Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Wireless working in Linux

Finally i have wireless working in linux. This required a new driver and wpa_suppliant package and configuring the card with YasT2.

My Installation
1) Suse Linux 10.1 on Dell Inspiron 6000
2) Wireless Card - Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG Network Connection
3) Router - Linksys - WRT54G - with WPA wireless security and TKIP algorithm.

Steps which i followed:
1) Installed the new ipw2200 and ieee80211 driver and firmware for the wireless card.
Refer to http://ipw2200.sourceforge.net/#requirements
2) Installed wpa_suppliant - 0.4.9
Before installing wpa_suppliant package, I tried to connect to wireless. In my router Linksys - WRT54G , i have enabled WPA-personal (security mode) and TKIP (WPA algorithm). Initially i had AES. Even with no encryption also, kwifimanager used to crib about invalid WEP key specification. I was wondering that WEP key is not configured and also even without any wireless security in my router, it does not connect. Once i got the package installed and created a new conf file and started the wpa_suppliant - bingo - wireless connected. Also i wanted to integrate it into the startup procedure.

I thought it should be taken care by the /etc/init.d/network. It uses NetworkManager to manage the interfaces. I checked the ifup-wireless script and found that for WPA encryption method, the wpa_suppliant is used.

3) Used Yast to configure the wireless card to startup at boot time instead of cable connection. Somehow cable connection option did not seem to work. Then changed the encryption type to "WPA-PSK" and then gave the passphrase.

I have wireless working :-) it was good learning excercise.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

not yet ra. it is still secondary.