Netgear MA111 / linux-wlan-ng issues [VERBOSE]

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cpwp · Post by **cpwp** » Wed Apr 28, 2004 7:46 pm

Hi All,

I'm having some problems getting my Netgear MA111 USB WLAN adaptor to work. Let's get the basics out of the way first:

Apple Powerbook 12" (Powerbook 6,1)
Kernel 2.6.1-benh1
linux-wlan-ng 0.2.1-pre20

I've entered the following into /etc/modules.d/aliases:

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alias wlan0 prism2_usb

I've configured /etc/conf.d/wlan.conf as such:

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WLAN_DEVICES="wlan0"
ChannelMinTime=200
ChannelMaxTime=250
WLAN_SCAN=n
SSID_wlan0="RLH"
ENABLE_wlan0=y

and /etc/conf.d/wlancfg-RLH like this:

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lnxreq_hostWEPEncrypt=true
lnxreq_hostWEPDecrypt=true
dot11PrivacyInvoked=true
dot11WEPDefaultKeyID=0
dot11ExcludeUnencrypted=true

PRIV_GENERATOR=/sbin/keygen
PRIV_KEY128=false
PRIV_GENSTR=""

dot11WEPDefaultKey0=<wep key here>

IS_ADHOC=n

AuthType=sharedkey

BCNINT=100
CHANNEL=6
BASICRATES="2 4"
OPRATES="2 4 11 22"

Both these files look okay to me. After this, I found the linux-wlan-ng documentation to be a bit sketchy, so I tried a number of things.
First, I copied the wlan.agent file supplied with linux-wlan-ng to my /etc/hotplug directory and made sure hotplug is in the default runlevel.

When I executed /etc/init.d/wlan start, I get some strange output:

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* Starting WLAN devices...
FATAL: Module prism2_usb already in kernel.
message=lnxreq_ifstate
  ifstate=fwload
  resultcode=success
Reading S-record file /etc/wlan//prism2_ru.hex...
prism2dl: No such file or directory
prism2dl: Failed to read /etc/wlan//prism2_ru.hex, exiting.

The output from iwconfig wlan0 shows that the interface is up:

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wlan0    IEEE 802.11-DS    ESSID:"RLH"    Nickname:"RLH"
         Mode:Auto    Frequency:2.467Ghz    Access Point: 00:00:00:00:00:00
         Bit Rate:2Mb/s    Tx-Power:2346 dBm
         Retry min limit:8    RTS thr:off    Fragment thr:off
         Encryption key:off
         Link Quality:0/92    Signal level:32/154    Noise level:11/154
         Rx invalid nwid:0    Rx invalid crypt:0    Rx invalid frag:0
         Tx excessive retries:0    Invalid misc:0    Missed beacon:0

2346 dBm !!?? I think that might exceed 802.11 specifications ;-)

But /var/log/messages looks rather more ill:

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Apr 28 20:22:54 snapper ident: nic h/w: id=0x8026 1.0.0
Apr 28 20:22:54 snapper ident: pri f/w: id=0x15 1.1.3
Apr 28 20:22:54 snapper ident: sta f/w: id=0x1f 1.7.0
Apr 28 20:22:54 snapper MFI:SUP:role=0x00:id=0x01:var=0x01:b/t=1/1
Apr 28 20:22:54 snapper CFI:SUP:role=0x00:id=0x02:var=0x02:b/t=1/1
Apr 28 20:22:54 snapper PRI:SUP:role=0x00:id=0x03:var=0x01:b/t=1/4
Apr 28 20:22:54 snapper STA:SUP:role=0x00:id=0x04:var=0x01:b/t=1/12
Apr 28 20:22:54 snapper PRI-CFI:ACT:role=0x01:id=0x02:var=0x02:b/t=1/1
Apr 28 20:22:54 snapper STA-CFI:ACT:role=0x01:id=0x02:var=0x02:b/t=1/1
Apr 28 20:22:54 snapper STA-MFI:ACT:role=0x01:id=0x01:var=0x01:b/t=1/1
Apr 28 20:22:54 snapper Prism2 card SN: \x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00

And any requests made by iwconfig resultin failure. For example, iwconfig wlan0 mode monitor gives:

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Error for wireless request "Set Mode" (8B06) :
    SET failed on device wlan0 ; Operation not supported.

The problem looks to me to be firmware based, although whether reading or writing, I'm not sure. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Apologies, I am in 'verbose mode' tonight... ;-)

cpwp

cartpullerjack · Post by **cartpullerjack** » Sat Jan 15, 2005 11:39 pm

did you ever get this working?

neon · Post by **neon** » Sun Jan 16, 2005 12:30 pm

wlan-ng README wrote:Configuring:

NOTE: linux-wlan-ng does not fully implement the wireless extensions
interface. This means that you can't use iwconfig and its kin to
set things up. Instead, read on!

You have to use wlanctl-ng to configure that chipset, not iwconfig. For example:

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wlanctl-ng wlan0 lnxreq_ifstate ifstate=enable
wlanctl-ng wlan0 lnxreq_autojoin ssid=home authtype=opensystem

To bring up the interface and join ssid "home"

Or:

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wlanctl-ng wlan0 lnxreq_wlansniff enable=true channel=4

To enable packet sniffing on channel 4.

cartpullerjack · Post by **cartpullerjack** » Sun Jan 16, 2005 5:15 pm

yeah, i've gotten that far. i'm mostly wondering about WEP.

it seems no matter what I do, wep craps out on me.

neon · Post by **neon** » Sun Jan 16, 2005 7:06 pm

cartpullerjack wrote:yeah, i've gotten that far. i'm mostly wondering about WEP.

it seems no matter what I do, wep craps out on me.

That's what i use for my wlan:

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wlanctl-ng wlan0 lnxreq_ifstate ifstate=enable
wlanctl-ng wlan0 lnxreq_hostwep decrypt=true encrypt=true
wlanctl-ng wlan0 dot11req_mibset mibattribute=dot11WEPDefaultKeyID=0
wlanctl-ng wlan0 dot11req_mibset mibattribute=dot11ExcludeUnencrypted=true
wlanctl-ng wlan0 dot11req_mibset mibattribute=dot11PrivacyInvoked=true
wlanctl-ng wlan0 dot11req_mibset mibattribute=dot11WEPDefaultKey0=we:pk:ey:he:re
wlanctl-ng wlan0 lnxreq_autojoin ssid=home authtype=opensystem

cartpullerjack · Post by **cartpullerjack** » Tue Jan 18, 2005 5:52 am

Awesome, it worked. Now, how about 128 bit encryption?

Or even better yet, somewhere that they list all of the mib attributes.

neon · Post by **neon** » Tue Jan 18, 2005 1:08 pm

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wlanctl-ng: - control utility for 802.11 devices
  usage: wlanctl-ng interface|version|commands|mibs cmd cmdarg [cmdarg...]

         where "interface" is the name of a wireless
         network interface.  Running 'ifconfig' will list
         all network interfaces.

--->     For a list of available commands, run 'wlanctl-ng commands'

--->     For a list of available mib items, run 'wlanctl-ng mibs'