Atheros wireless cant accociate to an access-point

JN · 2010-01-29 04:19:19

Hello all,

I hope someone can help me with this. I recently installed a fresh build of Arch on a laptop, IBM x31 Thinkpad. The install went pretty well; however, one problem I have yet to solve is wireless connectivity on this machine. Note, I've tested this on multiple networks. The situation:

1. Ethernet is now up & running, so I know I know it's capable of getting out over the net.

2. I have two Atheros NICs:

# lspci
Ethernet controller: Atheros Communication Inc. AR5211 802.11ab NIC (rev 01)
Ethernet controller: Atheros Communication Inc. AR2413 802.11bg NIC (rev 01)

The first is internal & the second is a PCMCIA card.

3. Normally, I would expect having Atheros cards would mean needing to install Madwifi. But, when I do an "ifconfig -a" I get a listings for ALL my interfaces, namely wlan0 and wlan1, and they appear to work (somewhat). I can bring up both interfaces with ifconfig. I can even use iwlist to bring up all wifi access-points in range. The problem is when I try to associate with an access-point.

Originally, when I tryed connecting to a network it would take the arguments and say nothing, but upon further investigation I would invariably see iwconfig telling me that the NIC was actually associated to any AP. Now, I'm getting more interesting results (not sure what changed) but still... no dice.

Network 1 (secured with WPA2):

# iwconfig wlan0 essid "somename" key s:passphrase
Error for wireless request "Set Encode" (8B2A) :
SET failed on device wlan0 : Invalid argument.

# iwconfig wlan0 essid "somename" key [the-hex-equivilant-for-the-passphrase]
Error for wireless request "Set Encode" (8B2A) :
SET failed on device wlan0 : Invalid argument.

With that not working I tried directly asigning the router's address instead of the ESSID:

# iwconfig wlan0 ap ##:##:##:##:##:## key s:passphrase
Error for wireless request "Set Encode" (8B2A) :
SET failed on device wlan0 : Invalid argument.

# iwconfig wlan0 ap ##:##:##:##:##:## key [the-hex-equivilant-for-the-passphrase]
Error for wireless request "Set Encode" (8B2A) :
SET failed on device wlan0 : Invalid argument.

Network 2 (secured with WEP2):

# iwconfig wlan0 essid "somename" key [hex-key]
Error for wireless request "Set Encode" (8B2A) :
SET failed on device wlan0 : Invalid argument.

# iwconfig wlan0 ap ##:##:##:##:##:## key [hex-key]
Error for wireless request "Set Encode" (8B2A) :
SET failed on device wlan0 : Invalid argument.

I get the same results with wlan1.

EDIT: Typo fixies.

Last edited by JN (2010-01-29 04:46:25)

JN · 2010-01-29 04:38:18

Oh! I almost forgot:

I can't get modprobe to show me any loaded modules. But when I try finding wireless modules manually, this is what I get:

$ more /proc/modules | grep ath
ath5k 115962 0 - Live 0xf890b000
mac80211 149018 1 ath5k, Live 0xf888e000
ath 6552 1 ath5k, Live 0xf8800000
cfg80211 106663 3 ath5k, mac80211,ath, Live 0xf8708000
led_class 1933 2 ath5k,thinkpad_acpi, Live 0xf82b6000

tomk · 2010-01-29 07:00:09

modprobe doesn't show loaded modules - lsmod does.

JN · 2010-01-30 00:26:02

tomk wrote:

modprobe doesn't show loaded modules - lsmod does.

Yes, yes... I don't know why I said that. I must have been too sleepy.

But, that doesn't take away from my problem. Lsmod (of course) lists the same drivers as I listed above.

Keeler · 2010-01-30 04:32:45

Your wireless interfaces are fine. I think it's a problem with how you're putting in the key. Try seperating the commands to isolate the problem. For example:

iwconfig wlan0 ap ##:##:##:##:##:##
iwconfig wlan0 key 0123456789

Fool around with different methods of typing the key, as given in iwconfig's manpage. Ans make sure you aren't trying to give the hex key as 01:23:45:67:89.

JN · 2010-01-30 05:40:59

Keeler wrote:

Your wireless interfaces are fine. I think it's a problem with how you're putting in the key. Try seperating the commands to isolate the problem. For example:
iwconfig wlan0 ap ##:##:##:##:##:##
iwconfig wlan0 key 0123456789
Fool around with different methods of typing the key, as given in iwconfig's manpage. Ans make sure you aren't trying to give the hex key as 01:23:45:67:89.

Thanks for the input.
But, yea. I thought of that. It had no effect.

grey · 2010-01-30 10:13:14

JN wrote:

It had no effect.

So both iwconfig commands result in the "SET failed - invalid argument" error?

Arch Linux

#1 2010-01-29 04:19:19

Atheros wireless cant accociate to an access-point

#2 2010-01-29 04:38:18

Re: Atheros wireless cant accociate to an access-point

#3 2010-01-29 07:00:09

Re: Atheros wireless cant accociate to an access-point

#4 2010-01-30 00:26:02

Re: Atheros wireless cant accociate to an access-point

#5 2010-01-30 04:32:45

Re: Atheros wireless cant accociate to an access-point

#6 2010-01-30 05:40:59

Re: Atheros wireless cant accociate to an access-point

#7 2010-01-30 10:13:14

Re: Atheros wireless cant accociate to an access-point

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