I am using Fedora 8 x86_64 (kernel 2.6.23.14-107) on my Dell Vostro laptop which has a Broadcom Corporation BCM94311MCG wireless mini PCI lan device which has been automatically detected and uses the b43 wireless driver.
I have configured the wireless device wlan0 using a static IP address and have provided the ESSID, CHANNEL, MODE, RATE settings. The wireless device comes up and gets associated with the Access Point / Wireless Router when the system is started. However if the wireless router is restarted the wireless device on the laptop fails to associate with it again and I have to restart the network service in order to connect to it. If I remember correctly, the Intel Centrino ipw2200 device on my older laptop never had this problem and nor does a PCI wireless card (Realtek 8180) which I have configured using ndiswrapper. What could be the reason for this problem ? Any tips or suggestions ?
Thanks,
Manish Kathuria escribió:
I am using Fedora 8 x86_64 (kernel 2.6.23.14-107) on my Dell Vostro laptop which has a Broadcom Corporation BCM94311MCG wireless mini PCI lan device which has been automatically detected and uses the b43 wireless driver.
I have configured the wireless device wlan0 using a static IP address and have provided the ESSID, CHANNEL, MODE, RATE settings. The wireless device comes up and gets associated with the Access Point / Wireless Router when the system is started. However if the wireless router is restarted the wireless device on the laptop fails to associate with it again and I have to restart the network service in order to connect to it. If I remember correctly, the Intel Centrino ipw2200 device on my older laptop never had this problem and nor does a PCI wireless card (Realtek 8180) which I have configured using ndiswrapper. What could be the reason for this problem ? Any tips or suggestions ?
Use NetworkManager.
On Tue, Jan 29, 2008 at 09:53:27AM -0200, Martin Marques wrote:
Manish Kathuria escribió:
I am using Fedora 8 x86_64 (kernel 2.6.23.14-107) on my Dell Vostro laptop which has a Broadcom Corporation BCM94311MCG wireless mini PCI lan device which has been automatically detected and uses the b43 wireless driver.
I have configured the wireless device wlan0 using a static IP address and have provided the ESSID, CHANNEL, MODE, RATE settings. The wireless device comes up and gets associated with the Access Point / Wireless Router when the system is started. However if the wireless router is restarted the wireless device on the laptop fails to associate with it again and I have to restart the network service in order to connect to it. If I remember correctly, the Intel Centrino ipw2200 device on my older laptop never had this problem and nor does a PCI wireless card (Realtek 8180) which I have configured using ndiswrapper. What could be the reason for this problem ? Any tips or suggestions ?
Use NetworkManager.
Good advice. Alternatively you could use wpa_supplicant (whether or not you are using WPA encryption), or you could simply do "iwconfig wlan0 essid $ESSID" whenever you detect that your AP has been reset.
If you want a technical explanation...the hardware in question is "soft MAC" device which uses the mac80211 infrastructure in the kernel. The mac80211 component has a limited MLME implemenation which relies on userland intervention at a number of points. One of those points is for triggering associations. When you reset your AP, your association is lost. So, you must trigger a new association. wpa_supplicant (which is also used by NetworkManager) is smart enough to trigger the association for you.
As for why it works for the other devices cited, the ipw2200 has a robust MLME implemented in firmware. It does not require userland intervention. The rtl8180 actually is a "soft MAC" device, but since you are using ndiswrapper (which should not be needed in F8 BTW) the Windows driver must contain it's own MLME implementation.
Hth!
John
On 1/29/08, John W. Linville linville@redhat.com wrote:
On Tue, Jan 29, 2008 at 09:53:27AM -0200, Martin Marques wrote:
Manish Kathuria escribió:
I am using Fedora 8 x86_64 (kernel 2.6.23.14-107) on my Dell Vostro laptop which has a Broadcom Corporation BCM94311MCG wireless mini PCI lan device which has been automatically detected and uses the b43 wireless driver.
I have configured the wireless device wlan0 using a static IP address and have provided the ESSID, CHANNEL, MODE, RATE settings. The wireless device comes up and gets associated with the Access Point / Wireless Router when the system is started. However if the wireless router is restarted the wireless device on the laptop fails to associate with it again and I have to restart the network service in order to connect to it. If I remember correctly, the Intel Centrino ipw2200 device on my older laptop never had this problem and nor does a PCI wireless card (Realtek 8180) which I have configured using ndiswrapper. What could be the reason for this problem ? Any tips or suggestions ?
Use NetworkManager.
I tried to run it but it could not connect to the wireless network. Then I updated it to the latest version available (NetworkManager-0.7.0-0.6.7.svn3204.fc8.x86_64) but it dies immediately as soon as I start the service and gives the message
NetworkManager dead but pid file exists
though the NetworkManagerDispatcher keeps on running. Anyhow, this is a secondary problem and I will try to fix it.
Good advice. Alternatively you could use wpa_supplicant (whether or not you are using WPA encryption), or you could simply do "iwconfig wlan0 essid $ESSID" whenever you detect that your AP has been reset.
I have been restarting the network service or running the Wireless Assistant to reconnect to the wireless network.
If you want a technical explanation...the hardware in question is "soft MAC" device which uses the mac80211 infrastructure in the kernel. The mac80211 component has a limited MLME implemenation which relies on userland intervention at a number of points. One of those points is for triggering associations. When you reset your AP, your association is lost. So, you must trigger a new association. wpa_supplicant (which is also used by NetworkManager) is smart enough to trigger the association for you.
As for why it works for the other devices cited, the ipw2200 has a robust MLME implemented in firmware. It does not require userland intervention. The rtl8180 actually is a "soft MAC" device, but since you are using ndiswrapper (which should not be needed in F8 BTW) the Windows driver must contain it's own MLME implementation.
Excellent explanation. I think I need to work on the NetworkManager to fix this issue. The RTL 8180L card is on a multi boot system with Fedora 7 and CentOS 5 so I am still using ndiswrapper.
Hth!
John
John W. Linville linville@redhat.com
Thanks a lot.
John W. Linville escribió:
On Tue, Jan 29, 2008 at 09:53:27AM -0200, Martin Marques wrote:
Manish Kathuria escribió:
I am using Fedora 8 x86_64 (kernel 2.6.23.14-107) on my Dell Vostro laptop which has a Broadcom Corporation BCM94311MCG wireless mini PCI lan device which has been automatically detected and uses the b43 wireless driver.
I have configured the wireless device wlan0 using a static IP address and have provided the ESSID, CHANNEL, MODE, RATE settings. The wireless device comes up and gets associated with the Access Point / Wireless Router when the system is started. However if the wireless router is restarted the wireless device on the laptop fails to associate with it again and I have to restart the network service in order to connect to it. If I remember correctly, the Intel Centrino ipw2200 device on my older laptop never had this problem and nor does a PCI wireless card (Realtek 8180) which I have configured using ndiswrapper. What could be the reason for this problem ? Any tips or suggestions ?
Use NetworkManager.
Good advice. Alternatively you could use wpa_supplicant (whether or not you are using WPA encryption), or you could simply do "iwconfig wlan0 essid $ESSID" whenever you detect that your AP has been reset.
If you want a technical explanation...the hardware in question is "soft MAC" device which uses the mac80211 infrastructure in the kernel.
Isn't this one of the things that are gonna get improved with the new driver in kernel 2.6.25?
On Tue, Jan 29, 2008 at 07:49:06PM -0200, Martin Marques wrote:
John W. Linville escribió:
If you want a technical explanation...the hardware in question is "soft MAC" device which uses the mac80211 infrastructure in the kernel.
Isn't this one of the things that are gonna get improved with the new driver in kernel 2.6.25?
Which new driver is that? I think you must be thinking of something else.
The b43 driver has been upstream since 2.6.23, FWIW.
John
John W. Linville escribió:
On Tue, Jan 29, 2008 at 07:49:06PM -0200, Martin Marques wrote:
John W. Linville escribió:
If you want a technical explanation...the hardware in question is "soft MAC" device which uses the mac80211 infrastructure in the kernel.
Isn't this one of the things that are gonna get improved with the new driver in kernel 2.6.25?
Which new driver is that? I think you must be thinking of something else.
The b43 driver has been upstream since 2.6.23, FWIW.
I mean the changes in the firmware (maybe I misunderstood the thread in the bcm43xx list).
On Tue, Jan 29, 2008 at 09:02:28PM -0200, Martin Marques wrote:
John W. Linville escribió:
On Tue, Jan 29, 2008 at 07:49:06PM -0200, Martin Marques wrote:
John W. Linville escribió:
If you want a technical explanation...the hardware in question is "soft MAC" device which uses the mac80211 infrastructure in the kernel.
Isn't this one of the things that are gonna get improved with the new driver in kernel 2.6.25?
Which new driver is that? I think you must be thinking of something else.
The b43 driver has been upstream since 2.6.23, FWIW.
I mean the changes in the firmware (maybe I misunderstood the thread in the bcm43xx list).
I see...well, b43 firmware has nothing to do with how mac80211 works.
Hth!
John
On Tue, 29 Jan 2008, John W. Linville wrote:
On Tue, Jan 29, 2008 at 07:49:06PM -0200, Martin Marques wrote:
John W. Linville escribió:
If you want a technical explanation...the hardware in question is "soft MAC" device which uses the mac80211 infrastructure in the kernel.
Isn't this one of the things that are gonna get improved with the new driver in kernel 2.6.25?
Which new driver is that? I think you must be thinking of something else.
The b43 driver has been upstream since 2.6.23, FWIW.
i just know i'm going to regret asking this but what's the story with the "b44" driver? is that a proposed improvement over b43? i'm reading the output from Teh Google and i'm still not clear on how it fits into all this.
rday --
======================================================================== Robert P. J. Day Linux Consulting, Training and Annoying Kernel Pedantry Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA
Home page: http://crashcourse.ca Fedora Cookbook: http://crashcourse.ca/wiki/index.php/Fedora_Cookbook ========================================================================
On Wed, Jan 30, 2008 at 07:03:11AM -0500, Robert P. J. Day wrote:
On Tue, 29 Jan 2008, John W. Linville wrote:
The b43 driver has been upstream since 2.6.23, FWIW.
i just know i'm going to regret asking this but what's the story with the "b44" driver? is that a proposed improvement over b43? i'm reading the output from Teh Google and i'm still not clear on how it fits into all this.
b44 is a driver for 100Mb ethernet devices. It's only relation to b43 is that both pieces of hardware have internal SSB buses. It has been around a long time and it certainly is not a wireless device at all.
Hth! ;-)
John
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John W. Linville -
Manish Kathuria -
Martin Marques -
Robert P. J. Day