WIRELESS Driver Packages Available for Puppy 1x

[tempestuous]

Marv,
Nice to hear an endorsement.
Though in fairness, you sound like a knowledgeable Linux person. I don't think the process of installing and configuring these drivers would be so straightforward for a newbie. I make no apologies. I always intended these packages as "unofficial" add-ons for discerning users.

Newbies are probably better off with ndiswrapper, and the commendable systems by bladehunter, BlackAdder, keenerd and Barry to automate things.

Regarding the Ralink drivers, I didn't mention in the README file that I provided the earlier v1.x versions, not the later v2.x versions because v2 requires a 2.6 kernel. If Puppy moves to a 2.6 kernel we can move up to the newer Ralink driver.

[berk0081]

Hi All,

I've been trying to get the linux-wlan-ng drivers to recognize my D-Link DWL-650 revP. I use the same driver package and version with success in VectorLinux so I know it is possible.

I had spent some time trying to build the drivers myself before stumbling onto these packages and I must say thanks and keep up the good work.

However, I just can't seem to get the prism2_cs driver to see my card and I know I must be missing a step. I have added

Code: Select all

alias wlan0 prism2_cs

to my /etc/modules.conf but I guess I can't figure out how to correctly restart the pcmcia modules after loading the wlan-ng driver so that it sees my card on hotplugging. I would appreciate help from those of you who have tested this driver package.

Thanks lots,
-M

[Guest]

Hi,
I have been trying as noted in previous posts to set-up intel 2200 wireless network drivers with WPA encryption. I had been using Chubby Puppy 1.05 multisession CD. I switched back to Puppy 1.05-Mozilla and have had far less problems expanding the tarballs.

I successfully expanded ipw2200-1.0.1.tar.gz and wpa_suppplicant-0.3.9.tar.gz. Ifconfig shows I have a network interface. The problem is the wpa_supplicant. After expanding the tar.gz file, the terminal window lists 4 files and their directories. I checked the directories and the files are there. However when I use the command; wpa_supplicant -ieth0 -Dipw -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -d, I receive the error messsage "command not found". I also tried modprobe wpa_supplicant and received error message, "can't locate module wpa_supplicant".

Any assistance is appreciated.

Thanks

[tempestuous]

Sorry, wpa_supplicant uncompresses into /usr/local/sbin/, which is its original location in Vector Linux, but this directory doesn't normally exist in Puppy. So that's why Puppy will complain that there is "No such file or directory".

I may update the wpa_supplicant package in the future, but for now just specify the full path for wpa_supplicant. Thus the full command would be -

/usr/local/sbin/wpa_supplicant -ieth0 -Dipw -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -d

Don't use "modprobe". wpa_supplicant is an application, not a module.

[berk0081]

Hi all,

I've been trying to get the linux-wlan-ng drivers to recognize my D-Link DWL-650 revP. I use the same driver package and version with success in VectorLinux so I know it is possible.

For the record, I've now managed to get this working with a "poor man's install" (i.e. kernel, image.gz, usr_cram.fs copied to HD). The trick was to kill cardmgr and restart it with prism2_cs already loaded. Rather than constantly untar the driver package, I rebuilt image.gz with the /sbin/wlanctl-ng* files and the necessary driver in /lib/modules/2.4.29/linux-wlan-ng/.

Restarting cardmgr usually causes the card to be picked up immediately and its firmware loaded.

The last step is to make sure the card is running with dhcp (if it's supposed to be). For some reason, I still have to delete /etc/dhcpcd/dhcpcd-wlan0.pid before I can get an IP, but I have a script that does:

Code: Select all

rm /etc/dhcpcd/dhcpcd-wlan0.pid
dhcpcd -d wlan0 

Curiously but thankfully, the DWL-650 revP on linux-wlan-ng runs much more reliably under Puppy than it does in VectorLinux 5.0, which also uses 2.4.29. Haven't figured out why yet, but am glad it does.

Best,
-m

[Guest]

Hi,
I used /usr/local/sbin/wpa_supplicant ieth0 -Dipw -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -d. I received error message 'failed to read configuration file /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf 'preceded by error messages "failure to parse" from lines 389 to 442.

Thanks

[tempestuous]

I think the system is complaining about your configuration file - /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf.
This configuration file contains some example settings, which you should modify to suit your own WPA settings.
And you should comment out all other examples (by putting "#" at the start of each line), which obviously will be unsuitable for you.

[Guest]

OK, I modified wpa_supplicant.conf. Scanning is done for the AP but it is unable to connect . Also I noticed ioct[IPW_IOCTRL_WPA_SUPPLICANT] invalid argument; and message no keys have been configured.

I am using WPA Personal using TKIP algorithim and a preshared key.

Thanks

[tempestuous]

Good try. Sorry to hear it doesn't work.
I just checked the ipw2200 README from the source download, and found this -

"1.1 Overview of Features
...
802.1x EAP via wpa_supplicant and xsupplicant"

I have never used WPA myself, so I can't offer definite information. Does this mean that the only form of WPA supported is EAP??
Anyway, xsupplicant is here http://open1x.org/
And xsupplicant documentation is here http://sourceforge.net/docman/display_d ... p_id=60236

[Guest]

I have a Linksys broadband router. I double checked to see types of WPA supported. Linksys supports WPA with TKIP and AES and didn't see EAP support. I reread the readme from wpa_supplicant. Wpa_supplicant does support TKIP. I used the basic WPA script in the configuration file. I will try a different script with wpa_supplicant that includes TKIP. When I reviewed the WPA script with TKIP before, I wasn't sure which values to include.

Thanks

[Guest]

I used the WPA TKIP script but am still obtaining the same error message noted previously. No key is generated and no connection established.

At this point my choices are to change encryption type or wait for more updated drivers.

Thanks

[tempestuous]

I have investigated the WPA situation further. I provided version 1.0.1 of the ipw2200 driver, which is not the latest, but the latest for which there is a 2.4 kernel patch available. Looking at the "changes" list at http://ipw2200.sourceforge.net I see this-

"Changes in 1.0.1
Added initial support for WPA (thanks to Yi Zhu) -- tested with wpa_supplicant (either tip w/ ipw driver, or with -Dipw2100) with both CCMP and TKIP"

So WPA support is definitely possible.
I also checked the ipw2200 source Makefile to see that WPA support was enabled in the compilation. It was.

Then I searched for wpa_supplicant configuration details.
At http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=26623 there is possibly a significant extra parameter mentioned, "w", this is for wpa_supplicant to wait for an interface to be added. Apparently, wpa_supplicant cannot launch properly if the network interface is not active. So the full command to launch wpa_supplicant would be -
/usr/sbin/wpa_supplicant -i eth0 -D ipw -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -B -w

Now that I think about it, the sensible thing would be to bring up the interface with "ifconfig eth0 up" before launching wpa_supplicant, then "-w" would not be necessary.


And regarding the contents of /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf, this is possibly what you need -

ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant

network={
ssid="MY_ESSID"
scan_ssid=1 # (not sure about this)
proto=WPA
key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
pairwise=TKIP # (not sure about this)
psk="MY_SECRET_PASSPHRASE"
priority=5 # (not sure about this)
}

[Guest]

Thanks for the additional info. I will give it a try and post results.

DJ

[Marv]

I've been shuffling back and forth between my beloved 1.03 pup on CF flash which uses the Ndiswrapped Rt2500 drivers and 1.05 on CD and a 1.05 HD install, both using the native Ralink drivers installed per this thread and the readme files packaged with the driver. The native driver is much faster to load, more stable, and seems faster as well. All in all well worth the minor trouble to switch.

Thanks again..

[Guest]

Using your last post, I was able to get IPW 2200 and wpa_supplicant loaded with no error messages. I am able to ping my router but am unable to connect to the wireless network. I am unable to get dhcp to run. I tried to manually enter my IP address etc. but was still unable to connect to the network.

Thanks

[tempestuous]

I found some more information about WPA at the ndiswrapper website - http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/medi ... ex.php/WPA which might lead to a solution (?)
Their /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf is almost identical to the one I last suggested, so that's a good start. But the interesting point is that the wpa_supplicant utility refers to two other utilities, wpa_passphrase and wpa_cli, and I suspect that these may fail to be located in Puppy because of the same reason mentioned previously - they're in /usr/local/sbin.

A short-term fix might be to copy (or symlink) all 3 utilities to /usr/local/bin

Or an alternative fix might be to list "MY_SECRET_PASSPHRASE" as its true 64 hex digits instead of plain text ASCII phrase, this might mean that wpa_passphrase need never be called.

Also, it's worth adding "-dd" to the end of the launch command so that we can see some information about what's going on. Thus -
/usr/sbin/wpa_supplicant -i eth0 -D ipw -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -B -dd

[Guest]

I think my problem may be related to my psk key. My original psk key was all letters. When I entered it in iwconfig I received an error message. I changed to numbers, no error message with iwconfig. I did note however hyphens were added which then was not exactly the same as the key in the router. I added the hyphens to the router but still no go. I saw a posting where someone had a similar problem and entered the passphrase using hex. I will copy the two files /usr/local/bin. I found an on-line calculator to convert my passphrase to 64 hex. Is the convertor Ok to use?

Thanks

[Guest]

I think a third-party passphrase calculator would be OK, but why bother. You can use wpa_passphrase itself. Do this -

/usr/sbin/wpa_passphrase <ssid> <passphrase>

This will display your passphrase as hex digits on the commandline.
And I just tried an all-alphabetical passphrase ... it yielded a hex key without a problem.

[tempestuous]

That was me in the previous post.
I'm a little concerned about your reference to iwconfig. iwconfig cannot handle any WPA-related settings (although I think iwpriv can?)
The "key" parameter associated with iwconfig is only for a WEP key, not psk key, so don't use this parameter at all.
The psk key is handled by wpa_supplicant in the background.

[Guest]

I moved the two wpa files, used the hex password from wpa_passphrase, and did not place key in iwconfig. I also used -dd to run wpa_supplicant with the following results:

Reading configuration file '/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf'
ctrl_interface='/var/run/wpa_supplicant'
ctrl_interface_group=0
eapol_version=1
ap_scan=1
fast_reauth=1
ctrl_interface='/var/run/wpa_supplicant'
Line: 266 - start of a new network block
ssid - hexdump_ascii(len=6):
64 69 61 6e 65 64 dianed
scan_ssid=1 (0x1)
proto: 0x1
key_mgmt: 0x2
pairwise: 0x8
group: 0x8
PSK (ASCII passphrase) - hexdump_ascii(len=10): [REMOVED]
priority=5 (0x5)
PSK (from passphrase) - hexdump(len=32): [REMOVED]
Priority group 5
id=0 ssid='dianed'
Initializing interface (2) 'eth0'
EAPOL: SUPP_PAE entering state DISCONNECTED
EAPOL: KEY_RX entering state NO_KEY_RECEIVE
EAPOL: SUPP_BE entering state INITIALIZE
EAP: EAP entering state DISABLED
EAPOL: External notification - portEnabled=0
EAPOL: External notification - portValid=0
wpa_driver_ipw_init is called
Own MAC address: 00:12:f0:0b:dd:0a
wpa_driver_ipw_set_wpa: enabled=1
wpa_driver_ipw_set_key: alg=none key_idx=0 set_tx=0 seq_len=0 key_len=0
wpa_driver_ipw_set_key: alg=none key_idx=1 set_tx=0 seq_len=0 key_len=0
wpa_driver_ipw_set_key: alg=none key_idx=2 set_tx=0 seq_len=0 key_len=0
wpa_driver_ipw_set_key: alg=none key_idx=3 set_tx=0 seq_len=0 key_len=0
wpa_driver_ipw_set_countermeasures: enabled=0
wpa_driver_ipw_set_drop_unencrypted: enabled=1
Setting scan request: 0 sec 100000 usec
Daemonize..

Whether I used the Hex or letter passphrase, still unable to connect.

Thanks