This guide was tested on RedHat versions 7.3 and 8.0, if this setup does
not work on your particular laptop you might also try Steve Wood's Wireless Page.
As for now this guide will assume you are using a Lucent based chipset card
like Enterasys, Cabletron, Orinoco, and various others. It will also
assume you will be using RedHat 7.3 and 8.0. The newer versions of RedHat
seem to be more friendly to the Lucent based chipsets which will run on the
module wvlan_cs. In fact it is easier and much quicker to get wireless
setup on Linux then on Windows. To begin make sure you have a WEP Key.
You can obtain that at the WEP
Registration Page. You will also need some form of root or sudo
privileges on your machine to use this guide.
With the card not present in the machine begin here.
Just to make sure that you have a standard laptop installation, check to
see if the module wvlan_cs is present on your machine.
# insmod -n wvlan_cs
Using /lib/modules/2.4.18-19.7.x/kernel/drivers/net/pcmcia/wvlan_cs.o
#
Next we will need to modify the ifcfg script that controls this device.
As an example, my ifcfg file looks similar to this. Yours may
be different based on which device name and number you use. This could
be eth0 or wlan0 or jwlan0. It really does not matter. It is
also recommended that users user dhcp for the BOOTPROTO. Using these
two commands to get to and to display the file. Make sure you create
the new ifcfg-ethX or ifcfg-wlanX or ifcfg-jwlanX file in "/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/"
directory
# cd /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/
# more ifcfg-eth1
DEVICE=eth1
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
ONBOOT=yes
ESSID="jlab"
KEY="s:XXXXXXXXXXXXX"
USERCTL=yes
#
*Note that the all XXX...'s will be the key you obtain from the registration
page. the "s" and the "colon" are literal.
*Note that I included USERCTL=yes so I do not have to be root or sudo the
command ifup eth1 or ifdown eth1. Being a laptop it isn't very important
if users have this control.
As an extra step you may want to make sure your card has been referenced
to the ifcfg script you just created. We can do this by displaying the
/etc/modules.conf file and searching with grep for the string "wvlan". You
should make sure that the configuration script you just created is labeled
next to "wvlan_cs". If it isn't you just go ahead and edit /etc/modules.conf
with your favorite editor, find the string "alias <something> wvlan_cs"
and change the settings.
# cat /etc/modules.conf | grep wvlan
alias eth1 wvlan_cs
#
If all is well you can insert the card into the machine. To check
your settings you could user this command.
# iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.
Warning : Device eth1 has been compiled with version 13
of Wireless Extension, while we are using version 12.
Some things may be broken...
eth1 IEEE 802.11-DS ESSID="jlab"" Nickname:"iowa"
Mode:Managed
Frequency:2.437GHz Access Point: 00:E0:63:81:CC:34
Bit Rate:5.5Mb/s
Tx-Power=15 dBm Sensitivity:1/3
RTS thr:off
Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:4170-3933-5842-6A64-7135-5432-68
Power Management:off
Link Quality:25/92
Signal level:-68 dBm Noise level:-93 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0
Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0
Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0
# ifconfig -a
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:08:74:4A:3D:89
BROADCAST MULTICAST
MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0
overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:4 errors:0 dropped:0
overruns:0 carrier:4
collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)
TX bytes:1830 (1.7 Kb)
Interrupt:11 Base address:0xec80
*Note The warning sounds bad, but my wireless setup seems to work fine without
it.
*Note I have a built in wired port as well which uses eth0
The two important things that you should see are the ESSID portion filled
in with jlab and the Encryption key part filled in when you did the iwconfig
command.
When you do the "ifconfig -a" part if you see an IP address (inet addr:)
in your adapters config, in this case eth1 AND this is the first time you
have used this card on the network with DHCP you should open a web browser
and attempt to go to a web site, it should redirect you to https://netreg.jlab.org.
If it doesn't that means you have already registered your card before
or you are using static DNS settings. In any case, you should register
your card quickly or your connection will be banned from using DHCP services
until you contact the Computer Center.
Troubleshooting Information
You were once able to use the network resources, but now you are unable.
If you were able to access network resources such as email and web pages
when you first completed this tutorial but are now unable to user any network
resources, check your settings to make sure you have an IP Address for your
connection by using this command "/sbin/ifconfig -a" If you do not see
an address for your wireless cards interface number, but had one before, and
you are SURE you are in a wireless covered area most likely you will need
to get your card unblocked by the DHCP server because you failed to register
your card when you first brought it online.
You followed all the steps but you are still unable to communicate wirelessly.
First you will need to make sure you are in an area covered by wireless,
this includes the wings of CEBAF Center, All of the Testlab's highbay area,
parts of the ARC including the 6th floor, Almost all of the Counting House
including the second floor. If you are certain you are in the wireless
coverage area, you can execute the iwconfig command you should see it as it
like this for your interface number.
If you do not see an ESSID of "jlab" but you are sure you entered it in
correctly or you do not see an Encryption key like above but you are positive
your ifcfg file has everything in it correctly then you can do the following.
In /etc/pcmcia/. there is a file called config.opts in this file you should
see a block similar to this.
Depending on your configuration you may have a lot of settings in this file,
look for the block that looks like this. Make sure that everything is
commented out as shown above. This file may conflict with the changes
made in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ you made containing the wireless options
