NdisWrapper nearly working - was madwifi ath_pci config problems on Sony Vaio

Rick Stevens rstevens at vitalstream.com
Thu Nov 17 18:49:20 UTC 2005


On Thu, 2005-11-17 at 18:30 +0000, Gary Stainburn wrote:
> On Thursday 17 November 2005 6:04 pm, James Pifer wrote:
> > On Thu, 2005-11-17 at 09:49 -0800, Rick Stevens wrote:
> > > On Thu, 2005-11-17 at 16:14 +0000, Gary Stainburn wrote:
> > > > On Thursday 17 November 2005 11:42 am, Gary Stainburn wrote:
> > > > > Hi folks.
> > > >
> > > > Okay, so I've given in with madwifi (madwifi.org.being down
> > > > hasn't helped) and gone for NdisWrapper.  I've installed the
> > > > RPM's and followed the installation instructions and all goes
> > > > fine provided I don't want to use WEP.  If I don't set the WEP
> > > > key on Linux and disable WEP on the AP all's fine, but when I
> > > > enable WEP on the AP and run
> > > >
> > > > iwconfig ath0 key restricted XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XX
> > > >
> > > > where the key matches the one in the AP and the one in XP, it no
> > > > longer works.  Anyone know why?
> > > >
> > > > (Without a WEP the MAC address of the AP shows up in 'iwconfig
> > > > wlan0', with the WEP key it doesn't)
> > >
> > > The command should read:
> > >
> > > 	iwconfig wlan0 key restricted XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XX
> > >
> > > "wlan0" being the wireless interface.  I don't know where you got
> > > the "ath0" from.
> 
> ath0 was indeed from madwifi, which I hadn't completely removed. Have 
> now and it's now generating wlan0 as the device..
> 
> I did set the essid as a seperate command, but have tried setting both 
> on the same command as in Rick's example - it made no difference.

Try one of these versions:

iwconfig wlan0 mode ad-hoc essid <ESSID> key restricted <KEY-STRING>
iwconfig wlan0 mode managed essid <ESSID> key restricted <KEY-STRING>

My guess is that ad-hoc will work.  Without the mode spec, sometimes
iwconfig won't set the frequency or allow the essid.  Weird, but true.
You might also try removing the "restricted" keyword--your network may
not be in that mode and using "restricted" limits you to truly
restricted networks.

And yes, I have it working on several WEP networks using D-Link access
points and routers and using ASCII key strings.  Note that they're
ad-hoc networks, but it should work on managed as well.

The networks are old D-Link DI-614+ routers with DI-900AP access points.
ndiswrapper is managing a Broadcom wireless chip in my laptop and I use
an iwconfig of:

	iwconfig wlan0 mode ad-hoc essid xxxxxx key s:blah-blah

Works peachy!

----------------------------------------------------------------------
- Rick Stevens, Senior Systems Engineer     rstevens at vitalstream.com -
- VitalStream, Inc.                       http://www.vitalstream.com -
-                                                                    -
-   "I was remembering the immortal words of Socrates when he said,  -
-   'I drank what?'"                 -- Val Kilmer in "Real Genius"  -
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