Ubuntu wireless administration

[Thomas Olsen]

On Tuesday den 16. August 2005 11:03, Andy Nunn wrote:
> I have just installed Ubuntu on my Compaq Presario 1210US laptop. The
> install went flawlessly. This is the first time a Linux installation has
> worked on this machine.
>
> I have one issue thus far, the USM wireless device is not working nor can I
> find any tools to try to configure it. It is a D-Link DWL-122 wireless
> device. During the install the device was detected and appeared as a choice
> along with the built-in LAN card, with the comment that there was no
> wireless network. There is a wireless network and the laptop is 3 feet from
> the wireless router. It has a 64 bit ssid key on it so perhaps that is why
> the annotation.
>
> Can someone point me in the direction to begin trying getting this to work?
> Also is the Ubuntu install representative of the current Debian install?
> Thanks in advance for any help.

I had a DWL-610 PCMCIA card which gave me some because I had to use 
ndsiwrapper but you should be home free using the prism2_usb driver.

I never succeeded using any of the graphical tools but here's how I did:

Edit /etc/network/interfaces. If you only have to connect to one AP its very 
simple (lets assume the device is named eth1):

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

mapping hotplug
       script grep
       map eth1

# The primary network interface
iface eth1 inet static
 # change the following to match your network
        address 192.168.0.12
        netmask 255.255.255.0
        network 192.168.0.0
        broadcast 192.168.0.255
        gateway 192.168.0.1
        # wireless-* options are implemented by the wireless-tools package
        wireless-mode managed
        wireless-essid <your ESSID>
 # if the key is hexadecimal just write it as is
 # if it's a string prefix it with "s:"
 # (without the quotes)
        wireless-key1 <your WEP key>
        dns-nameservers 212.54.64.170 212.54.64.171

Save the file and run:

#ifup eth1

Maybe you have to load the driver first:

#modprobe prism2_usb

If you want to connect to different AP's it's a bit more complicated:

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

# The AP
iface eth1-ap1 inet static
        address 192.168.0.12
        netmask 255.255.255.0
        network 192.168.0.0
        broadcast 192.168.0.255
        gateway 192.168.0.1
        wireless-mode managed
        wireless-essid <first ESSID>
        wireless-key1 <first key>
        dns-nameservers 212.54.64.170 212.54.64.171

# The second AP
iface eth1-ap2 inet static
        address 192.168.1.13
        netmask 255.255.255.0
        network 192.168.1.0
        broadcast 192.168.1.255
        gateway 192.168.1.1
        wireless-mode managed
        wireless-essid <second ESSID>
 # with a string key
        wireless-key1 s:<second key>
        dns-nameservers 212.54.64.170 212.54.64.171

Next run:

#ifup eth1=eth1-ap1

or

#ifup eth1=eth1-ap2

BTW: to list the available AP's run:

#iwlist eth1 scan

Anyways, this is how I got it to work. There are several other approaches. 
Google for wpasupplicant, ifplugd, iwplugd or use the Control Center module 
in: Internet & Network => Wireless Network (didn't work for me though)

-- 
Med venlig hilsen

Thomas Olsen