Improved Network Wizard (and rc.network)

[Aitch]

I see that Barry is adding ethtool.

Thanks, Barry!

[JustGreg]

I am looking at Puppy 4 alpha 6 network wizard. I tried an experiment with the WPA2 configuration file (/etc/wizard_wireless/wpa_profile/hex-AP.WPA2.conf) and my standard wifi up script. The script was posted here: http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=29205

The network wizard generated WPA2 configuration file work without a hitch. It has the correct information in it. I am using the wireless connect created by the file now.

I have used wpa_cli in its interactive mode, to check the status of the wpa_supplicant as the network wizard tries to make a wireless connection. The program wpa_cli reports wpa_supplicant is "scanning" . To me, it appears wpa_suplicant is tied up scanning and then times out.

I read Dougal post on page 7 about using net-setup.sh -d. I tried it and here is the output:

Code: Select all

Selected interface 'wlan0'
OK
Selected interface 'wlan0'
OK
Selected interface 'wlan0'
OK
Selected interface 'wlan0'
OK
ctrl_iface exists and seems to be in use - cannot override it
Delete '/var/run/wpa_supplicant/wlan0' manually if it is not used anymore
Failed to initialize control interface '/var/run/wpa_supplicant'.
You may have another wpa_supplicant process already running or the file was
left by an unclean termination of wpa_supplicant in which case you will need
to manually remove this file before starting wpa_supplicant again.

Waiting for connection... XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

I used wpa_cli terminate command to make sure that wpa_supplicant was not running. After the failure to connect, wpa_cli status command listed wpa_supplicant as scanning.

I hope this helps.[/quote]

[Béèm]

I think I have raised this before, but I still hope, some day the FireWire (1394) is detected and that it can be configured to do eth IPv4 over FireWire.

You mean Puppy doesn't autoload the firewire modules?? I would have expected udev to solve this once and for all...

I mean that the FireWire device isn't in the network wizard to select from for configuration.

This udev is new in Dingo 406?
I did some testing and commented out the extra statements I made in rc.local to load the 1394 drivers.
And indeed the ohci, ieee and eth for 1394 load now.
But as the network wizard don't present the device, I still have to configure it by hand.
So I added a line sleep 5, followed by ifconfig eth2 10.0.0.11.
At next boot I did have indeed my eth2 device at 10.0.0.11, but still I rather prefer to have it presented in the network wizard where it should be in my opinion.

[Aitch]

@Béèm

of course,..... firewire is a form of network!

I only use it for an external CD writer on one of my IBM lappy's so it doesn't get a lot of use as the battery is nbg & I use a desktop mostly

but yes, firewire & also, I presume, on the same basis,...... bluetooth, though I don't have any devices in use [I have a bluetooth printserver device somewhere from my housemove, but I didn't find it yet ]
yet there are phones via bluetooth which act as modems for the internet, especially the 3G/hspda fast ones

I need to sort something to help a friend who's just moved to Lanciana, in Italy, and he needs to get puppy on the web from there
{I put puppy 2.14R on an old P3/500 box for him before he left}
Everything is run from batteries no mains power!

Any ideas anyone?

Aitch

[Béèm]

I use IPv4 over ethernet on the FireWire device and it gives me a 400Mbps connection between my laptop (puppy) and desktop XP Home.

I have a bluetooth enabled mobile phone, another form of connectivity.
The bluetooth application sw I use in XP can act as a modem so I can go on the net with my laptop in XP, it can also do file xfer between the phone and the PC, it has also lan support (pan).

So new technologies are coming and to support easily in puppy.

As for the advice you are asking, not clear what you're after.
(maybe buying a battery charger? )

[Aitch]

As for the advice you are asking, not clear what you're after.
(maybe buying a battery charger? )

I think he's going to get solar panels

No, What he needs, and I have no experience of, is getting on the web with either a desktop or laptop, probably running puppy, [or maybe MAC!] without a phoneline

So, that means AFAIK, either;

A mobile phone as a modem linked to the PC by cable or bluetooth, or

A hspda or 3G modem in a pcmcia adapter, using a broadband sim, or

An FCT, Fixed Cellular Terminal or. Broadband enabled router, such as:-

http://www.3g.co.uk/PR/May2006/3067.htm

or

http://www.gsmsave.com/acatalog/Ericsso ... minal.html


I believe the phone idea is the cheapest but, a) don't know what useage costs are, or how to set it up
b) don't know if puppy could work with the FCT/BB Router idea, or if drivers are needed/available. Again don't know what useage costs are, or how to set it up

Any offers?

Aitch

[Dougal]

I read Dougal post on page 7 about using net-setup.sh -d. I tried it and here is the output:

Code: Select all

Selected interface 'wlan0'
OK
Selected interface 'wlan0'
OK
Selected interface 'wlan0'
OK
Selected interface 'wlan0'
OK
ctrl_iface exists and seems to be in use - cannot override it
Delete '/var/run/wpa_supplicant/wlan0' manually if it is not used anymore
Failed to initialize control interface '/var/run/wpa_supplicant'.
You may have another wpa_supplicant process already running or the file was
left by an unclean termination of wpa_supplicant in which case you will need
to manually remove this file before starting wpa_supplicant again.

Waiting for connection... XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Ha! The error message about /var/run/wpa_supplicant/wlan0 gave me an idea of what
might be the problem: after the wpa_supplicant.conf is updated with
wpa_cli, wpa_supplicant is killed, then restarted.
I've always been unhappy about the "dirty" way of killing it and have now
found the way of terminating it properly (by using wpa_cli terminate, which you mentioned).

I have also modified the wizard so that when a profile is created from
scan results, it selects "broadcast SSID" (and ap_scan=1) by default,
if the SSID is not blank/hidden -- we shouldn't count on the user to notice
that tick box and know what to do...

Since you and tempestuous discussed the ap_scan parameter: have you tried
playing with the scan_ssid parameter I mentioned above (which goes inside
the "network" block of the config file)?
As I mentioned, I think scan_ssid=1 might be more relevant to hidden SSIDs
than ap_scan=2.

[Dougal]

I mean that the FireWire device isn't in the network wizard to select from for configuration.

You never mentioned that before...
Please post the output of "ifconfig eth2" and I'll try and see why it isn't
recognized (I suspect it doesn't say "Link encap:Ethernet").
BTW, can it actually do everything a wired ethernet connection do, like a
proper NIC?

[Dougal]

I've uploaded another version. As mentioned above, I changed the wpa_supplicant
killing to be done with wpa_cli (which I hope will fix the WPA problem) and
made "broadcast SSID" the default. I also improved the interface "cleanup" code.

Something I didn't know if not to add and was thinking someone (tempestuous?)
might have an idea about: wpa_supplicant has a driver (-D parameter) named
"ndiswrapper", obviously meant for use with Windows drivers c/o ndiswrapper.
Currently, the wizard does not allow WPA for such drivers.
Is there any reason not to allow it? It is trivial to do: I just need to
add a line in the case structure at the top of wag-profiles.sh:

Code: Select all

ndiswrapper) PROFILE_WPA_DRV="ndiswrapper" ;;

and it should work... (subject to "readlink /sys/class/net/$INTERFACE/device/driver"
actually returning "ndiswrapper", obviously...)

I'm still waiting for comments about what to do with the wpa_supplcant.conf
templates: if no-one gives any reason not to do so, I'm going to make the
WPA one also use "CCMP TKIP".

[hayagix]

"WPA support through 'ndiswrapper' interface is deprecated;"

Wext has been default for some time.

Wpa_supplicant still shows "ndiswrapper" but it will not work.

[Béèm]

I mean that the FireWire device isn't in the network wizard to select from for configuration.

You never mentioned that before...
Please post the output of "ifconfig eth2" and I'll try and see why it isn't
recognized (I suspect it doesn't say "Link encap:Ethernet").
BTW, can it actually do everything a wired ethernet connection do, like a
proper NIC?

Since 3.01 I have raised this issue.

Code: Select all

# ifconfig eth2
eth2      Link encap:UNSPEC  HWaddr 00-06-1B-00-20-0B-01-EC-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00  
          inet addr:10.0.0.11  Bcast:10.255.255.255  Mask:255.0.0.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:339 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:3506 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:60308 (58.8 KiB)  TX bytes:411955 (402.2 KiB)

# 

You are right, it does't say ethernet.
I connect the laptop puppy to the desktop XP
I can transfer files from the shares on the desktop to the laptop.
So it behaves as a regular lan connection.
I don't use this connection to connect to the internet.
The laptop and the desktop have each a Wireless card and through these I connect to the internet.

[Aitch]

Dougal,

Whilst you are sorting out PC to PC via firewire, would you also verify that usb to usb for PC to PC is also included/functional,
as their protocols are probably the same [I have to confess at only using this cable in windoze, between 2 desktop PCs, not even desktop to laptop] (as they've not been running/functional at the same time, and it didn't occur to me until Béèm's reminder)

Thanks,

Aitch

[Béèm]

Great, a USB2 high speed could do 480Mbps and a USB3 even 4Gbp.
And firewire NG could do up to 3,3Gbps.
Nice things are coming.
But yes, a USB connection between 2 PC's is interesting to consider also.

[JustGreg]

Dougal
Since you and tempestuous discussed the ap_scan parameter: have you tried playing with the scan_ssid parameter I mentioned above (which goes inside the "network" block of the config file)?
As I mentioned, I think scan_ssid=1 might be more relevant to hidden SSIDs
than ap_scan=2.

No I have not tried that parameter. But, it is now on the "to do" list. I will test in the next three days on my WPA2 network with both a broadcast and a hidden SSIID and report back.

[peppyy]

Greetings.
I am running 4.0 final, full hd install, pcmcia cards and am very encouraged with this network wizard.

My problem in the past was getting the scan feature to work. This version seems to do this well unless I choose other options like "Open" before the scan, then I get "No networks detected"

I remember the early version of WAG had a button to "Re-seat " the wireless card. I have found that when the link light on my card begins to flash, the card does not respond or scan but if I eject it and begin again it works perfectly.

I am using an open network protocol, a Senao, nl-2511cd plus with the autoloaded orinoco_cs module. I am 99% sure it is a prism2 chipset @ 200mw high power.

I have several other adapters I can try if that helps.

EDIT:
Atheros card works correctly after the second scan. Very Nice!

It responds differently to Realtek r8180 and that card must be reseated before it will scan after the driver is loaded. There is only the pci driver but it does work on a linksys pcmcia card.

I will see what other cards I can find.

[tempestuous]

wpa_supplicant has a driver (-D parameter) named "ndiswrapper", obviously meant for use with Windows drivers c/o ndiswrapper.
Currently, the wizard does not allow WPA for such drivers.
Is there any reason not to allow it?

The "ndiswrapper" -D parameter only applies to old versions of ndiswrapper - before version 1.12. Refer -
http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/joom ... 33/id,wpa/
Since then ndiswrapper has used the generic "wext" -D parameter with wpa_supplicant.

I remember the early version of WAG had a button to "Re-seat " the wireless card. I have found that when the link light on my card begins to flash, the card does not respond or scan but if I eject it and begin again it works perfectly.

Yes, it might be worthwhile to reintroduce that feature. From Puppy 4.1 onwards these are the correct commands:

Code: Select all

pccardctl eject
pccardctl insert

It might(?) also be necessary to restart pcmciautils, like this -

Code: Select all

pcmcia-socket-startup

[Dougal]

Code: Select all

# ifconfig eth2
eth2      Link encap:UNSPEC  HWaddr 00-06-1B-00-20-0B-01-EC-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00  
          inet addr:10.0.0.11  Bcast:10.255.255.255  Mask:255.0.0.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:339 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:3506 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:60308 (58.8 KiB)  TX bytes:411955 (402.2 KiB)

# 

You are right, it does't say ethernet.

Well, we'll have to try and find a way to recognize it.
We can't just take anything that's reported by "ifconfig -a", since, apart from "lo", it can give some strange things: with the new wireless drivers, my wlan0 is accompanied by wmaster0.
Note also that the HWaddr for it is different than for the ethernet devices, which would cause trouble with the wizard...

[Dougal]

Whilst you are sorting out PC to PC via firewire, would you also verify that usb to usb for PC to PC is also included/functional,
as their protocols are probably the same

To use firewire, you load the eth1394 module, which sets the device up an an interface -- you'll have to find out what to do to turn a usb port into an interface...

[Dougal]

Since then ndiswrapper has used the generic "wext" -D parameter with wpa_supplicant.

So we can enable WPA with the "wext" parameter...

[tempestuous]

Yes.