wireless issues with linux

Okay…. i've been beating my head against this for a while now.

I've got a linux box that refuses to associate with my network. It refuses to detect, aquire, or anything of the sort the MAC of the AP. I've used the command: iwconfig eth1 ap <mac here> and it returns: Error for wireless request "Set AP Address" (8B14): SET failed on device eth1 ; Operation not supported.

Now… i know that the card is somewhat working since my other box, running kismet atm, is detecting this one being "suspicious" for probing the network but not participating….

thoughts… anyone?

I might have something to help you:

First the basics

1.) ifconfig (to see the network devices and stuff)

After you acquire which one your wireless network device is (it should be something like ath0, eth0, etc.) type in for example if you network device is named eth0, type in:

2.) ifconfig eth0 up (this turns on your wireless device)

After that you will want to connect to the network:

3.) iwconfig eth0 essid any (or "any" can't remember, but, it'll connect to any open network)

After you are connected to the network, you need to get an IP, so:

4.)dhcpcd

That should work. If not, it was still a pretty good tutorial for any nubz who need help connecting (like I once did)

What distro are you using?

ok, I noticed the command you are putting in is iwconfig eth1….when you do your ifconfig does your wireless card show up as eth1? Mine shows up as wlan0.

Also, what kind of wireless card is it and how is your box controlling it? Meaning, is it a USB/PCMCIA/PCI card and are you using a linux-version of your firmware driver or are you using Ndiswrapper?

When you boot your system, watch as your system goes thru the boot process and hit your pause button when you see the section for your wireless card, see if there's any failures or anything. Check your lspci and make sure it is actually loading the modules properly as well.

The wireless device's chipset and your distro would be rather useful information.:)

distro = mandriva spring 2007 yes, it is eth1 and dhcpcd inst a recognized command.

And your wireless device and chipset? Wifi can hell on linux…there are different projects to develop drivers depending on chipset.

iwconfig eth1 essid whateveruwant

iwconfig eth1

if u get something like

eth1 802.11b/g NIC ESSID:name that u typed………

It should be working.

iwlist eth1 scanning

Also for a WEP

iwconfig eth1 key 1234-5678-90 [1]

Hope it helps

i used the iwlist eth1 scanning and it completed it… found the AP MAC but it still doesnt show up under iwconfig and ifconfig still has no ip for it and i cannot ping anything

Oh man,i dont know then. Are drivers ok?

only_samurai wrote: i used the iwlist eth1 scanning and it completed it… found the AP MAC but it still doesnt show up under iwconfig and ifconfig still has no ip for it and i cannot ping anything

Well, did you connect after you had found the MAC? If you did, and you can't ping anything, it's because you weren't assigned a network address. I don't know why dhcpcd didn't work… maybe there's a different one for that distro. Try seeing what your linux distro does for getting network addresses?

What is your wireless hardware and how are you integrating it into your mandriva system?

what about doing a modprobe yourwirelesscard to initiate your wifi-card? If there is an error with the driver or the module loading it, it should result in an error.

i've got it as a pci, i run lspci and it shows up. i know its functional since: iwlist eth1 scanning picks up 2 cells (mine and a neighbors) also, kismet on my other box picks up the MAC of this wireless card…. buggered, eh?

Can you connect to the AP Q if so i think as least u should be able to ping to the gw. so if ur connected but cant ping anything but the gw, try this: dhclient eth1 if it is not recognized either, then you should set ur ip, netmask, and gw manually. if thats the case let me know and i may be able to help ;)

i have solved the problem on my backtrack 2 box and here is my solution:

1. DO NOT USE key s:string. the s: does not always break the ascii to the same sum your router does. use the hex

2. here were my steps

ifconfig eth0 up iwconfig eth0 essid ESSID key 0123456789 (make that your hex key) dhcpcd -nd eth0

that's it… BAM

That's really good to know, I've yet to try running my wifi with backtrack2…strange that the live-cd, Slax, that Backtrack is built from and Slackware don't require it to be in that format. I always like it when people actually post their solutions instead of when they just stop responding to the thread.