Gentoo Archives: gentoo-user

From: YoYo Siska <yoyo@××××××.sk>
To: gentoo-user@l.g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] Completely lost regarding wifi
Date: Tue, 06 Feb 2007 13:55:38
Message-Id: 20070206134602.GA7451@ksp.sk
1 On Mon, Feb 05, 2007 at 09:51:09PM -0500, Henk Boom wrote:
2 > (I had some trouble posting this message the first time, so I
3 > apologize if it appears twice)
4 >
5 > Hi, last fall I spent some of my summer earnings on a ThinkPad X41
6 > tablet, and have been loving it ever since I installed Gentoo on it.
7 > There is one thing I have not yet been able to make work, though, and
8 > that is wifi. This is probably due to a combination of my own lack of
9 > wifi-related experience and the fact that my school (the only
10 > practical place I have to use wifi) seems to use a horrendously
11 > complicated setup >.<. I have heard that others with this laptop have
12 > managed to make wifi work.
13 >
14 > I have been trying different things on and off for a few month now,
15 > but the fact is that I have very little idea of how to configure wifi,
16 > and there seems to be little documentation that I can find which is
17 > relevant to this situation. I've decided that there's little left to
18 > do except bug all of you with my problem =(.
19 >
20 > My school has some Windows/Mac setup instructions here (scroll down a bit):
21 > http://rorschach.concordia.ca/neg/remote_access/wireless/
22 > They mention Xsupplicant in relation to Linux, but once again I find
23 > myself way out of my depth. . .
24 >
25 > lspci lists my wifi card as:
26 > 04:02.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 2200BG
27 > Network Connection (rev 05)
28 >
29 > I am using the ipw2200 module, and the wifi card shows up under
30 > iwconfig as eth1.
31 >
32
33
34 Hi I have X41Tablet too, although with the 2915ABG wifi chipset (because
35 of the built-in bluetooth ;-) but it uses the same driver and should
36 work in the same way (I used to have R51 with 2200).
37
38 As for the wifi, there are basically 3 different modes, unencrypted, WEP,
39 and WPA (there are many kinds of WPA, but that doesn't really matter in
40 the way of configuring it under gentoo w ipw2200).
41
42 For the unencrypted and WEP cases, all you need are wireless-tools and
43 gentoo initscripts, good examples are in /etc/conf.d/wireless. You
44 configure few things for the whole interface (such as preferred_aps) and
45 others per access point (essid) such as encryption key and actual tcp/ip
46 configuration. Gentoo initscripts than choose an access point in range
47 and connect to it.
48
49 Just put these into any of the relevant config files ( wireless, net,
50 net.eth0 or net.eth1 depending on which is your wifi, all in
51 /etc/conf.d):
52
53
54 # this should be default and thus not needed
55 modules_eth0=( "iwconfig" )
56
57 config_ESSID1=( "dhcp" ) # not needed too
58 key_ESSID1="abcdefabcd"
59
60 config_ESSID2=( "10.0.0.13 netmask 255.255.255.0" )
61 routes_ESSID2=( "defualt via 10.0.0.1" )
62
63 ...
64
65 Then just start the interface...
66
67 As for WPA you need additional software to do the encryption (well, to
68 the key exchange and such stuff...). The best choice now is
69 wpa_supplicant. In the /etc/conf.d/net.eth0 just put
70 modules_eth0=( "wpa_supplicant" )
71 and relevant config_ESSID and probably routes_ESSID (for dhcp you can
72 just leave it). To set up the WPA options you have to edit
73 /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf.
74
75 There are many ways to do authentication/key exchange in WPA, from the
76 windows configuration on the page you mentioned it seems that you need
77 LEAP authentication (used by cisco) or PEAP + MSCHAPv2. The relevant part of the
78 wpa_supplicant should look like this:
79
80 network={
81 ssid="REftRW2d"
82 key_mgmt=IEEE8021X
83 eap=LEAP
84 identity="user"
85 password="pass"
86 }
87
88 or for PEAP+MSCHAPv2:
89 network={
90 ssid="REftRW2d"
91 key_mgmt=WPA-EAP
92 eap=PEAP
93 identity="user"
94 password="pass"
95 # this shiould not be needed
96 phase2="auth=MSCHAPV2"
97 }
98
99 I haven't actually used LEAP myself, so this is only a guess, feel free
100 to google for LEAP wpa_supplicant, or try asking people that managed to
101 get it running on your school.
102
103 As for the essids (ssids), under root, just run
104 iwlist eth0 scan
105 to see the list of wireless networks in range (or use some graphical
106 utility). wpa_supplicant uses to power down the wifi, so you may need to
107 do
108 iwconfig eth0 txpower on
109 to see some results.
110
111
112 If you need more help, feel free to mail me off list...
113
114 --
115 _
116 |
117 YoYo () Siska
118 ========================
119 http://www.ksp.sk/
120
121 --
122 gentoo-user@g.o mailing list

Replies

Subject Author
Re: [gentoo-user] Completely lost regarding wifi YoYo Siska <yoyo@××××××.sk>