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#1 2009-04-16 14:55:42

drandre
Member
Registered: 2009-04-16
Posts: 35

[Solved] help needed with wireless setup (ralink 2860 driver)

Hi,

I'm new to Arch so please be gentle ;-)
I recently upgraded hoping to find improved support for my wireless.  I now find that the kernel recognises and loads the appropriate module:

[root@akoya ~]# uname -a
Linux akoya 2.6.29-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Wed Apr 8 12:47:56 UTC 2009 i686 Pentium(R)
[root@akoya ~]# lspci | grep Net
05:00.0 Network controller: RaLink RT2860
[root@akoya ~]# lsmod | grep 2860
rt2860sta             514808  1

I checked over the kernel source and the rt2680sta module is the code from ralink cleaned up for the 2.6.29 kernel.  (I tried building the ralink release but it needs patching for 2.6.29)

However getting the thing to connect using WPA is another thing altogether

[root@akoya ~]# ifconfig ra0 up
[root@akoya ~]# wpa_supplicant -B -Dwext -i ra0 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
[root@akoya ~]# dhcpcd ra0
ra0: dhcpcd 4.0.12 starting
ra0: waiting for carrier
ra0: timed out

I'm not even sure if iwconfig is communicating with this driver (though I can find my router using "iwlist ra0 scan"):

[root@akoya ~]# iwconfig ra0 essid "sodor"
[root@akoya ~]# iwconfig
...
ra0       RT2860 Wireless  ESSID:""  Nickname:"RT2860STA"
          Mode:Auto  Frequency=2.412 GHz  Access Point: 00:21:91:FE:DA:97
...

And if I try to configure using wicd I see the following log when trying to connect to the wireless:

2009/04/17 01:16:43 :: Connecting to wireless network sodor
2009/04/17 01:16:43 :: Putting interface down
2009/04/17 01:16:43 :: ifconfig ra0 down
2009/04/17 01:16:43 :: Releasing DHCP leases...
2009/04/17 01:16:43 :: Setting false IP...
2009/04/17 01:16:43 :: ifconfig ra0 0.0.0.0
2009/04/17 01:16:43 :: ifconfig eth0 0.0.0.0
2009/04/17 01:16:43 :: Stopping wpa_supplicant and any DHCP clients
2009/04/17 01:16:43 :: killall wpa_supplicant
2009/04/17 01:16:43 :: Flushing the routing table...
2009/04/17 01:16:43 :: route del dev ra0
2009/04/17 01:16:43 :: route del dev eth0
2009/04/17 01:16:43 :: Attempting to authenticate...
2009/04/17 01:16:43 :: ['wpa_supplicant', '-B', '-i', 'ra0', '-c', '/var/lib/wicd/configurations/002191feda97', '-D', 'wext']
2009/04/17 01:16:43 :: Putting interface up...
2009/04/17 01:16:43 :: ifconfig ra0 up
2009/04/17 01:16:43 :: iwconfig ra0 mode Managed
2009/04/17 01:16:43 :: ['iwconfig', 'ra0', 'essid', 'sodor', 'channel', '1', 'ap', '00:21:91:FE:DA:97']
2009/04/17 01:16:43 :: WPA_CLI RESULT IS None
2009/04/17 01:16:43 :: Failed to find status in wpa_cli result
2009/04/17 01:16:43 :: exiting connection thread

It is driving me crazy being tied to a cable so I'd really like to get this working... but I'm really not sure what to try.  Do I need to rebuild wpa_supplicant?  If so is there a package-based way of doing that in arch?

Thanks in advance.

Last edited by drandre (2009-04-17 19:40:41)

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#2 2009-04-17 00:13:59

drandre
Member
Registered: 2009-04-16
Posts: 35

Re: [Solved] help needed with wireless setup (ralink 2860 driver)

If so is there a package-based way of doing that

OK... to answer my own questions I've identified the Arch Build System (ABS).  Syncing...

Following the instructions on the most excellent Arch wiki I can build the wpa_supplicant from source.  Good start.

Now when I look in the config file for this package I notice this:

# Driver interface for Ralink driver
#CONFIG_DRIVER_RALINK=y

two questions:
1. Does this mean support for the ralink driver is included by default or *not* included by default?
2. If I uncomment this line then makepkg refuses to build the package because the config file's md5 is no longer valid.  How then am I *meant* to make modifications to the build configuration?


Thanks.

Last edited by drandre (2009-04-17 00:45:01)

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#3 2009-04-17 07:23:20

drandre
Member
Registered: 2009-04-16
Posts: 35

Re: [Solved] help needed with wireless setup (ralink 2860 driver)

drandre wrote:

If so is there a package-based way of doing that

OK... to answer my own questions ...

two questions:
1. Does this mean support for the ralink driver is included by default or *not* included by default?

It seems it means *not*

2. If I uncomment this line then makepkg refuses to build the package because the config file's md5 is no longer valid.  How then am I *meant* to make modifications to the build configuration?

right or wrong I used makepkg -g to generate checksums for my modified config file and pasted these into PKGBUILD.  It then builds happily.  After installing I can run wpa_supplicant with no args and confirm ralink is in the list of drivers.  Excellent.  But still no success.

Two things I have noticed:
1. wicd places quotes "" around my pre-shared key.  If I run wpa_supplicant from the command line and use the conf file created by wicd it reports the PSK as being unparsable.  If I remove the quotes then the file is parsed correctly.
2. It doesn't solve my problem :-(

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#4 2009-04-17 19:38:37

drandre
Member
Registered: 2009-04-16
Posts: 35

Re: [Solved] help needed with wireless setup (ralink 2860 driver)

Well that really was a battle!
In the end an Ubuntu thread came to the rescue:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour … bug/344022

1. I did not need to include ralink driver in wpa_supplicant.  In fact it doesn't work.  wext works fine.  Default package should be fine.
2. I limited my wireless router to use a single encryption method (TPIK)
3. I added the 2860 firmware (distributed by ralink) to /lib/firmware.  I'm not sure if this was needed but it seemed like it should be there (anyone know why its not?).

wpa configuration file:

network={
       ssid="sodor"
       scan_ssid=1
       proto=WPA
       key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
       pairwise=TKIP
       group=TKIP
       psk=xxxxxxx
}

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