F9: Installing Ndiswrapper for AWLL6070 (rt2870)

[Dan Thurman]

I have tried the Ralink way to try and get the Airlink-101 (rt2870)
built from sources, to setup ra0, configuration and all that and got
as far as getting the client to see the Access-points from the neighborhood
which was awesome, but failed to set the ESSID in order to connect
to my Access point.  Giving up at this point, I thought I'd try out the
Ndiswrapper method.

I was able to follow the instructions from this link:
http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=29659

and from this link:
http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/joomla/index.php?/component/option,com_openwiki/Itemid,33/id,installation/#install_windows_driver

and so far it *appears* that the drivers were installed and the wlan0 alias
was set up:

# ndiswrapper -l
rt2870 : driver installed
    device (14B2:3C27) present

# dmesg
ndiswrapper version 1.52 loaded (smp=yes, preempt=no)
usb 1-1: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 2
ndiswrapper: driver rt2870 (Ralink Technology, Corp.,11/16/2007, 
1.00.05.0000) loaded
wlan0: ethernet device 00:1d:6a:33:fd:42 using NDIS driver: rt2870, 
version: 0x0, NDIS version: 0x500, vendor: 'IEEE 802.11n Wireless 
Card.', 14B2:3C27.F.conf
wlan0: encryption modes supported: WEP; TKIP with WPA, WPA2, WPA2PSK; 
AES/CCMP with WPA, WPA2, WPA2PSK
usbcore: registered new interface driver ndiswrapper

# /var/log/messages:
================
Jul 16 08:23:15 bronze kernel: ndiswrapper version 1.52 loaded (smp=yes, 
preempt=no)
Jul 16 08:23:16 bronze kernel: usb 1-1: reset high speed USB device 
using ehci_hcd and address 2
Jul 16 08:23:16 bronze kernel: ndiswrapper: driver rt2870 (Ralink 
Technology, Corp.,11/16/2007, 1.00.05.0000) loaded
Jul 16 08:23:16 bronze kernel: wlan0: ethernet device 00:1d:6a:33:fd:42 
using NDIS driver: rt2870, version: 0x0, NDIS version: 0x500, vendor: 
'IEEE 802.11n Wireless Card.', 14B2:3C27.F.conf
Jul 16 08:23:16 bronze netplugd[7927]: wlan0: ignoring event
Jul 16 08:23:16 bronze kernel: wlan0: encryption modes supported: WEP; 
TKIP with WPA, WPA2, WPA2PSK; AES/CCMP with WPA, WPA2, WPA2PSK
Jul 16 08:23:16 bronze kernel: usbcore: registered new interface driver 
ndiswrapper
Jul 16 08:23:21 bronze netplugd[7927]: No interface name
Jul 16 08:23:21 bronze netplugd[7927]: Callback failed
<last two lines keep repeating, over and over...>

What I do not understand is why is netplugd reporting this?


So, I added:

# vi /etc/netplugd.d/netplug:
eth*
wlan*
<saved changes & quit>

then:
# service netplugd restart
# vi /var/log/messages:
===================
Jul 16 09:09:52 bronze netplugd[7927]: caught signal 15 - exiting
Jul 16 09:09:53 bronze netplugd[18477]: /etc/netplug.d/netplug eth0 in 
-> pid 18477
Jul 16 09:09:53 bronze netplugd[18478]: /etc/netplug.d/netplug wlan0 in 
-> pid 18478
Jul 16 09:09:53 bronze netplugd[18476]: wlan0: state INNING pid 18478 
exited status 256
Jul 16 09:09:53 bronze netplugd[18476]: eth0: state INNING pid 18477 
exited status 0
Jul 16 09:09:54 bronze avahi-daemon[9132]: Registering new address 
record for fe80::21d:6aff:fe33:fd42 on wlan0.*.

waited.... and then saw:
Jul 16 09:11:04 bronze netplugd[18476]: No interface name
Jul 16 09:11:04 bronze netplugd[18476]: Callback failed
Jul 16 09:11:06 bronze ntpd[8519]: Listening on interface #6 wlan0, 
fe80::21d:6aff:fe33:fd42#123 Enabled
Jul 16 09:11:22 bronze netplugd[18476]: No interface name
Jul 16 09:11:22 bronze netplugd[18476]: Callback failed

So, nothing changed.

Continuing, I tried to test the wlan0 connection with:
# iwconfig wlan0
<computer completely froze up - hard to hard-reboot the computer>

Any advice or suggestions?

Thanks!
Dan