Wireless networking, Fedora 6, and public access points.

[John Collier]

I have a notebook computer that currently is set up to dual-boot between Win XP and Fedora Core 6. In this computer, I have installed and configured a PCMCIA wireless card and have all the drivers working for both Operating Environments.

What really baffels me is the fact that while my M$ Windoze will find and connect to many different public 'hot spots' (do they still call them that?), my Fedora seems to be very picky in that regard.

I have yet to be able to convince it to connect to any network other than my own home network via wlan0.

It seems as if I have read something in the distant past on this issue, but I cannot for the life of me remember where it was or find it now. At the time I read it, I had no such issues personally and I did not have the good sense to bookmark it.

Could anybody here explain why Fedora does not want to connect to any of the public networks that M$ will easily connect with? Better yet, can anybody explain how I can convince it to do so, or at least point me to some docs on the subject?

If it helps any, I am using ndiswrapper to support the functionality of my wireless in Fedora and the Wireless Assistant sees all the same networks, but will not allow me to connect to any of them.


Thanks!
John

[Andrew Cowan]

John,

It is true that Fedora is very weak in this regard. It seems that the configuration for iwconfig is static and needs to be un-bound and re-bound everytime you want to connect to another network.

Try installing some extra products e.g:

yum -y install wifi-radar

and scan for networks using:

iwlist wlan0 scan
iwconfig wlan0 ....

[John Collier]

Andrew,

I have tried Wifi Radar and, quite frankly, have had less success with that than I have had with the Wireless Assitant. The Wifi Radar just doesnt' seem to work as well.

My problem is not seeing the netsorks. The problem is connectign to the ones I can see.

They have no WEP, the ESSIDs are being transmitted, I leave it to automatically gain an IP address from DHCP via the AP (just as it should), but I STILL cannot connect to them even on through the same methods I use to connect to the home network.

Any clues as to what could be standing in the way?

[Andrew Cowan]

Strangely enough I have just run into this problem with Redhat. I was using Suse 10.1, but changed over to do some testing and now I am also stuck.

Can you connect to your own network via wireless whilst in Linux?

[John Collier]

Andrew,

No problems there at all. I have the wireless connected, 128 bit WEP configured, MAC pairing, and STILL connect at 108 Meg.

Strangely enough, I have to use the Wireless Assistant every time I boot to reconnect (no auto-connections for some odd reason) so I know for a fact that WA is sorking well for me.

I just don't understand the failure to connect to public APs with no pairing or WEP.

[Andrew Cowan]

I have seen this problem and think you'll find that wlassistant and iwconfig store their configuration in files.

When I setup SUSE I added several script files to do iwconfig's for the network I was trying reach, then after a reboot, ran the one for my present location.

Out of interest, when you installed your wireless card, did you use ndiswrapper or is it one with native support?

[John Collier]

I had to use the ndiswrapper. Unfortunately there is no native driver for the Airgo MIMO chipset in my card at this time.

I also had to get a Kernel with a 16k stack instead of the default 4k that comes with Fedora.

That was a whole other esperience that I documented on another forum and I would really rather not relive at the moment. {insert cold-chill-shudder here}.

Now, if you will excuse me I am going to go get a good stiff adult beverage to help me forget that again.... :-/

[John Collier]

So, does this mean that this question just scares people or is it that I am the only one that wants to use their FC6 as a true mobile device?

I don't ever remember getting so few responses to any question on this forum.

[randy horton_1]

I am just dumb founded and lost with no progress in the near future on the wireless problems and linux! I have purchased a HP Compaq nx7400 wich has a Broadcom wireless device onboard. I have tried so many times reading 100's of fourms on how i should proceed with making this operational and got no place. Can somebody please send me point by point instructions that person whom doesnt speak nor understaqnd linux understanding terminology? (and is a bad speller). I just cant get it to work because no place has clear instructions for non-linux or "newbee's". I almost feel it must be a secret club and i cant even apply. Sincerely, Randy Horton PS I am using fedora core 6

[Steven E. Protter]

Shalom John,

I have fought with RH/Centos and wireless as well.

The general conclusion at this point is this is something that Windows does better than Red Hat.

I have found however that Ubuntu does better on hardware support and does this wireless stuff better.

SEP

[Andrew Cowan]

John,

I got the Intel wireless BG2100 card that is built in to my Compaq V4000 laptop to work straight away with Suse Linux 10. It even handles WPA2 correctly, I simply wanted to compare with Fedora.

I now have the BIOS loaded and can see the card, it just seems to refuse to connect to anything. The problem seems to be with the negotiation in Wifi-radar. I now also have the problem that if I try to update using Yum, it complains about my modified Kernel.

I'm now going to wait a week and see if Redhat post a new one as that normally fixes things.

[John Collier]

Randy,

If you simply cannot get your wireless to work, you may be interested in the process I went through to get mine to work.

The thread I documented all of this on is on another site: http://forums.fedoraforum.org/forum/showthread.php?t=138746

There is also another good thread on the same site. The beginning of it makes it look like it may be too old to be useful, but read your way through it. You will find it has much info in it that will help you as well: http://forums.fedoraforum.org/forum/showthread.php?t=29659



All,

Getting my wireless card to function is not the issue for me. Getting it to function properly with public APs (that should have no WEP, WPA or anything else standing in the way) is the issue at the moment.

This is what I am seeking advise on here. Why will it not connect to an unprotected, public network?

[HP nx6110 linux user]

I have the same problem with my HP nx6110 notebook and Fedora 6. I can see all access points in my neighborhood but i do not get IP address from them. Trying ifup command ends with that my eth1 device is not enabled. I tried to set up some static IP address and it is ok. But I do not get any IP from public access point. Please help. I am some kind of a newbie in linux, so I need clear instructions what to do now. I need wifi support in Fedora. Thank you much in advance.

[Andrew Cowan]

My problem seems to stem from "wpa_supplicant". I've edited the file as per the manual and added my WPA pass-phrase, however it still refuses to connect.

Example:

cat /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant
ctrl_interface_group=wheel

network={
ssid="MyWLAN"
scan_ssid=1
key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
proto=WPA
psk="My passphrase"
}

wpa_supplicant -B -Dndiswrapper -iwlan0 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

wpa_cli
wpa_cli v0.4.9
Copyright (c) 2004-2005, Jouni Malinen and contributors

This program is free software. You can distribute it and/or modify it
under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2.

Alternatively, this software may be distributed under the terms of the
BSD license. See README and COPYING for more details.


Selected interface 'wlan0'

Interactive mode

> scan
OK
> scan_results
bssid / frequency / signal level / flags / ssid
00:90:96:c7:9e:42 2422 188 [WPA-PSK-TKIP] MyWLAN

The daemon just spirals indefinitely as it says it cannot negotiate with my AP.

If I do "iwlist wlan0 scan" I can see lot sof networks as well as mine, and some are unprotected, I just can connect to any of them using "wifi-radar".

[John Collier]

OK, here it is in a nutshell:

I have managed to solve my public AP connection issues by using NetworkManager in FC6.

Wireless Assistant just did not cut it for me in the long run. Even though it saw all the networks, it would not allow me to connect to them.

Make sure you have all the components of NetworkManager installed.
$ yum install NetworkManager*
should do the trick for that.

Double-check it is all there:
$ rpm -qa | grep NetworkManager
NetworkManager-glib-0.6.4-5.fc6
NetworkManager-0.6.4-5.fc6
NetworkManager-gnome-0.6.4-5.fc6

Double check to make sure the NetworkManager service is running, go to system -->administration -->services. (Check Marks) in top 2 boxes, save it. Now do it again for runlevel 3, save it and reboot the computer. When it reboots you should have a new icon (sweeping radar or two computers similar to the M$ network connection icon if all it sees first is the copper networks) in the top panel notification area. Left click the icon and it should show a list of networks it sees. When using NetworkManager it will also Start/Stop the wpa_supplicant files automatically.

For the WPA, look for the following:
$ rpm -qa | grep wpa*
wpa_supplicant-gui-0.4.9-1.fc6
libwpd-0.8.6-1
wpa_supplicant-0.4.9-1.fc6

If you do not have them all, then take the proper steps to get them and install them.

Now you not only have the Network Manager handling most of your connection issues, but you also have a nice little GUI to work with on your WPA connections as well.

In order to pull up the WPA GUI, simply type
$ wpa_gui &
at a command prompt (if Network Manager did not already take care of it for you, that is) and you are off and running.

I thank you all for chiming in with your various thoughts. If your particular issue did not get solved in this thread, I encourage you to start one of your own for your specific issue.

I will be putting together a How To for the other forum (since this one does not seem to house such things) that will go through my experience with getting the Belkin Airgo MIMO card working on FC6 as well as how to get it connected to both public and private networks as easily as possible, based on my experience.


If anybody wants a URL to the finished How To, just ask and I will try to provide it when it is done.