[ltp] Cisco Aironet wireless mini pci card w/ Mandrake 10 and linux kernel 2.6.7

[James Ryan]

Can you set the essid with the following?
iwconfig ath0 essid MyESSID

If you get an error, you may need to issue a proprietary command using
iwpriv.

I strongly suggest that you forget about using the ifup/ifdown utils and
write a shell script that issues the required iwconfig and ifconfig
commands.  I've never managed to get wireless cards to work with
ifup/ifdown.  My script is below.  Note it is a bit quick and
sloppy...but it works.  Whenever I need to change locations, I just edit
the file.  I suppose I could put command line arguments, add DHCP
support, etc...maybe someday.

#!/bin/sh
#
# wlan  This shell script takes care of starting the
#               wireless interface.
#
# Author:       James Ryan
# Date:         20 May 04
#
# chkconfig: 2345 80 30
# description: Starts or stops the wireless LAN interface
# processname: ath0
#
#

# Source function library.
. /etc/rc.d/init.d/functions

# Source networking configuration.
. /etc/sysconfig/network

RETVAL=0

# See how we were called.
case "$1" in
  start)
        # Start wlan
        echo -n "Starting WLAN interface as ath0: "
        modprobe wlan
        modprobe ath_hal
        modprobe ath_pci
        iwpriv ath0 mode 3
        iwconfig ath0 mode managed
        iwconfig ath0 essid BigJimWLAN
        iwconfig ath0 enc FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF
        iwconfig ath0 txpower auto
        iwconfig ath0 rate 54M
        ifconfig ath0 up
        ifconfig ath0 192.168.102.161 netmask 255.255.255.0 up
        route add default gw 192.168.102.1 ath0
        RETVAL=$?
        echo
        ;;
  stop)
        # Stop wlan
        echo -n "Stopping WLAN interface on ath0: "
        ifconfig ath0 down
	iwconfig ath0 txpower off
        RETVAL=$?
        echo
        ;;
  restart|reload)
        $0 stop
        $0 start
        RETVAL=$?
        ;;
  status)
        iwconfig ath0
	ifconfig ath0
        RETVAL=$?
        ;;
  *)
        echo "Usage: ath0 {start|stop|restart}"
        exit 1




On Fri, 2004-06-25 at 00:44, Shaw Vrana wrote:
> Hello All,
> 
> I'm having some problems getting the aironet wireless mini pci card to work 
> with the 2.6.7 kernel in my ThinkPad T30 and would appreciate a point in the 
> right direction.  The airo driver is successfully loaded at boot time but the 
> wifi0 interface is unable to be brought up.
> 
> >From /var/log/messages directly after boot:
> 
> kron kernel: airo:  Probing for PCI adapters
> kron kernel: PCI: Found IRQ 11 for device 0000:02:02.0
> kron kernel: PCI: Sharing IRQ 11 with 0000:00:1d.2
> kron kernel: PCI: Sharing IRQ 11 with 0000:00:1f.1
> kron kernel: airo: MAC enabled eth1 0:2:8a:fc:f1:3f
> kron kernel: airo:  Finished probing for PCI adapters
> kron kernel: airo: BAP setup error too many retries
> kron last message repeated 7 times
> ...
> kron dhclient: wifi0: unknown hardware address type 801
> kron dhclient: DHCPDISCOVER on wifi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67
> kron dhclient: DHCPDISCOVER on wifi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67
> kron dhclient: DHCPDISCOVER on wifi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67
> kron dhclient: DHCPDISCOVER on wifi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67
> kron dhclient: No DHCPOFFERS received.
> kron zcip[1480]: libnet_open_link_interface("wifi0"): unknown physical layer 
> type 0x321
> kron ifup:  failed.
> kron network: Bringing up interface wifi0:  failed
> 
> (this works just fine for eth0..)
> 
> >From  /proc/driver/aironet/eth1/Status :
> Driver Version: airoDevice: 350 Series
> Manufacturer: Cisco Systems
> Firmware Version: 5.20.17
> 
> I have been unable to change the SSID by echoing a string to SSID or Config..?
> 
> Any information that you could provide would be greatly appreciated!
> 
> Thanks,
> Shaw
>