Linux Wireless (with FC1, Atheros, Madwifi, and Kismet) v1.0

[purefinity]

Introduction:
My goal was to get some Atheros based wireless cards working in Fedora Core 1 for network access (WWW, FTP, SSH2, etc) and wireless scanning (Kismet).

Section A: Hardware
Lets start by looking at the hardware used.

D-Link DWL-G650 (802.11b/g)
Text on card:
DWL-G650
D-Link Air Plus XtremeG
32 bit, 3.3 volt
92LP0834
FCC ID: KA2DWLG650B4
P/N: BDWLG650..B4
S/N: D92N14xxxxxxx
MAC ID: 00119549xxxx
H/W Ver. B4 F/W Ver. 2.42
Made in China

#cardctl ident 0

product info: "Atheros Communications, Inc.", "AR5001-0000-0000", "Wireless LAN Reference Card", "00"
manfid: 0x0271, 0x0012
function: 6 (network)

#lspci -v

03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Unknown device 168c:0013 (rev 01)
Subsystem: D-Link System Inc: Unknown device 3202
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 168, IRQ 11
Memory at 20800000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
Capabilities: [44] Power Management version 2

#dmesg | grep ath0

divert: allocating divert_blk for ath0
ath0: 11b rates: 1Mbps 2Mbps 5.5Mbps 11Mbps
ath0: 11g rates: 1Mbps 2Mbps 5.5Mbps 11Mbps 6Mbps 9Mbps 12Mbps 18Mbps 24Mbps 36Mbps 48Mbps 54Mbps
ath0: mac 5.9 phy 4.3 radio 4.6
ath0: 802.11 address: 00:11:95:49:xx:xx
ath0: Use hw queue 0 for WME_AC_BE traffic
ath0: Use hw queue 1 for WME_AC_BK traffic
ath0: Use hw queue 2 for WME_AC_VI traffic
ath0: Use hw queue 3 for WME_AC_VO traffic
ath0: Atheros 5212: mem=0x20800000, irq=11

Cisco Aironet (802.11a/b/g)
Text on card:
AIR-CB21AG-A-K9
802.11A/B/G Cardbus Adapter
FCC ID: LDK10250
47-16465 Rev A0
WiFi Certified
Cisco Systems, Inc.
170 West Tasman Drive
San Jose, CA 95134 USA
74-3481-02
Made in Taiwan
S/N: AMBxxxxxxxx
MAC ID: 004096A5xxxx

#cardctl ident 0

product info: "Atheros Communications, Inc.", "AR5001-0000-0000", "Wireless LAN Reference Card", "00"
manfid: 0x0271, 0x0012
function: 6 (network)


#lspci -v

03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Unknown device 168c:0013 (rev 01)
Subsystem: AIRONET Wireless Communications: Unknown device cb21
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 168, IRQ 11
Memory at 20800000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
Capabilities: [44] Power Management version 2

#dmesg | grep ath0

divert: allocating divert_blk for ath0
ath0: 11a rates: 6Mbps 9Mbps 12Mbps 18Mbps 24Mbps 36Mbps 48Mbps 54Mbps
ath0: 11b rates: 1Mbps 2Mbps 5.5Mbps 11Mbps
ath0: 11g rates: 1Mbps 2Mbps 5.5Mbps 11Mbps 6Mbps 9Mbps 12Mbps 18Mbps 24Mbps 36Mbps 48Mbps 54Mbps
ath0: mac 5.6 phy 4.1 radio 3.6
ath0: 802.11 address: 00:40:96:a5:xx:xx
ath0: Use hw queue 0 for WME_AC_BE traffic
ath0: Use hw queue 1 for WME_AC_BK traffic
ath0: Use hw queue 2 for WME_AC_VI traffic
ath0: Use hw queue 3 for WME_AC_VO traffic
ath0: Atheros 5212: mem=0x20800000, irq=11

Chipset Note:
Cardctl denotes both cards as the 5001 chipset, but Atheros' website lists the D-Link as a 5001x, and the Cisco as a 5002x. Both cards worked just fine with the Madwifi driver.

Section B: Installation

Once you find all the files and get good instructions, the installation is a breeze.

Here are the files you'll need to install:
(md5 hashes included if you care)
37382d2ff7beb3873032270e290c8bd0 kernel-2.4.22-1.2199.nptl.i686.rpm
0235c05043346ac36fe34e7aa6d7981e kernel-source-2.4.22-1.2199.nptl.i386.rpm
2995af4912dbdc50821d76c568ead302 atrpms-61-1.at.noarch.rpm
cc14301f30c71901e2a4983feb2bee89 madwifi-0.9.4.12-15.rhfc1.at.i386.rpm
cf8c1ef65e44c080bc8d798ebfb11218 madwifi-kmdl-2.4.22-1.2199.nptl-0.9.4.12-15.rhfc1.at.i686.rpm
051c301509b1bb022409abc673c58a37 kismet-2005-01-R1.tar.gz

I got the kernel rpm's from download.fedora.redhat.com, the atrpms-61-1 and madwifi rpm's came from atrrpms.net, kismet tarballs can be found at www.kismetwireless.net. If the sites mentioned don't work, you can always try to google for the filename.

Once the files are installed, you'll need to set all your config files.

Network config, where you set IP, SSID and other info:
You'll need to create the following two files, and fill them with the correct information:
ifcfg-ath0
keys-ath0

Put them in the following three locations:
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts
/etc/sysconfig/networking/devices
/etc/sysconfig/networking/profiles/default

Reference the new modules:
Add the following line:
alias ath0 ath_pci

To these two files:
/etc/modules.conf
/etc/modprobe.conf

Kismet config:
You must edit /usr/local/etc/kismet.conf before running kismet, or it will not work.

This is probably the most important line to change:
source=source,device,name

Section C: Conclusion

For TCP/IP, it works like any other network device and has the name ath0. Kismet works well, except for the fact you have to edit the conf file every time you need to switch bands.

[xupi]

hi, i have made all you say in your post, but i don't know how install kismet-2005-01-R1.tar.gz because i'm new in linux!!!!
can you help me??
thanks

[imdeemvp]

I created this how to for atheros drivers: http://www.fedoraforum.org/forum/showthread.php?t=43718