Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

tempestuous · Joined: 10 Jun 2005 Posts: 4944 Location: Australia

There have been several reports of wifi connection problems under Puppy 4.1.2 and I have suggested in several forum posts that I suspect this may occur only with ENCRYPTED CONNECTIONS (WEP/WPA/WPA2) and that the solution may be related to encryption-related modules not being loaded. Specifically I'm talking about these modules:

aes_generic
arc4
crypto_blkcipher
ecb
crc32c

But as often happens on the forum, such technical suggestions are ignored and the forum thread ends without resolution.
Fortunately we now have a sensible forum member, VK6FUN, who has manually loaded the crypto_blkcipher module and confirmed that this provides a fix ... in at least one situation!

I recommend that others with such problems try this fix. To load these modules, use the modprobe command, eg -

fms · Joined: 05 Jan 2009 Posts: 1

Thanks a lot for your hints !

On my Puppy 4.1.2 installation the modules arc4, crc32c and ecb were not present. I added all of them, using the BootManager. After that I was able to connect to my Wifi net which uses WPA2 encryption.

8-bit · Joined: 03 Apr 2007 Posts: 3012 Location: Oregon

Could they all be made available as a pet or tgz with a link for download?
Also, what is the chance of having them included in a new Puppy release?
And last, are the modules kernel specific? That is to say will they work with different versions of the kernel?

tempestuous · Joined: 10 Jun 2005 Posts: 4944 Location: Australia

8-bit · Joined: 03 Apr 2007 Posts: 3012 Location: Oregon

"I jumped the gun and did not look and see that they were already included in Puppy 4.1.2.
A script for the part of WIFI setup that lets you pick an encription key that would automatically install the modules would help those that can't get WIFI encription to work.

PaulBx1 · Joined: 16 Jun 2006 Posts: 2308 Location: Wyoming, USA

My wpa wireless is working (as far as I can tell); at least it's what I'm using to post this. I checked and found that, of the modules listed, arc4, ecb and crc32c are not loaded.

It may be that not all of them need to be there. In that case you might want to experiment to find which are really needed.

RCH · Joined: 17 Jan 2009 Posts: 4

dawnsboy · Posted: Sat 17 Jan 2009, 22:52 Post subject:

RCH · Joined: 17 Jan 2009 Posts: 4

Thanks for the info on how to insert modprobe, easy once you know how, huh?

No joy for me though. It now brings the adapter up as wlan0 instead of eth0. When I try to use it I get an error "failed to raise interface wlan0, command was ifconfig.wlan0.up.

Any ideas on where to go now?

dawnsboy · Posted: Mon 19 Jan 2009, 14:33 Post subject:

RCH · Joined: 17 Jan 2009 Posts: 4

Thanks for taking the time to try and help me, I really do appreciate it.
I know it seems weird, but all the time that I have been able to get my Orinoco wireless card to work, it has been as eth0. I also was under the assumption that eth0 was for a cat5 connection, but in my case, it was detected as eth0, and would work as eth0 in puppy.

My problem is somewhat like yours, no persistence after reboot. I also will use the connection wizard to get my card set up, but it sees my orinoco as eth0, and when it all comes together right, works fine as eth0. My problem is, after I get it working, when I reboot I have to go through the process several times, sometimes as many as a dozen times, before it will work again. I don't think it is a hardware problem, because I never have this problem under WinDo$e, never.

Maybe I should try and find an earlier version of Puppy and see if that works. Also, if I use DSL (Damn Small Linux) if I remove the WEP from my network, it works with the card every time. I just have a hard time getting it setup in DSL because I don't want to leave my network open for any amount of time.

I know, I know, I'm not fooling myself, WEP encryption is almost as bad as no protection, and is quite easy to get around. I just want to be able to say that someone had to actually hack into my network to do anything, and that they knew they were breaking the law when they did it.

Once again, thank you for trying to help me.

dawnsboy · Posted: Wed 21 Jan 2009, 19:26 Post subject:

I decided to chew on the problem a little bit more. I had been attempting to use wep or wpa/tkip. Pupeee was perfectly content to configure as wpa/tkip. 4.1.2 did not want to configure properly in either of those setups. I tried loading the encryption modules in the rc.local with limited results. I tried the other suggestion in wep of adding "s:" to the front end of the passphrase but that did not help.

Since switching back to pupeee I loaded 4.12 on usb using a combination install, I also entered the router setup and read a few things about wireless encryption. I decided to switch to wpa2. I created a scrambled passphrase and setup the computers on the network accordingly. So far it has worked like a charm in 4.1.2 bare. I will probably switch back to 4.1.2 bare if this works out. I will let you know what I experience with this setup.

mdisaster2 · Joined: 22 Dec 2006 Posts: 107 Location: Rome, Italy

I stumbled into a weird wi-fi behaviour while trying to make 4.1.2 work with a Sitecom USB adaptor and WAP.

The thing was working nicely with WEP and Puppy 3.0.x as long I used my own connect scripts, which were pretty standard except for a liberal application of SLEEP 2 commands.

However at some point I switched to WPA, which worked nicely with all the other home PCs, and also on the Puppy machine when booting into Win98.

The network is configured this way:
- hidden SSID
- WPA/TKIP encryption
- 8 character long passphrase (not hex)

The USB adapter is a Sitecom WL-113 and uses the ZD1211 chip. It is correctly detected by both network wizards. I did add modprobe crypto_blkcipher in rc.local.

My results as of now:

New Network Wizard:
The wireless step fails (error message: "Associating") and I can't get a connection, no matter how hard I try.

Old Network Wizard:
The wireless step fails as well, but if I proceed with the other steps I usually can get a stable connection after a couple of attempts. Not sure whether the config gets saved though.

Pwireless:
Tells me that my wireless lan is WEP, but if I go on and supply SSID and password it does connect.

Now I'm trying to figure out where the old network wizard saves its WPA config, so I can rip it off and drop some SLEEP commands here and there as I did with WEP. I am pretty sure there has to be a smarter way to go about it though... any ideas ?

rjbrewer · Joined: 22 Jan 2008 Posts: 4350 Location: merriam, kansas

Midisaster2;

Click pfind in menu...type wpa; lists all file locations.

Pwireless calls everything that isn't open wep.

dawnsboy · Posted: Fri 23 Jan 2009, 01:03 Post subject:

I am quite impressed with Puppy Linux. If I had a small profile desktop like a Dell Gx260 (laptop hd and external power supply) I would load it up with Puppy Linux. This is because Puppy has matured to the point that it can be a full time OS in my opinion. It is spot on with LAN and "open" wireless networks. I stayed in my wifes hospital room around the clock during her recent stay and found Puppy 4.1.2 very adept at connecting to the provided wireless network. When it comes to encrypted wireless communications however Puppy has some issues.

I have conducted a number of "experiments" if you will using Breezy, Pupeee and 4.12. I installed to usb and to ssd on my eeepc 701 4G. I compared results with each install. To be fair to Puppy I configured Puppy in each version and format with each of the available wpa and wpa2 settings available on my wireless router. I also conducted testing with and without editing the rc.local file to ensure loading of encryption modules ( no difference was noted).

The results are in:

The setups that passed are:

Breezy (wpa/tkip)
Pupeee (wpa/tkip) with password of 10 characters or more

The setups that failed are:

Puppy 4.1.2
Puppy 4.12 Bare

Observations:

Breezy could only handle wpa/tkip but it performed very well. It was very easy to set up and wpa-connect tool on the January, 2008 version connected very quickly. I wish all versions of Puppy had that tool. I would use it. Pupeee works well with passwords of 10 characters or more. It will not work with less and placing "s:" before the shorter password did not work in this case.

I did have an install of Pupeee that seemed to work pretty well for a few days but it fell off somewhere along the line. I have been experiencing a set of common symptoms with each of these setups. Sometimes the network wizard seems to effectively setup the wireless but will not allow internet access. wifi0 and ath0 are loaded and represented in the tray by Blinky. Even so no internet. Sometimes they are loaded and do provide internet access. Sometimes wifi0 will load but nothing I do will cause ath0 to load. I must reboot and try again.

However, even when internet access is granted it is certain that at some point performance with become extremely spotty. Sometimes wireless simply disconnects itself and ath0 actually unloads. Also, it appears that there are moments when Puppy cannot detect my wireless router to save its own life. Yet when I scan again there it is (viola). Often the wireless scan detects multiple networks in the area. This confuses Puppy and he goes on the floor instead of asking to go outside.

The ip address that the router consistently assigns this computer (regardless of which OS is installed, Xandros included) is 10.0.0.X. However Puppy will often claim to have connected with an IP address that is not at all related to my setup (269.xxx.xxx). This is outside the range of ip addresses available with my current hardware and makes me think that Puppy is trying to connect to one of those other networks out there instead of the one I asked it to connect with. The only available addresses on my system start with 10.0.0.1 through 10.0.0.4. Needless to say Puppy cannot connect to the Internet when this happens.

These little experiments are hardly scientific but they do demonstrate a consistent pattern of behavior. It is unfortunate because the Eeepc is not designed to be tethered to a desk and a cable. It is designed to be used in various rooms of the house, office or on the road.

ANOTHER MATTER:

RCH wrote: