SOLVED - [kind of] 3.0 Shared Key Wireless Error

Please post any bugs you have found
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friedsonjm
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Joined: Sat 10 Mar 2007, 14:49

SOLVED - [kind of] 3.0 Shared Key Wireless Error

#1 Post by friedsonjm »

["Solution, at least for me, posted here below my original post.]
The ndiswrapper technique does not work in this edition of Puppy; the good news is that the native atheros linux driver included does, but only up to a point. The scan button finds my WAP secured network, and I can enter all details, but it refuses to save the pre-shared wireless key, and keeps coming up with an error message of length. The length is 8 characters, and works with all other wireless setups I've tried, including Windoze and a number of Linux flavors, including 2.17 of Puppy.

Long story short, with 3.0 and this setup, I can't connect wirelessly.
jf

After way too much experimentation, I'm up on WPA. Here is what I found with my Atheros-based Dlink G630 card:

1. Can't use an 8-digit key, must be at least 9, or you get the "must be between 8 and 63 digits" error. I'm not talking about using wpa_passphrase, I'm referring to the number of digits in the pre-shared key entry you make in the wizard.

2. WPS-TKIP, sometimes known as WPA personal, does not work. Has to be WPA2. I'm using the 'personal' version, not the 'enterprise' version.

3. The Linux driver in Puppy works at the office.. but not at home! This, despite both routers being Linksys, both on WPA2, etc.

4. Using ndiswrapper, the windoze driver does work with my system at home, in WPA2 mode, with at least a 9-digit key, etc. Note, the .inf file is CVN3AB.inf 16K 08:19:00 13 May 2005.

I'm going to have to see if the Windoze driver will work at work; switching back and forth is more trouble than I want to go through!

YMMV, of course...

jf
Last edited by friedsonjm on Mon 05 Nov 2007, 23:59, edited 1 time in total.

tempestuous
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Re: 3.0 Shared Key Wireless Error

#2 Post by tempestuous »

friedsonjm wrote:The scan button finds my WAP secured network
Do you mean WPA, or WEP?

If WPA, the Personal Security Key can be any length.

If WEP;
64/40 bit WEP must have 10 hexadecimal characters.
128/104 bit WEP must have 26 hexadecimal characters.

It's also possible to use a WEP passphrase, which is ASCII characters.
In this case when entering the passphrase into Puppy's Network Wizard WEP field, you should prefix the passphrase with "s:" (without the quotation marks).
But beware, passphrase format is not standardised, so it may fail to convert to the correct hexadecimal WEP key. It's safer to enter the true WEP key.

friedsonjm
Posts: 208
Joined: Sat 10 Mar 2007, 14:49

#3 Post by friedsonjm »

No, I use WPA. WEP is not very secure! WPA needs to be 8-63 in length, alphanumeric, and my key is, and works fine.. with everything else except Puppy 3.0!

tempestuous
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#4 Post by tempestuous »

Well the Network Wizard has been through several changes, but the only change which should affect WPA was when we changed the wpa_supplicant -D parameter for Atheros from "madwifi" to "wext" which, in theory, is correct.

Please try to set up your connection manually with wpa_supplicant, following these instructions
http://dotpups.de/dotpups/Wifi/wireless ... README.txt

You will see that those instructions (which are older) suggest using "-i ath0 -D madwifi" in the wpa_supplicant command,
but please also try "-i ath0 -D wext" in the wpa_supplicant command.
If we can learn which works best, "madwifi" or "wext", we can change the Wizard.

H2O_Goalie
Posts: 3
Joined: Sat 13 Oct 2007, 18:28

Same problem...

#5 Post by H2O_Goalie »

FWIW, I am having the same problem. New to Puppy, but not to live Linux distros, nor using ndiswrapper and wpa_supplicant. I have a valid WPA PSK that works with XP and Knoppix v5.1.1 but is not working with Puppy. I continue to get an error box when trying to activate the network settings. It works fine with an unencrypted network in Puppy...but as soon as I try WPA it goes belly-up.

Any suggestions?

H2O_Goalie
Posts: 3
Joined: Sat 13 Oct 2007, 18:28

Eureka!

#6 Post by H2O_Goalie »

In the last post I reported a problem with getting WPA encryption to work. I have either solved or found a workaround to the issue. I was unable to simply feed in my WPA PSK (valid, I use it on other distros/XP), but when I used wpa_passphrase (with the appropriate SSID and PSK) to generate a key and fed that into the GUI network profile everything worked fine.

So perhaps there's some disconnect between the GUI and wpa_passphrase?

BTW...I'm on Puppy 3.

friedsonjm
Posts: 208
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Re: Eureka!

#7 Post by friedsonjm »

H2O_Goalie wrote:In the last post I reported a problem with getting WPA encryption to work. I have either solved or found a workaround to the issue. I was unable to simply feed in my WPA PSK (valid, I use it on other distros/XP), but when I used wpa_passphrase (with the appropriate SSID and PSK) to generate a key and fed that into the GUI network profile everything worked fine.

So perhaps there's some disconnect between the GUI and wpa_passphrase?

BTW...I'm on Puppy 3.
And how, exactly, do you get to and use wpa_Passphrase?

H2O_Goalie
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Re: Eureka!

#8 Post by H2O_Goalie »

friedsonjm wrote:And how, exactly, do you get to and use wpa_Passphrase?
Open a terminal window, type "wpa_passphrase". It will show you the correct syntax (I believe it's "wpa_passphrase SSID PSK". You'll then get output that's a long alphanumeric string. Enter that in space you've been trying to use your PSK in.

tempestuous
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#9 Post by tempestuous »

wpa_passphrase usage is explained in the link I mentioned earlier
http://dotpups.de/dotpups/Wifi/wireless ... README.txt
wpa_supplicant should be able to determine whether the user has entered a passphrase or hex key, and initiate the hex conversion if necessary.
It seems that the Wizard is somehow failing in this respect.

I have just sent rarsa a message about this problem.

friedsonjm
Posts: 208
Joined: Sat 10 Mar 2007, 14:49

#10 Post by friedsonjm »

Well, I've tried all of this now, I think. WPA with 3.0 and 3.1 won't work with my Atheros card, at least. Other distros have no trouble with it. jf

tempestuous
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#11 Post by tempestuous »

As I said in my previous post, the Wizard needs to be fixed. In the meantime, running the wpa_supplicant command manually should work fine ...
... and if it doesn't work, then any error messages should be accurately reported so the problem can be fixed.

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Barburo
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Joined: Thu 14 Jun 2007, 18:49

Connect wizard is doing strange things

#12 Post by Barburo »

Have read all of the above.
Tried H2O_Goalie's method but no luck.
I am using the latest 3.01 (downloaded yesterday) and trying to connect my HP pavillion TX1000 laptop.

I previously tried to connect it using puppy 2.17 which didn't recognized the wifi card in the laptop at all.
3.01 seems a lot better because it now recognizes eth1 as a wireless interface and loads the bcm43xx driver.
Now the strange part. On a fresh boot when I try to configure and use the scan option it finds my lan (and a few others).
I checked my router and it is set up to use WPA2 encryption.
I select my SSID, select WPA2 and have tried the ascii key, the WPA hex key (as per H2O_Goalie).
Neither work, and the wizard now tells me "no networks detected" when I try to use scan again.
If I reboot I can go through the process again, but as soon as I've tried once (scan, enter key, attempting to acquire WPA), I get "no networks detected" again.
Tried (without success) to follow tempestuous' manual intructions.
A script containing these commands, /root/my-applications/bin/wpa-connect, is provided to automate this process.
Just modify the script to include your wifi driver type and wifi interface name.
First -there's no script file in puppy 3.01. I guessed that for a bcm43xx driver the type was wext.
Tried to enter commands manually through a terminal but it hung trying to get WPA connection.
Hope this provides some feedback for anyone attempting to make the wizard work. I appreciate the work you guys put into this.

friedsonjm
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Joined: Sat 10 Mar 2007, 14:49

#13 Post by friedsonjm »

an excellent job of describing the problem, and since I have a completely different wireless card, potentially not driver-specific.
jf

tempestuous
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Re: Connect wizard is doing strange things

#14 Post by tempestuous »

Barburo wrote:the wizard now tells me "no networks detected" when I try to use scan again.
It sounds like the bcm43xx module is behaving erratically, it doesn't sound like a problem with the Wizard.
rarsa reports that the bcm43xx module fails to load correctly at boot up, the solution is to unload, then reload it
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=22459
Barburo wrote:there's no script file in puppy 3.01
Correct. The wpa_supplicant setup script referred to in the README comes as part of the wpa_supplicant-0.5.7.pup, available at the same download location as the README ... but it's just as easy to create your own script once you know that the individual commands work.
Barburo wrote:I guessed that for a bcm43xx driver the type was wext.
Correct.

peterw
Posts: 430
Joined: Wed 19 Jul 2006, 12:12
Location: UK

WPA Wireless

#15 Post by peterw »

I have the same problem as others. With Atheros AR5005G on ACER Aspire 5051AWXMi on Puppy 3.01/3.0/2.17 can't wirelessly connect with WPA.
I have tried both my passphrase and the passcode generated by wpa_password as recommended to no effect. Occasionally, I can see my router in RTuit but can't connect. Interestingly, RTuit does not give me WPA option?
This is so frustrating since Puppy is so good and I enjoy recommending it to my friends since it, like its name, it is always so eager to do tasks and rarely annoys users with refusals.

tempestuous
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#16 Post by tempestuous »

peterw,
I suggest you try the WPA commands manually, so we can locate the problem.
First ope the configuration file /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf in geany (or wpa_supplicant2.conf for WPA2) and modify it to include your SSID and Personal Security Key (PSK).
The PSK can be either passphrase or hex key.
Now run thes commands -

Code: Select all

ifconfig ath0 up
rm /var/run/wpa_supplicant/*
wpa_supplicant -i ath0 -D wext -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -dd
This process can take up to 30 seconds. If it runs without error, you can now open a second command prompt and run this

Code: Select all

rm /etc/dhcpc/*.pid
dhcpcd -t 30 -h puppypc -d ath0

peterw
Posts: 430
Joined: Wed 19 Jul 2006, 12:12
Location: UK

WPA Atheros

#17 Post by peterw »

Thanks for the help tempestuos. It is much appreciated by strugglers such as myself.

I have tried your suggestions with the following results:

/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf already had the SSID and hex key from previous attempts to get connected using the wizard. After a few attempts following the instructions with no joy I added the SSID and passphrase to the wpa_supplicant2.conf in the hope that it might help.

To ensure that the situation was not being confused by old commands I frequently rebooted to refresh the starting point.

Most of the time after typing "ifconfig ath0 up" and enter the prompt reappeared, although on some occasions I sometimes got the response "ifconfig: SIOCGIFFLAGS :no such device".

On the occasions when I got the prompt the "rm /var/run/wpa_supplicant/*" command resulted in this response "rm: cannot remove 'var/run/wpa_supplicant/*': no such file or directory.

If I ignored this and pushed on with the "wpa_ ......conf -dd" command, I got the response that it was trying "WPA enabled AP" and "non-WPA AP" every 5 seconds without success.

I had to shut down the terminal to regain control of the process.

Blinky tells me that wifi0 is transmitting and receiving something. Ie For example 47.08 kB sent and 238 bytes received.

I know my Atheros card works with XP.

Just a thought, the processor is a AMD Turion 64 bit Mobile one and I am assuming it is compatable with Puppy. (Some distros have 64 bit versions)

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks

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Pizzasgood
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#18 Post by Pizzasgood »

Just a thought, the processor is a AMD Turion 64 bit Mobile one and I am assuming it is compatable with Puppy. (Some distros have 64 bit versions)
It shouldn't be a problem. AFAIK, most if not all 64 bit processors include support for 32 bit operating systems. The thing to remember is that if you run a 32 bit operating system on a 64 bit processor, you need to use the 32 bit drivers. 64 bit drivers are only for a 64 bit operating system.

My own processor is 64 bit, but I haven't had any issues running Puppy on it, with drivers for all sorts of gadgets.


I don't know anything worth stating about WPA, but one thing you said does send up a red flag in my mind:
Blinky tells me that wifi0 is transmitting
Blinky is saying you're using wifi0. But the commands you're using are for ath0. So it makes me wonder if maybe some other script has been automatically configuring the card as wifi0, and thus messing up your attempts to use it as ath0.
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tempestuous
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Re: WPA Atheros

#19 Post by tempestuous »

Well the good news is that the Network Wizard is not at fault.
peterw wrote:sometimes got the response "ifconfig: SIOCGIFFLAGS :no such device".
That means that the ath0 interface does not exist, probably because Puppy did not automatically load the ath_pci module. So let's deal with that problem by making the first command this -

Code: Select all

modprobe ath_pci
Ignore the "wifi0" interface. This is just a quirk of the ath_pci driver, it's a "virtual" or "placeholder" interface.
peterw wrote:rm: cannot remove 'var/run/wpa_supplicant/*': no such file or directory.
No problem. We just need to make sure that file doesn't exist before launching wpa_supplicant.

You need to find out for certain whether your wifi access point is using WPA or WPA2. If WPA2, you must adjust the contents of /etc/wpa_supplicant2.conf and then specify this configuration file in the wpa_supplicant command, as such -

Code: Select all

wpa_supplicant -i ath0 -D wext -c /etc/wpa_supplicant2.conf -dd

friedsonjm
Posts: 208
Joined: Sat 10 Mar 2007, 14:49

#20 Post by friedsonjm »

Wow... Puppy/WPA for Linux gurus only? WEP security is so busted that WPA is a must, and this is a distro that, IMHO, should work for most people, not only the skilled and enlightened few.

Best of luck to those who are working to fix this!

jf

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