45)

Arch Linux

#1 2008-02-02 21:15:46

Help! Confusion over how to setup intel3945 wireless and rc.conf

#2 2008-02-02 21:47:28

Re: Help! Confusion over how to setup intel3945 wireless and rc.conf

#3 2008-02-03 02:54:27

Re: Help! Confusion over how to setup intel3945 wireless and rc.conf

#4 2008-02-03 14:18:28

Re: Help! Confusion over how to setup intel3945 wireless and rc.conf

#5 2008-02-03 14:52:01

Re: Help! Confusion over how to setup intel3945 wireless and rc.conf

#6 2008-02-03 22:31:56

Re: Help! Confusion over how to setup intel3945 wireless and rc.conf

#7 2008-02-04 00:47:00

Re: Help! Confusion over how to setup intel3945 wireless and rc.conf

#8 2008-02-07 00:02:24

Re: Help! Confusion over how to setup intel3945 wireless and rc.conf

#9 2008-02-07 00:11:17

Re: Help! Confusion over how to setup intel3945 wireless and rc.conf

#10 2008-02-07 06:07:18

Re: Help! Confusion over how to setup intel3945 wireless and rc.conf

#11 2008-02-07 08:11:21

Re: Help! Confusion over how to setup intel3945 wireless and rc.conf

#12 2008-02-07 14:46:59

Re: Help! Confusion over how to setup intel3945 wireless and rc.conf

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