[How-To] Enable Wireless

[bodhi]

OK. I got it working. The real problem here was the WirelessMode It was set to a default value of 9 (which is mixed g/b/n). My wireless network is n-only. So it was never get attached to the Access Point. Setting it to 6 (n only) got it running.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', '
ifconfig ra0 up
sleep 3

#iwpriv ra0 set WirelessMode=Managed

iwpriv ra0 set AuthMode=WPA2PSK
iwpriv ra0 set EncrypType=AES
iwpriv ra0 set WPAPSK=xxx
iwpriv ra0 set SSID=xxx
iwpriv ra0 set WirelessMode=6

sleep 1
dhcpcd ra0

')

Observation:

1. The driver dat file in /etc/Wireless/RT3390STA/ is relevant. If you change the default values in that file, they will be used the next time ra0 is started.

2. Using DHCP, after the iwpriv commands were executed, iwconfig will not show the real parameters. Only after dhcpcd has started and the wireless interface is connected, then iwconfig will show all parameters.

Hope this help others looking for a solution.

[Geoff]

I have discovered that you can set parameters in /etc/rc.conf, /etc/conf.d/dhcpcd and /etc/conf.d/wireless to do all of the above, using dhcpcd to set up wireless for either static or dynamic IP address/subnet. In order to use dhcpcd, it's enough simply to set ra0="dhcp" as in the following code snippet of /etc/rc.conf:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', '#Static IP example
eth0="eth0 192.168.0.2 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 192.168.0.255"
ra0="dhcp" # a static IP address can be requested in /etc/conf.d/dhcpcd
INTERFACES=(eth0 ra0)')
If you want a dynamic IP address for ra0, you don't need to change anything in /etc/conf.d/dhcpcd. On the other hand, if you want to set up a static IP address/subnet for ra0, you can get dhcpcd to do this by changing the definition of DHCPCD_ARGS in /etc/conf.d/dhcpcd as follows ("-m 1" sets the interface metric; -A avoids using ARP; "-C hostname" avoids messing with the hostname; "-C resolv.conf" avoids messing with /etc/resolv.conf; "-E" tries to resurrect an unexpired lease; -K ignores a dropped carrier; -L ignores link-local):

$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', 'DHCPCD_ARGS="-q -m 1 -r 192.168.0.102 -A -C hostname -C resolv.conf -E -K -L --noipv6rs"')
As I am using static IP addresses for eth0 and ra0, I added static default gateways for each of these, giving a higher priority to eth0:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', '#gateway="default gw 192.168.0.1"
#ROUTES=(!gateway)
gateway_eth0="default gw 192.168.0.1 metric 0 dev eth0"
gateway_ra0="default gw 192.168.0.1 metric 1 dev ra0"
ROUTES=(gateway_eth0 gateway_ra0)')
Finally, I added some lines to the end of /etc/conf.d/wireless to set the wireless password, etc.:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', 'WIRELESS_TIMEOUT=2 # sleep awhile after bringing up ra0, before starting dhcpcd
if [[ "$0 $1" = "/etc/rc.d/network start" ]] ; then
ifconfig ra0 up
iwpriv ra0 set WirelessMode=0 # 0=bg 1=b 2=a 3=abg 4=g 5=abgn 6=n 7=gn 8=an 9=bgn 10=agn
iwpriv ra0 set AuthMode=WPA2PSK
iwpriv ra0 set EncrypType=AES
iwpriv ra0 set WPAPSK="Your wireless access point password"
sleep ${WIRELESS_TIMEOUT}
fi
wlan_ra0="ra0 mode managed essid YourWirelessAccessPointName"
WLAN_INTERFACES=(ra0)')
Consider this an update to my method that WarheadsSE quoted in the first post of this thread. Apparently it is important to use dhcpcd to do the necessary handshaking between the wireless card and the router. This remains true even if you want to set up a static IP address; I was having as much trouble as everyone else until I discovered this.

[snowx]

Any one get the wireless working with the new updated kernel?

my system freezes when I run

ifconfig ra0 up

[WarheadsSE]

More than likely, I will need to recompile the module. Glibc revision incompatibility.

[snowx]

Thanks a lot for your effort and info... I look forward for your update...

[snowx]

Is the latest rootfs contains the new recompiled module for wireless? Where can I download it?

[bgulla]

New Kernel here. I cant seem to find the driver in old folder..

$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', './kernel/drivers/net/wireless/rt2x00/rt2x00usb.ko.gz
./kernel/drivers/net/wireless/rt2x00/rt2800usb.ko.gz
./kernel/drivers/net/wireless/rt2x00/rt2x00lib.ko.gz
./kernel/drivers/net/wireless/rt2x00/rt2500usb.ko.gz
./kernel/drivers/net/wireless/rt2x00/rt73usb.ko.gz')

Is there an updated driver to use or are we still waiting for kernel compatibility? thanks guys.

[cvmagic]

@WarheadsSE: Seeing that you've released the update to the kernel with all the modules I could ever use I hate to ask for anything more but could you please rebuild the RT3390 kernel module against your kernel sources and configuration. I'd be more than grateful as a Pogoplug Pro user.

http://download.pogoplug.com/opensource ... 31.tar.bz2 ... you may want to take a look at the makefile for this bad boy if it's not compiling correctly, the folks from Ralink seemed to just throw this code together from their already not very linux friendly RT2860STA product line.

Or alternatively could you modify your kernel upgrade package to include as many wireless modules as possible, this whole thing with Ralink's PCIe card is an absolute mess and I'd love to just up and move to a new PCIe wifi card if it makes using wifi with Archlinux easier.

[takbal]

WiFi access is much more important for me than the ability of using the latest packages.

Anybody knows that how to get the latest kernel, rootfs and an archlinux repository which have the RT3390 module compiled and working?

[WarheadsSE]

My sources & config are now on github, and their sources are available.