[How-To] Enable Wireless

[bodhi]

I followed WarheadsSE instruction (after installing module per scorp's instruction), and got the same result as dinjo (exception in dmesg)! I could not get it working. ra0 is up and sent out broadcast for lease:

Mar 5 13:09:44 PogoPro1A dhcpcd[997]: ra0: sending IPv6 Router Solicitation
Mar 5 13:09:44 PogoPro1A dhcpcd[997]: ra0: broadcasting for a lease
Mar 5 13:09:48 PogoPro1A dhcpcd[997]: ra0: sending IPv6 Router Solicitation
Mar 5 13:09:48 PogoPro1A kernel: [ 38.050000] ra0: no IPv6 routers present
Mar 5 13:09:52 PogoPro1A dhcpcd[997]: ra0: sending IPv6 Router Solicitation
Mar 5 13:09:56 PogoPro1A dhcpcd[997]: ra0: sending IPv6 Router Solicitation
Mar 5 13:09:56 PogoPro1A dhcpcd[997]: ra0: no IPv6 Routers available
Mar 5 13:10:14 PogoPro1A dhcpcd[997]: timed out

I've noticed there are differences in instructions from different posts here.

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iwpriv ra0 set SSID=DERP
iwpriv ra0 set WPAPSK=**********


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iwpriv ra0 set SSID="Your wireless access point name"
iwpriv ra0 set WPAPSK=your wireless access point password


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iwpriv ra0 set WPAPSK='Your wireless access point password'
wlan_ra0="ra0 mode managed essid 'Your wireless access point name' auth WPA2"


Which way is correct? I've tried various combination, but t did not seem matter whether I put the SSID and passkey inside " " or ' ', or no quotes.

Thanks

[Socaltom]

there are potentially four things to change
the authmode should be wpa2psk or wpapsk to match your router
the type should be tkip or aes to match your router
use your ssid name, with no quotes
use your password with no quotes
Tom
Below are warhead's script with some additional instructions. Hope that helps.

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ifconfig ra0 up

sleep 1

iwpriv ra0 set WirelessMode=Managed
# next line sets authentication mode, this should match your routed options are: #OPEN,SHARED,WEPAUTO,WPAPSK,WPA2PSK,WPANONE
iwpriv ra0 set AuthMode=WPA2PSK
# next line sets the encryption type, this should match your router setup options are; NONE,WEP,TKIP,AES
iwpriv ra0 set EncrypType=TKIP
#set SSID = "your wireless SSID" no quotes
iwpriv ra0 set SSID=DERP
# set your wireless pass word by setting WPAPSK=" your wireless password" no quotes
iwpriv ra0 set WPAPSK=**********
# trust me.
sleep 1

# I like dhcp.
dhcpcd ra0

[bodhi]

Thanks for the hints Tom! I did check and recheck the parameters in my router. Still did not work for me. Your instruction did help me confirming what I should put in the wireless configuration. So I guess the real problem is somewhere else! Do you have the same exception in dmesg that dinjo and I got? WareheadsSE thought it should work anyway. However that's the only potential clue (that I can tell) that could possibly cause the problem.

[Socaltom]

yes, I have the same exceptions.
Tom

[bodhi]

Thanks for the info Tom.

[Socaltom]

instead of running the script file, try running each command from a bash command line and see where it complains.
Tom

[dinjo]

I already did that the problem seems when its tries to load the module

[Socaltom]

Is the module in the directory? It should be here. Mine wasn't there, I found it elsewhere and copied it over.
/lib/modules/2.6.31.6_SMP_820/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/rt3390sta.ko

[bodhi]

I think the exception indicates that the module was loaded successfully. So if dinjo sees the exception, then there was no problem loading the module.

Now I switched to using static IPs for both and it works (I've used static IP for wire and tried dynamic IP for wireless). So both wire and wireless interfaces are running for me, even with the exception. It seems there is something not right about either my ALARM installation, or the module, or perhaps the dynamic IP problem is just particular in my setup. I'm running a fresh rootfs dated Feb 16, and did upgrade with "pacman -Syyuu". Other wireless devices got their dynamic IPs in my network.

Now when I pull the Ethernet wire, I can't connect to the box. The route output shows the default gateway uses eth0. It was generated by the kernel. If I changed the default route to use ra0 then I can't connect to either! (so I removed that).

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Kernel IP routing table
Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags Metric Ref    Use Iface
192.168.0.0     *               255.255.255.0   U     0      0        0 eth0
192.168.0.0     *               255.255.255.0   U     0      0        0 ra0
default         192.168.0.1     0.0.0.0         UG    0      0        0 eth0

I've tried to add another route:

route add -net 192.168.0.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 gw 192.168.0.1 dev ra0

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Kernel IP routing table
Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags Metric Ref    Use Iface
192.168.0.0     192.168.0.1     255.255.255.0   UG    0      0        0 ra0
192.168.0.0     *               255.255.255.0   U     0      0        0 eth0
192.168.0.0     *               255.255.255.0   U     0      0        0 ra0
default         192.168.0.1     0.0.0.0         UG    0      0        0 eth0


This did not allow me to disconnect the ethernet cable either. Is this the correct way to add a gateway for wireless?

Thanks

[bodhi]

I finally figured out what might have been the problem, but no idea how to solve it.

The wireless device ra0 was never associated with the AP. So even though it is up and running with a static IP, it's really not operating, hence unplugging the ethernet wire would stop everything. So for some reason, these iwpriv commands were accepted by the driver, but not updated somehow:

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ifconfig ra0 up
sleep 3
iwpriv ra0 set WirelessMode=Managed
iwpriv ra0 set AuthMode=WPA2PSK
iwpriv ra0 set EncrypType=AES
iwpriv ra0 set SSID=xxx
iwpriv ra0 set WPAPSK=xxxxx

A few seconds later after executing these commands, iwconfig showed

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#iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

ra0       Ralink STA  ESSID:""  Nickname:"RT2860STA"
          Mode:Auto  Frequency=2.417 GHz  Bit Rate:1 Mb/s   
          RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Link Quality=10/100  Signal level:-31 dBm  Noise level:-31 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

eth0      no wireless extensions.


It seems like none of the commands were "taken"? On purpose, I've tried a iwpriv command with a wrong parameter name and it was rejected so the driver was accepting/rejecting private commands.

What did I miss? I have never used this Ralink before, and much appreciated any help.