Wireless configuration and startup - The Gentoo way

UberLord · Ebuild for sys-apps/baselayout>=1.8.11 <1.11.0

WIRELESS CONFIGURATION IS NOW IN PORTAGE

It's in sys-apps/baselayout-1.11.0 - which is currently package.masked
If you wish to try it out, do the following

Unmask it

Code:

mkdir -P /etc/portage
echo "=sys-apps/baselayout-1.11.0" >> /etc/portage/package.unmask
If you're running x86 instead of ~x86, set baselayout to the ~x86 package

Code:

echo "=sys-apps/baselayout-1.11.0 ~x86" >> /etc/portage/package.keywords
emerge baselayout

Code:

emerge sync
emerge -av sys-apps/baselayout
etc-update

Ensure that version 1.11.0 or newer is going to get installed and go for it!
Otherwise, find out why it's not (hint: step 1 or 2 is wrong)
Ensure that etc-update updates /etc/conf.d/net and /etc/conf.d/net.lo - please do this
Then symlink any net.* devices to net.lo instead of net.eth0
Consult /etc/conf.d/net.example for details about how to configure networking
If you have net-wireless/wireless-config installed, remove it

Code:

emerge unmerge net-wireless/wireless-config
rm /etc/init.d/wireless.sh

If you did not update /etc/conf.d/net in the steps above, you need to manually remove the patch to /etc/conf.d/net which loads wireless.sh and calls wireless_* in preup(), predown() and/or postdown() functions if they exist - it's now automatic
Consult /etc/conf.d/wireless.example for how to configure wireless
And you're done

PS - you need to have wireless-tools emerged for wireless to work ....

FAQ
Q. I don't have net.wlan0, net.eth1, net.ath0 or similar in /etc/init.d!
A. Read up on Gentoo networking in their handbook
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=1&chap=8#doc_chap2
A2. The docs will be wrong when baselayout hits stable - you need to symlink to net.lo instead of net.eth0

Q. I'm seeing Wireless extensions not found for $interface - but it's a wireless device!
A. You need to enable wireless-extensions in your kernel.
To do this, enable the following config options in /usr/src/linux/.config

UberLord · Posted: Fri Jan 09, 2004 6:11 pm Post subject:

I know some people like em - or at least they're trying them

I've updated them.

Changes
Changed the configuration slightly.
Now, you can set channel, rate, mode, rts, frag and essid per interface instead of per essid (makes for sense I think)

Features
Warnings when you try an unsupported feature on your driver

If your card can't scan - and my lappy one won't - or you need to choose essids manually you can configure them via grub.
Append wireless_essid_ath0=UberNET to the kernel line
Of course, change ath0 and UberNET to your interface and essid

Gimmie some feedback if you love em or hate em

preacher · Posted: Fri Jan 09, 2004 7:52 pm Post subject:

I like it a lot, it made configuring my new wireless card much easier than I thought it would be. However, I'm just not there yet. When I try
# /etc/init.d/net.ath0 start

I get the following output:
/sbin/runscript.sh: line 20: roaming: command not found
* Bringing ath0 up...
* Failed to bring ath0 up [ !! ]

What gives?

Also, when I try to load the ath_pci module, I get an error message saying
/lib/modules/2.4.22-gentoo-r3/net/ath_pci.o: init_module: No such device
Hint: insmod errors can be caused by incorrect module parameters, including invalid IO or IRQ parameters.
You may find more information in syslog or the output from dmesg
/lib/modules/2.4.22-gentoo-r3/net/ath_pci.o: insmod /lib/modules/2.4.22-gentoo-r3/net/ath_pci.o failed
/lib/modules/2.4.22-gentoo-r3/net/ath_pci.o: insmod ath_pci failed

The madwifi-driver is the emerged one.

preacher · Posted: Fri Jan 09, 2004 9:15 pm Post subject:

Never mind the roaming stuff, it was me who had an extra linebreak where it shouldn't be.

However, I still cant get the ath_pci module to load, I recompiled the kernel with Wireless support built in but the problem remains.

UberLord · Posted: Fri Jan 09, 2004 9:57 pm Post subject:

I didn't actually upload the new scripts to the correct location :oops:

They are there now

preacher, whats the problem loading the module? Is there an error? Can you post it or your dmesg output?

preacher · Posted: Fri Jan 09, 2004 10:51 pm Post subject:

insmod wlan and ath_hal both go fine, but when i do

UberLord · Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2004 12:22 am Post subject:

That card requires the acx100 drivers - madwifi will not work!

Checkout the below link for the driver you need
https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=122584&highlight=acx100

preacher · Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2004 2:56 am Post subject:

Thanks for your reply, however, that is sadly not the case.
Because of D-Links retarded naming-scheme these devices are very easy to mix up.

After a lot of searching I found out this. The DWL-G520+ is based on a chip from Texas Instruments, for which no driver exists. That's right, nada, zip. Also note that this card is different from the DWL-G520 (without +).

And I bought two, and when one didn't work I opened the other one. Which means that here I am with two useless cards and I can't even return one of them. Woe me.

I tried the wrapper from linuxant, but I got unresolved symbols when loading the module.

I'm sure your scripts are great, but atleast I wont have any use of them in the near (far?) future

UberLord · Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2004 3:05 am Post subject:

zfc-tinkerer · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 05 May 2003 Posts: 126

if you have a card which is truly not supported by any linux drivers, you might try ndis-wrapper (available on sourceforge.net) which will allow you to use windows drivers for that card. Just don't do the dumb thing I did and forget to get the most recent version of the windows drivers. I'm not crazy about using non-native drivers like this, but I already have the card, so it's not like I bought a card planning on using the windows drivers and a wrapper.

ndis-wrapper is free, unlike the linuxant wrapper, and at least for me it seems to run better and be simpler to set up. if only some brave and wonderful person would make an ebuild for it :wink:

preacher · Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2004 3:40 am Post subject:

Yes I know, but this is another chipset not compatible with acx100.
I haven't tried it since it specifically states that it won't work with the G520+.

However, I actually got driverloader from linuxant working!
Now I am able to run your script, but the output is:

bruor · Apprentice Joined: 08 Jul 2003 Posts: 239

ive just tried your scripts out and while they look promising i have some questions.

theres a link that says its supposed to be /etc/init.d/net.ath0 but when i try to start it it says it doesnt exist in /etc/conf.d/net... so i renamed the iface_eth1 to iface_ath0. is this the right thing to do?

after trying that it tries to bring up ath0 but it doesnt seem to work.

im using a linksys wpc55ag with the madwifi driver.

any help you can give would be greatly appreciated

UberLord · Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2004 11:28 am Post subject:

bruor · Apprentice Joined: 08 Jul 2003 Posts: 239

ok i did what you said and, at the accesspoint at work, all went well.

i had to disable the encryption though...

when i run commands like

ryandlugosz · Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2004 7:57 pm Post subject: Tweaks for ndiswrapper

I've tweaked the original script a bit... I use ndiswrapper (0.4) to make my TrueMobile 1300 (Broadcom) wifi work. I found that I always had to start net.wlan0 (what I had renamed the script to) *twice* before it would successfully connect.

I've attributed this to the fact that before the kernel module is loaded, the iwconfig command does not have an entry for the interface that you're looking for. Because of this, the setup_ or associate_ wireless commands are skipped over and then the ifconfig $IFACE stuff happens. This (of course) causes the kernel module to get loaded, but the iwconfig commands (scanning for the essid, key setup, etc) won't have happened (causing dhcpcd to fail). The second time you run the net.wlan0 start command, iwconfig will have the interface listed since the kernel module have been loaded. Now the setup_ and associate_ wireless methods will execute and the wireless stuff will work correctly.

My solution was to check to see if the ndiswrapper module has been loaded inside the setup_env method, just before we check to see if the wireless interface is listed in iwconfig. Doing this makes the script work correctly on the first try. I have not tested to see what happens when the network is unavailable... hopefully it will time out on it's own.

Also, I added a line in stop that will remove the ndiswrapper kernel module after stopping all of the interfaces. Note that before version 0.4 of ndiswrapper an rmmod like this would cause an oops and you're DOA.

Please respond if you can make any improvements / genericise this a bit.

My new version of the script

-Ryan

amphibious · Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2004 8:18 pm Post subject:

amphibious · Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2004 8:20 pm Post subject: Re: Tweaks for ndiswrapper

ryandlugosz · Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2004 8:30 pm Post subject: Re: Tweaks for ndiswrapper

amphibious · Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2004 9:42 pm Post subject: Re: Tweaks for ndiswrapper

ryandlugosz · Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2004 3:09 am Post subject: Re: Tweaks for ndiswrapper

UberLord · Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2004 1:07 pm Post subject:

To load the kernel modules automatically, simply add them to /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-<version>

That way they should get loaded at boot, which means the you don't need to change the script.

This is the Gentoo recommended way (according to their docs) to configure networking

ryandlugosz · Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2004 1:37 pm Post subject:

ryandlugosz · Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2004 4:56 pm Post subject: Wireless not available

Anyone have any thoughts on how to modify the script so that it will eventually timeout when connecting to the wireless? I've been using this as a startup script and if the wireless isn't available it'll sit there for a long time (forever, I think).

Any thoughts on this? Is there a way that I can set it up so that if I pass an argument at boot time the network won't start?

Thanks,
Ryan

UberLord · Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2004 5:52 pm Post subject: Re: Wireless not available

jshaw523 · n00b Joined: 29 Dec 2003 Posts: 12 Location: Columbus, OH

I just wanted to reply and say I love the script, much much better then the one I first put together. I think I am going to modify it slightly so it'll post a specific error message when the network card doesn't support scanning, but other then that it works great.