No connection when WEP enabled

Forum: Networking
Topic: No connection when WEP enabled
started by: geodescent

Posted by geodescent on Mar. 05 2005,06:30

Hello all. I have thoroughly read these forums as well as stuff on google but cannot seem to get a WEP connection working.

My card is the ill-fated Microsoft Wireless Notebook Adapter MN-520, and I am running a DSL HD install.

Router is a Linksys Wireless G WRT54G V2_3.01.3

I have it set to the point where if I disable WEP, all I have to do once DSL boots is execute "prism2" through the right-click menu and enter the relevant channel and ssid. Device is still wlan0.
Under those circumstances, I get internet and it is great. But I refuse to let hackers look at my packets without serious work (ain't it great?)

Turning on the 128-bit WEP key kills the net and running "prism2" again won't solve it. Rebooting and running "prism2" and entering the key in addition to other info won't solve it. Only difference is now if I use a terminal to run prism2 I can see tons of errors about all my operations not supported; including setting of encode, essid, channel, freq, just about everything.

Is there something I'm missing and what ONE file can I place commands to automatically setup my connection on system boot. (Security isn't an issue in this case so I don't mind entering the WEP in some file.)

Fairly new here so please be very precise and thorough in your response. Thanks!

Posted by ke4nt1 on Mar. 05 2005,07:53

Everything I can find on the MN520 card suggests that it is an orinoco chipset,
and not a prism2 ..

and wep seems to work under various flavors of linux..

Are you entering your wep key in all caps, with colons?
e.g. XX:XX:XX:XX:XX

For a HDinstall, most folks simply add this to their /etc/pcmcia/config

card "Microsoft Wireless Notebook Adapter MN-520 1.0.3"
version "Microsoft", "Wireless Notebook Adapter MN-520", "", "1.0.3"
bind "orinoco_cs"

Not much help, I know, but I don't have one here to play with..

My MN720's and MN730's both use the same windows driver in ndiswrapper.
They work well with wep..

73
ke4nt

Posted by geodescent on Mar. 05 2005,16:11

I thought the WEP key was the password type key, not the mac address. If so, where do I enter the wep key 1?

I have tried modding the MN-520 to orinoco_cs in the config file but this seems to create more operation unsupported errors just like before. But I have successfully used the orinoco chipset on another linux when there was no WEP encryption. Same idea applies here, that the DSL Control Panel apps are not correctly issuring the commands.

Here are the relevant lines I get during runlevel 2:

cardmgr[53]: starting, version is 3.2.2
cardmgr[53]: socket 0: Microsoft Wireless Notebook Adapter MN-520
cardmgr[53]: executing: 'modprobe prism2_cs'
cardmgr[53]: executing: './wlan-ng start wlan0'
cardmgr[53]: + Debian network setup
cardmgr[53]: + /sbin/ifup wlan0
cardmgr[53]: + IBSS mpt started, resultcode=invalid_parameters
cardmgr[53]: + run-parts: /etc/network/if-pre-up.d/linux/wlan-ng_pre-up exited with return code 1
cardmgr[53]: + SIOCADDRT: Network is unreachable

If I edit the /etc/pcmcia/config file to use orinoco_cs I get cardmgr[53] errors such as:

cardmgr[53]: + /sbin/iwconfig eth0 mode auto
cardmgr[53]: + Error for wireless request "Set Mode" (8B06) :
cardmgr[53]: + SET failed on device eth0; Invalid argument.
cardmgr[53]: + /sbin/iwconfig eth0 freq 2.447G
cardmgr[53]: + Error for wireless request "Set Frequency" (8B04):
cardmgr[53]: + SET failed on device eth0; Operation not supported.

and the kicker..

cardmgr[53]: + Ignoring unknown interface eth0=eth0

Posted by ke4nt1 on Mar. 05 2005,17:18

1. You are correct - wep is the passcode, not the mac address.
but the key has to be entered in hex, not text.
10 characters for 64 bit wep, 26 characters for 128 bit wep.

2. I use wlan0 , and not eth0 , for all my wireless names,
in the scripts or setups I use with DSL, just like you have for the prism2.
Does wlan0 work for you with the orinoco setup ?

73
ke4nt

Posted by geodescent on Mar. 05 2005,17:43

After MUCH google and forum searching, I have discovered that the simplest way to get it working with the WEP key is to insert the wireless card AFTER DSL starts and then put the key in uppercase as you said, with colons. And here I thought my router's key was case sensitive!

Thankfully, ndiswrapper wasn't necessary, only running the prism2 setup. I'm glad because I was not up for changing the stack size...