Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

[teslasnp]

I recently upgraded to the 2.13 pup and have loved it from the start. My wireless card was found immediately and functions with WEP and unprotected networks in the a/b/g range, and my sound card works. Fantastic, the first distribution to do this. . .my only concern is that I seem incapable of configuring the WPA supplicant at all. No matter what changes i make, the ssid always shows as the last network I connected to. . .I'm going to reinstall to hdd tonight and make another attempt at it, but any help on how to connect to a WPA-TKIP network would be appreciated

[paulh177]

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?search_id=679750412&t=13008 may help.
it's usually do-able but can be a fiddle with some cards

[Flash]

Please, if you're going to ask for help from the forum, at least tell us the make and model of your hardware. If we help you find a solution, it might also help someone else with the same hardware.

[teslasnp]

My apologies, I didn't think before I posted, nor before I searched the forum well enough. It would appear that at the least I didn't even state what version I was using or what packages I had already obtained, as well as those that I didn't know about(wifi-1.0.4-beta-2.pup). I will try that and believe that this is my problem. If not I will come back for more assistance with more information.

Once again, I do apologize and thank you for your help thus far.

[tempestuous]

The setup of wpa_supplicant has not yet been incorporated into the Network Wizard. rarsa is working on it - http://www.puppyos.net/forum/?1167105466
In the meantime, the only way to use wpa_supplicant is by manually running the setup commands, as per the instructions here
http://dotpups.de/dotpups/Wifi/wireless-utilities/wpa_supplicant_README.txt

.. of course, wpa_supplicant does not support all wifi drivers ... and you still haven't told us the brand/model/revision of your wifi adaptor, so we can't advise you further.


wifi-1.0.4-beta-2.pup is just a (large) collection of Windows wifi drivers for use with ndiswrapper.
Since Puppy has already loaded a native driver for you which is working, I can't see any point in using wifi-1.0.4-beta-2.pup or ndiswrapper, unless your native driver does not support WPA
... but again, you haven't told us what device/driver you have.

[teslasnp]

i am using a Toshiba Satellite M115-S3094, with the ipw3945 wireless card. The settings for the network that I am attempting to connect to is as follows:

ssid: 12183
wpa-tkip
psk=twelve183

i don't know what other information would be needed other than to say that it is a hidden ssid. I've correctly modified the wpa_supplicant.conf:

ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant
ap_scan=1
network={
ssid="12183"
key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
proto=WPA
pairwise=TKIP
group=TKIP
psk="twelve183"

possibly the wpa-connect executable. . .

modprobe ipw3945
ifconfig eth0 up
if [ -e /var/run/wpa_supplicant/* ]; then rm /var/run/wpa_supplicant/*; fi
wpa_supplicant -i eth0 -D wext -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -B
sleep 20

Perhaps there is a procedure to connect correctly, if there is I don't know what it would be. I try running the wpa-connect file after x is started. A possible complication may be that I need to connect to a wep connection at school, or an ad-hoc at school or work. If there's something more that you may need to diagnose the problem, please let me know, I'll give you what I can

[tempestuous]

OK, now I can help.
Several encryption modules need to be loaded to support WPA connection. Puppy seems to automatically load most of them, but NOT the michael_mic module. So load it manually before launching wpa_supplicant, like this -

modprobe michael_mic

If your connection still fails, it might be necessary to load the other encryption modules -

modprobe ieee80211_crypt
modprobe ieee80211_crypt_wep
modprobe ieee80211_crypt_ccmp
modprobe ieee80211_crypt_tkip

modprobe aes ## ??
modprobe arc4 ## ??
modprobe crc32c ## ??

Forum member "fried" is successfully using wpa_supplicant with an IPW2200 adaptor, see here
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=11249&start=15

And one more thing - for initial testing, it would be a good idea to "unhide" your router's SSID. Once your laptop can successfully connect, then you can try to hide the SSID.

[paulh177]

I have ipw3945 working ok with puppy 2.13, but the only way it will associate with the router is if i unhide the SSID.
If I leave the SSID hidden, ipw3945 continually attempts to associate but never completes.

paul

[teslasnp]

Is it possible then to assume that the wpa_supplicant isn't yet capable of connecting to hidden networks?

[paulh177]

it's often dangerous to make broad assumptions based on a single observation.

[rarsa]

I have a hidden essid network and it worked with this simple change

ap_scan=2


The rest of my configuration file and steps is exactly the same.

Please let me know if this works for you as I may make it an assumption on the wizard.

[paulh177]

OK rarsa, that works on my intel 945abg wireless.
when i have a moment i'll try it on the bcom 43xx

(was that setting documented anywhere or was it a guess?)

[teslasnp]

I don't fully understand it, but by upgrading to the 2.14beta, there exists a wizard for the wpa options, including hidden networks. Not sure why it works, but it does. Same driver too. Thanks for your help.