Re: FC2 wireless woes

From: Frankie Howerd (frankiehowerd_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 08/21/04 

Date: Sat, 21 Aug 2004 14:34:10 -0700

"Paul Lutus" <nospam@nosite.zzz> wrote in message
news:10if37j2brqmo2a@corp.supernews.com...
> Frankie Howerd wrote:
>
> > Trying to get a Netgear MA401 pcmcia wireless card to work on my stock
FC2
> > installation on an Inspiron 8000: I downloaded, compiled and installed
the
> > latest linux-wlan release (appeared to be error free), then did a lsmod
> > for the 'prism2_cs' module (which hadn't been loaded). When I try and
load
> > it manually
>
> How, specifically, did you load it?
>
> > I get an error saying that this module (and p80211) are
> > 'invalid module format'.
>
> Please provide the actual error text.
>
> > Any clues as to the problem here?
>
> Not enough information at the moment.

Thanks for the reply, bit green when it comes to getting my hands dirty with
Linux.

I had found that having the kernel source tree installed from the disk
wasn't good enough - you actually have to go through a kernel compilation to
generate other files needed to do other compilations which require info from
the kernel tree - whatever. Anyway, I had selected the wrong config file
from the defaults given (i586 v i686). I recompiled the linux-wlan stuff,
and now have working versions of the p80211 and prism2_cs modules.

But now, even though the modules load and the wireless card is detected
(accoring to an inspection of /var/log/messages), I can't connect to my
wireless network. I've turned WEP off to remove that layer of uncertainty.
At boot, things seem to go OK:

prism2_cs: Ignoring new-style parameters in presence of obsolete ones
prism2cs_init: prism2_cs.o: 0.2.1-pre21 Loaded
prism2cs_init: dev_info is: prism2_cs
prism2_cs: index 0x01: Vcc 5.0, irq 3, io 0x0100-0x013f
divert: allocating divert_blk for wlan0
PDA Read from 0x007f0000 in NV space.
PDA Read from 0x007f0000 in EXTDS space.
...
ident: nic h/w: id=0x800c 1.0.0
ident: pri f/w: id=0x15 1.1.4
ident: sta f/w: id=0x1f 1.8.3
MFI:SUP:role=0x00:id=0x01:var=0x01:b/t=1/1
CFI:SUP:role=0x00:id=0x02:var=0x02:b/t=1/1
PRI:SUP:role=0x00:id=0x03:var=0x01:b/t=4/5
STA:SUP:role=0x00:id=0x04:var=0x01:b/t=1/15
PRI-CFI:ACT:role=0x01:id=0x02:var=0x02:b/t=1/1
STA-CFI:ACT:role=0x01:id=0x02:var=0x02:b/t=1/1
STA-MFI:ACT:role=0x01:id=0x01:var=0x01:b/t=1/1
Prism2 card SN: xxx
linkstatus=CONNECTED
...
but then

hfa384x_cmd_access: Call to hfa384x_docmd_wait failed (127 4)
hfa384x_copy_to_bap4: copy_to_bap() failed.
NETDEV WATCHDOG: wlan0: transmit timed out
hfa384x_tx_timeout: Implement me.
wlan0: no IPv6 routers present

The link light comes on briefly, then goes out.
If I remove the card, and do a /etc/rc.d/init.d/pcmcia restart, I get

prism2_cs: Ignoring new-style parameters in presence of obsolete ones
prism2cs_init: prism2_cs.o: 0.2.1-pre21 Loaded
prism2cs_init: dev_info is: prism2_cs
prism2_cs: index 0x01: Vcc 5.0, irq 3, io 0x0100-0x013f
divert: allocating divert_blk for wlan0
hfa384x_docmd_wait: hfa384x_cmd timeout(2), reg=0x0.
prism2mgmt_readpda: hfa384x_drvr_readpda() failed, result=-110
hfa384x_docmd_wait: hfa384x_cmd timeout(2), reg=0x0.
hfa384x_cmd_access: Call to hfa384x_docmd_wait failed (-110 0)
...
prism2mgmt_readpda: hfa384x_drvr_readpda() failed, result=-61
hfa384x_cmd_access: Call to hfa384x_docmd_wait failed (127 4)

Again, the link light goes out after a few seconds.

All this may suggest that my card is now detected fine but the link fails
because my network settings are somehow wrong. Well, here's the relevant
parts of /etc/wlan/wlan.conf and /etc/wlan/wlancfg-mySSID:

#wlan.conf
WLAN_DEVICES="wlan0"
# Below is the list of channels to scan, when we scan
ChannelList="01:02:03:04:05:06:07:08:09:0a:0b:00:00:00"
# Below is the min and max time we linger on a channel during a scan
ChannelMinTime=200
ChannelMaxTime=250
# And here we have the master scan toggle.
WLAN_SCAN=n
##########
SSID_wlan0="mySSID"
ENABLE_wlan0=y

#wlancfg-mySSID
lnxreq_hostWEPEncrypt=false # true|false
lnxreq_hostWEPDecrypt=false # true|false
dot11PrivacyInvoked=false # true|false
dot11WEPDefaultKeyID=0 # 0|1|2|3
dot11ExcludeUnencrypted=false # true|false, in AP this means WEP is
required.
# If PRIV_GENSTR is not empty, use PRIV_GENTSTR to generate # keys (just a
convenience)
# add-ons/ in the tarball contains other key generators.
PRIV_GENERATOR=/sbin/nwepgen # nwepgen, Neesus compatible
PRIV_KEY64=false # keylength to generate
PRIV_GENSTR=""
# or set them explicitly. Set genstr or keys, not both.
dot11WEPDefaultKey0=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx # format: xx:xx:xx:xx:xx or
dot11WEPDefaultKey1=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx# xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
dot11WEPDefaultKey2=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx # e.g. 01:20:03:40:05 or
dot11WEPDefaultKey3=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx # 01:02:03:04:05:06:07:08:09:0a:0b:0c:0d
#=======SELECT STATION MODE===================
IS_ADHOC=n # y|n, y - adhoc, n - infrastructure
#======= INFRASTRUCTURE STATION ===================
# What kind of authentication?
AuthType="opensystem" # opensystem | sharedkey (requires WEP)
#======= ADHOC STATION ============================
BCNINT=100 # Beacon interval (in Kus)
CHANNEL=7 # DS channel for BSS (1-14, depends
# on regulatory domain)
BASICRATES="2 4" # Rates for mgmt&ctl frames (in 500Kb/s)
OPRATES="2 4 11 22" # Supported rates in BSS (in 500Kb/s)

Anything wrong here? Do I have to change settings anywhere else, like
/etc/pcmcia ...?

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