WICD problem

[garzabo]

Hi,

I'm new to Salix, I encountered problem on WICD not be able to connect to my wireless AP, this happened on both Saix13.0 and Salix13.1. On booting up, WICD able to find my AP, there are about 20 wifi networks in my neighboorhood, after first attemp to connect to my AP, connection failed and I got "Connection Failed: Bad Password" error when running Salix13.1 and I got "Connection Failed: Unable to Get IP Address" error when running Salix13.0. subsequently wicd cannot find my AP anymore.

I'm using Linksys WUSB54G Wifi adapter(rt2570), My AP is 2Wire router. After the connection failed, all the 2Wire AP around my neighboorhood are missing from WICD available networks list when I hit refresh button.
The same hardware connect to my home wifi network work very well under gnome NetworkManager (both fedora12 and Ubuntu9.10).

Seen like I have no luck with WICD, because I encounter the same problem on Zenwalk6.4 and few month ago I have same problem on Mint8, initially it work very good until I replaced NetworkManager with WICD. Is anyone encounter the same problem? any help will be appreciated.

[gapan]

If it's a problem with wicd and NetworkManager works fine for you, then you can try downloading it from the gnome slackbuilds project. Also, if NetworkManager works and wicd doesn't, that means that it's a problem with wicd, rather than your card, which means that you have better chances of getting it fixed if you report it straight to the wicd devs.

[garzabo]

Hi gapan,

Thanks for your reply, I'm new to Salix and Slackware and never try slackbuilds, will NetworkManager pull in all the gnome dependencies? will try that when I got time, temporary using wired connection.

[gapan]

The NetworkManager package in gsb doesn't depend on anything specific to gnome as far as I can see: http://ftp.osuosl.org/pub/gsb/gsb-2.30_ ... 3.1/gsb/n/

But then again, I have never used it in any way, so I really don't know.

[garzabo]

I have compile and install RutilT (Wifi manager) from serialmonkey, the utility work fine under Salix 13.0. But I got this error "Can't get frequency/channel. Code : 22" under Salix 13.1

[EaglePrince]

I have a DWL G122 (Rev B1) USB NIC which uses this chipset. It has not worked with wicd since at least Salix 13.1.x. I can't remember if 13.0.2 worked. I get a 'Bad Password' eror, and from much googling, it seems that the only way to get this to work is to manually edit /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1, /etc/rc.d/rc.wireless.conf and /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf.

I am testing on Salix_13.1.2_64 and wicd works fine with a Zydas-based USB NIC which I borrowed from my daughter's pc, so I think the problem is the kernel driver and not wicd.

Unfortunately I was unable to compile the driver from ralink's website.

However, this guide looks good, which seems to be more or less the stuff in the slackware book. I will update this post if, as I expect, I can get this working tonight.

[pwatk]

This probably doesn't help but you'll probably find the ralink firmware already has a Slackware package, the USB NICs can just be a pain to get working. I had a Belkin N stick based on a ralink chip I sold on ebay recently because of this very reason (it just annoyed me too much).

rc.inet1.conf and wpa_supplicant.conf aren't that difficult to configure, here's a quick guide. Give it ago but I think you might have better luck using NDISwrapper instead of the native drivers (kernel module) to get the stick working properly.

[EaglePrince]

Sorry I tried everything I can think of at the moment. I get the NIC up and it looks ok, but it refuses to use encryption, and seems to ignore the info in wpa_supplicant.conf.

Unrtunately you can't use iwpriv on this particular version of the kernel driver, and the latest Ralink utility will only allow WEP, so there is no way to set the WPA/WPA2 encryption key. To make things worse, the Ralink driver is pretty old and seems to be completely out of step with modern kernels. The last in-kernel driver I know of that worked perfectly with this USB stick was 2.6.27.45.

Maybe I'll try again next year. I quit!

Just buy a Zydas-1211 based stick on ebay. They work.

[EaglePrince]

Ok I got it working!

The easiest way to do this is not to use rc.inet1.conf at all, and use DHCP.
First, make sure the wireless NIC has been identified and that you have the relevant modules loaded.

Code: Select all

# dmesg | grep rt2
Registered led device: rt2500usb-phy0::radio
Registered led device: rt2500usb-phy0::quality
usbcore: registered new interface driver rt2500usb

Code: Select all

# lsmod | grep rt
rt2500usb              16318  0 
rt2x00usb               6678  1 rt2500usb
rt2x00lib              23123  2 rt2500usb,rt2x00usb
led_class               2115  1 rt2x00lib
mac80211              138335  2 rt2x00usb,rt2x00lib
cfg80211              120748  2 rt2x00lib,mac80211
agpgart                22158  1 nvidia
usbcore               106915  6 rt2500usb,rt2x00usb,usbhid,ohci_hcd,ehci_hcd

Add a section to wpa_supplicant.conf for your network like this:-

Code: Select all

network={
	ssid="Your_ESSID"
	proto=WPA RSN
	key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
	pairwise=CCMP TKIP
	group=CCMP TKIP
	psk=passphrase-in-hex
	priority=2
}

You can generate a hex passphrase by running

Code: Select all

# wpa_passphrase Network "secret key"
network={
	ssid="Network"
	#psk="secret key"
	psk=83c21ce07bc0b3b7729cf68fea461b1a80e665dffe2bcb90dc95cad508d81c73
}

This is the hex key you need in wpa_suppliacnt.conf

Now run wpa_supplicant (as root) against the interface as normal.

Code: Select all

wpa_supplicant -i wlan0 -D wext -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -B

Now it's a simple matter of obtaining an IP address.

Code: Select all

#wait a few seconds for wpa_supplicant
sleep 10
dhcpcd wlan0

and I was online

It may be simpler to create a script from these commands, and then call it from /etc/rc.d/rc.local.

The connection seems to be stable so far.

BTW, I disabled the wicd service and removed the client from my auto-started applications to avoid confusion. I use the wavelan panel applet to show wireless status.

Next step:

I personally don't want to have to use DHCP, so I am working on getting this to work properly without it. I will update this post later.