Arch Linux

Celti

Member

From: Phoenix, AZ, USA

Registered: 2004-02-28

Posts: 43

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

---

“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: 43

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

---

“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: 43

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

---

“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