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

linux-thinkpad@linux-thinkpad.org linux-thinkpad@linux-thinkpad.org
Fri, 25 Jun 2004 18:32:04 +0000


Hi James,

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

I'm only now getting comfortable with the wireless tools which is probably why I haven't gotten this working yet.   Yes, I'm able to set the ESSID with iwconfig.

Thanks for including your setup commands.  I will give this a go shortly.  I guess I don't need the ath-hal/pci modules for the Cisco mini-pci, that should be taken care of by the airo driver.  Changing to mode 3 or managed does not work for the Aironet, again I'm guessing that this card does not have power management?  Or is my card acting funky?

I sure would like to get the dhcpclient working as the computer will be traveling to and from work.  I will study up on the wireless tools, try some more configurations and post my progress.   My questions will be better informed then, I hope.

After a ifconfig wifi0 up, /var/log/messages now gives:

dhclient: wifi0: unkown hardware address type 801
dhclient: Listening on LPF/wifi0/
dhclient: Sending on LPF/wifi0/
dhclient: Sending on Socket/fallback
dhclient: DHCPDISCOVER on wifi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 5
kernel: airo: BAP setup error too many retries (what does this mean?)
..

Thanks a lot for your post,
Shaw


> 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
> > 
> 
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