the infamous linux wifi monster strikes-wirechief, Leonard, and marc

[Nils Kassube]

Robert Holtzman wrote:
> On Sun, 19 Apr 2009, Nils Kassube wrote:
> > Yes, the user generated random string is the passphrase you need
> > for the GUI tools. However in your first mail of this thread you
> > used a hex key generated by the program wpa_passphrase which is
> > used in the interfaces file. Therefore I thought you might have
> > used this hex key instead which would be wrong for a GUI tool.
>
> Thanks for the reply, from which I gather any random string will
> suffice for a pass phrase. True?

Yes, any string from 8 to 63 characters. I don't know if there are 
restrictions about the character set but at least A-Z, a-z, 0-9 are 
allowed. Of course both the router and the client must use the same pass 
phrase.

> Initially I tried "jUCEmss4WGhQ" for a pass phrase which didn't work.
> Later I tried letting the configuration utility do it automatically.
> Also no luck. Could this be a hardware problem? Firmware?

Which configuration utility? I don't think there is a configuration 
utility that can guess the pass phrase. If you can connect the router 
to your machine using the ethernet cable, you could copy the pass 
phrase from the router configuration to the wicd or network manager 
configuration like this (this is from memory because I don't have the 
laptop in front of me):

Connect the router to your machine via ethernet cable. Open the router 
configuration page and navigate to the page with the WPA/WPA2 pass 
phrase. Select the pass phrase with the mouse and start a text editor 
like kate. Paste the pass phrase to the input area of the editor (click 
the middle mouse button) and save this as a text file. Now disconnect 
the router from your ethernet port because IIRC you can't connect with 
your wireless port if the ethernet port is connected. Then open the 
wireless configuration of wicd or network manager and select your 
wireless network. When it asks for the pass phrase, select the pass 
phrase of the text file and paste it to the input area (click the 
middle mouse button). Then press the button labled "connect" (or 
similar).


Nils