Difference between revisions of "Linux Wireless"

Revision as of 12:54, 19 April 2007

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Wireless Utilities

Cisco

First you'll need to download linux-acu-driver-v21.tar.gz from the Cisco website and put it in /usr/portage/distfiles/ (Gentoo Users only) Now you can get the client-utils

emerge cisco-aironet-client-utils

Launch the aironet-client-utiltiy with:

/opt/cisco/bin/acu

Now this user interface has to be taken with a grain of salt. It is in fact, so salty that I don't even use it.

Kernel Configuration

You may or may not need to recompile your kernel since some distributions tend to include everything as a module.

First step is to figure out what kind of Wireless Card you have.

#lspci | grep Wireless

The output of the previous command should look similar to this:

02:02.0 Network controller: AIRONET Wireless Communications Cisco Aironet Wireless...

Compile in the Cisco/Aironet 34X/35X/4500/4800 ISA and PCI cards under Device Drivers > Network device support > Wireless LAN (non-hamradio) Select whichever you have (PCMCIA or ISA/PCI) After you have compiled in or as a module you should now see another ethernet device (eth1 in my case)

Cisco / LEAP Authenication by Command Line Interface

If the computer recognizes the Cisco card, you can just try using the leapset command line program which will ask for a username and password. Then you can use dhcpcd on the interface to obtain an IP address.

To reduce typing make a script

#!/bin/sh
/opt/cisco/bin/leapscript UANETID PASSWORD
dhcpcd eth1

Intel PROSet

Intel did not write a Linux driver, however, there is an open source solution. A utility called "ipw2200"

Kernel Configuration

Networking --->
   [*] Generic IEEE 802.11 Networking Stack

Device Drivers --->
   Generic Driver Options --->
      [*] Hotplug firmware loading support
   Network Device support --->
      Wireless LAN (non-hamradio) --->
        [*] Wireless LAN drivers (non-hamradio) & Wireless Extensions

Cryptographic options --->
   [*] Cryptographic API
     <*> AES cipher algorithms (i586)
     <*> ARC4 cipher algorithm
     <*> Michael MIC keyed digest algorithm
     <*> CRC32c CRC algorithm (this wasn't prompted in the emerge of ipw2200)

Getting and installing the Intel utilities

• Intel 3945: Click Here
• Intel 2100: Click Here
• Intel 2200/2915: Click Here

Once you have the proper driver installed. Load the appropriate modules ex:

#modprobe ipw2200

You should now have a wireless interface (most likely eth1), so bring it up:

#ifconfig eth1 up

WPA Supplicant

Most distributions have the wireless-tools package. It will need to be installed. Gentoo users can emerge wireless-tools. Wpa_supplicant is required to connect. If there are no packages this in the distribution used, compiling by the source may be an option. Source Code. Gentoo users can emerge wpa_supplicant. Assistance with compiling software can be found in room 52c in Bierce Library. After having wpa_supplicant installed, the wpa_supplicant.conf file should contain the following:

ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant
ctrl_interface_group=0
update_config=1
ap_scan=1

network={
        ssid="tsunami"
        key_mgmt=IEEE8021X
        eap=LEAP
        identity="UANET ID"
        password="PASSWORD"
}

Now that the wpa_supplicant is installed, launch it with:

#wpa_supplicant -i eth1 -D wext -c /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

Get an IP with the following command:

#dhcpcd eth1

Profile Utilities

There are not too many programs available for wireless profile management. But here is a small list to try

• gtkwifi
• gwifiapplet
• kwifimanager (Does not have LEAP support.)
• NetworkManager
• KNetworkManager
• wifi-radar

See Also

Wireless Setup