network manager fails to properly recognize intel 2915 wifi

[idiotprogrammer]

I'm having a lot of problems. I've checked the longer thread about this topic and am reposting here for lack of responses.

MAIN PROBLEM is that when using the NetworkManager, the intel 2915 wifi card is not recognized by the wizard. It either shows up under ethernet devices (not wireless devices) or it doesn't show up at all. I've noticed that this happens when I'm adding new devices or modifying my profile. Let me add that I did get it working once, and "broke it" when I started trying to configure a static ip for a web server. Who knows why that happened.

Two subordinate but related problems:

PACKAGE MANAGEMENT/WHAT TO DOWNLOAD I'm unclear what I'm installing and what I should be. I've been using yum/yumex in Fedora Core 5. and the bulletin boards mention needing to download the ipw2200-firmware (which I did) and other related programs (wpa_supplicant, ipw2200-driver).

Before I got it working the first time, I did download the ipw2200-firmware driver, and the Network Manager wizard detected the 2915 wifi card properly. However, when I checked the /lib/firmware directory (as one of the forum posters suggested), I didn't see any mention of firmware having been downloaded for ipw2200. Why is that? Is it possible that it was installed in another path? Is it possible that I need to uninstall and then reinstall this?

The other problem is that on the ipw2200 site, the rpm for ipw2200-driver is listed at http://atrpms.net/dist/fc5/ipw2200/, but I've been following the advice of not adding atrpm to my permanent list of repositories. Even so, when I tried downloading the two rpms (ipw2200-1.1.0-40.rhfc5.at.i386.rpm and ipw2200-kmdl-2.6.16-1.2133_1.rhfc5.cubbi_suspend2-1.1.0-40.rhfc5.at.x86_64.rpm ) ipw2200-driver and installing them separately as rpms, I get dependency error messages.:


rpm -i ipw2200-kmdl-2.6.16-1.2133_1.rhfc5.cubbi_suspend2-1.1.0-40.rhfc5.at.x86_64.rpm
error: open of ipw2200-kmdl-2.6.16-1.2133_1.rhfc5.cubbi_suspend2-1.1.0-40.rhfc5.at.x86_64.rpm failed: No such file or directory
[root@mine yum.repos.d]#

(actually I think I downloaded the 64 bit rpm instead of the 32 bit one listed lower on the page, so I'll have to try that).

So, should I be trying to get the aprm rpms to work/install, or have I been missing something obvious? I'd really like to have these things updateable in yum, and in fact, I previously was able to run the wifi card (with wpa2) successfully without needing needing to resort to arpm repository, so why is now different?

TESTING/RESTARTING NETWORK CONFIGURATIONS/REVERTING TO DEFAULT STATE : I like the gui network tools on fc5. when the hardware is there, they work fine. But apparently if I mess around with the profiles on Network manager too much, or if I alternate between command line tools and gui tools, that might be creating issues. I'm guessing that the GUI tools validate my input better than touching the actual configuration files. How do I test and troubleshoot my network connections in a way that does not cause conflicts or corrupted settings? (Or am I simply blaming the hardware problems on the networking configuration tool rather than on the true cause of the problem--hardware recognition).

I am totally confused.


#

[Iron_Mike]

I'm having a lot of problems. I've checked the longer thread about this same topic and am reposting here for lack of responses.

MAIN PROBLEM is that when using the NetworkManager, the intel 2915 wifi card is not recognized by the wizard. It either shows up under ethernet devices (not wireless devices) or it doesn't show up at all. I've noticed that this happens when I'm adding new devices or modifying my profile. Let me add that I did get it working once, and "broke it" when I started trying to configure a static ip for a web server. Who knows why that happened.

Two subordinate but related problems:

PACKAGE MANAGEMENT/WHAT TO DOWNLOAD I'm unclear what I'm installing and what I should be. I've been using yum/yumex in Fedora Core 5. and the bulletin boards mention needing to download the ipw2200-firmware (which I did) and other related programs (wpa_supplicant, ipw2200-driver).

Before I got it working the first time, I did download the ipw2200-firmware driver, and the Network Manager wizard detected the 2915 wifi card properly. However, when I checked the /lib/firmware directory (as one of the forum posters suggested), I didn't see any mention of firmware having been downloaded for ipw2200. Why is that? Is it possible that it was installed in another path? Is it possible that I need to uninstall and then reinstall this?

The other problem is that on the ipw2200 site, the rpm for ipw2200-driver is listed at http://atrpms.net/dist/fc5/ipw2200/, but I've been following the advice of not adding atrpm to my permanent list of repositories. Even so, when I tried downloading the two rpms (ipw2200-1.1.0-40.rhfc5.at.i386.rpm and ipw2200-kmdl-2.6.16-1.2133_1.rhfc5.cubbi_suspend2-1.1.0-40.rhfc5.at.x86_64.rpm ) ipw2200-driver and installing them separately as rpms, I get dependency error messages.:


rpm -i ipw2200-kmdl-2.6.16-1.2133_1.rhfc5.cubbi_suspend2-1.1.0-40.rhfc5.at.x86_64.rpm
error: open of ipw2200-kmdl-2.6.16-1.2133_1.rhfc5.cubbi_suspend2-1.1.0-40.rhfc5.at.x86_64.rpm failed: No such file or directory
[root@mine yum.repos.d]#

(actually I think I downloaded the 64 bit rpm instead of the 32 bit one listed lower on the page, so I'll have to try that).

So, should I be trying to get the aprm rpms to work/install, or have I been missing something obvious? I'd really like to have these things updateable in yum, and in fact, I previously was able to run the wifi card (with wpa2) successfully without needing needing to resort to arpm repository, so why is now different?

TESTING/RESTARTING NETWORK CONFIGURATIONS/REVERTING TO DEFAULT STATE : I like the gui network tools on fc5. when the hardware is there, they work fine. But apparently if I mess around with the profiles on Network manager too much, or if I alternate between command line tools and gui tools, that might be creating issues. I'm guessing that the GUI tools validate my input better than touching the actual configuration files. How do I test and troubleshoot my network connections in a way that does not cause conflicts or corrupted settings? (Or am I simply blaming the hardware problems on the networking configuration tool rather than on the true cause of the problem--hardware recognition).

I am totally confused.


#

First let me say that FC5 comes with support for the ipw2200 drivers and iee80211 extensions already. The only thing need to get them to work would be the firmware version 2.4. Post the contents of your var/log/dmesg file showing your wireless drivers to see which versions are installed.

[idiotprogrammer]

Sorry for the delay in replying. I had family matters to take care of.

Ok, here's what I found.
Curiously, when you mentioned dmesg and I checked it, I saw an error message about the ipw2200 drivers.

However, upon reboot I saw a good message in dmesg

eee80211: 802.11 data/management/control stack, git-1.1.7
ieee80211: Copyright (C) 2004-2005 Intel Corporation <jketreno@linux.intel.com>
ipw2200: Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2200/2915 Network Driver, git-1.0.8
ipw2200: Copyright(c) 2003-2005 Intel Corporation
input: TPPS/2 IBM TrackPoint as /class/input/input2

That's out of the way. (I rebooted before and didn't see this). Moving on. I was able to see the 2915 device in the Network Manager and finish the configuration wizard successfully. It showed the device as eth1 in my network profiles.

However, when I deactivated eth0 and activated eth1, I got one or two error messages:

Error for wireless request "Set Bit Rate" (8B20) :
SET failed on device eth1 ; Invalid argument.

Determining IP information for eth1... failed; no link present. Check cable?

when I ran the command iwlist scan, I see my wifi network:

eth1 Scan completed :
Cell 01 - Address: 00:12:17:41:32:40
ESSID:"1965bigidiot"
Protocol:IEEE 802.11bg
Mode:Master
Channel:6
Encryption key:on
Bit Rates:54 Mb/s
Extra: Rates (Mb/s): 1 2 5.5 6 9 11 12 18 24 36 48 54
Quality=82/100 Signal level=-48 dBm
Extra:wpa_ie=dd1c0050f20101000050f20202000050f2040 050f20201000050f2020000
Extra:rsn_ie=30180100000fac020200000fac04000fac020 100000fac020000
Extra: Last beacon: 860ms ago
Cell 02 - Address: 00:14:95:8A:32:81
ESSID:"2WIRE981"
Protocol:IEEE 802.11bg

My network is configured for wpa2. So even though activating the eth1 profile causes error messages, it knows the wifi networks are there.

The problem seems to be with wpa_supplicant. The service isn't on, and I can't turn it on. If I do, I get this error message:

/sbin/service wpa_supplicant restart
Stopping wpa_supplicant: [FAILED]
Starting wpa_supplicant: ioctl[SIOCSIWPMKSA]: No such device
ioctl[SIOCSIWMODE]: No such device
Could not configure driver to use managed mode
ioctl[SIOCGIFFLAGS]: No such device
Could not set interface 'wlan0' UP
ioctl[SIOCGIWRANGE]: No such device

Looking at /etc/sysconfig/wpa_supplicant, I try changing the device name from wlan0 to eth1, but that accomplishes nothing.

I'm guessing the answer has to do with turning on wpa_supplicant or key management. Previously, when I had wifi running correctly, Network Manager gave me a prompt to input my key (which apparently it remembered for future logons). That was nm-applet, right? Is the failure for this to load the problem or merely a symptom of the problem?

Any ideas what to do next?

[idiotprogrammer]

noting the correction that Iron Mike made to add -i (-ieth1), my config file is as follows:

http://forums.fedoraforum.org/forum/...hlight=ipw2200

# wlan0 and wifi0
# INTERFACES="-iwlan0 -iwifi0"
#INTERFACES="-iwlan0"
INTERFACES="-ieth1"
# ndiswrapper and prism
# DRIVERS="-Dndiswrapper -Dprism"
DRIVERS="-Dndiswrapper"

[Iron_Mike]

noting the correction that Iron Mike made to add -i (-ieth1), my config file is as follows:

http://forums.fedoraforum.org/forum/...hlight=ipw2200

To get rid of the "Bit rate Error" got to your ifcfg-eth1 file it is in etc/sysconfig/network-scripts and add this line, note the capitals:

RATE=Auto

[Iron_Mike]

noting the correction that Iron Mike made to add -i (-ieth1), my config file is as follows:

http://forums.fedoraforum.org/forum/...hlight=ipw2200

Just a quick question, "why are you using "DRIVER=ndiswrapper" for the your Intel 2200??? The intel is supported out of the box and should be DRIVERS=Dwext
Here are mine:

/etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant
ctrl_interface_group=wheel
ap_scan=1 (<-- SSID needs to be BROADCAST on the router)
update_config=1
network={
ssid="mesa_wifi"
key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
proto=WPA
pairwise=CCMP
psk="xxxxxxxx" (<-- THIS is plain text without any weird ASCII characters)

NOTICE THE QUOTES-----



/etc/sysconfig/wpa_supplicant:

# wlan0 and wifi0
# INTERFACES="-iwlan0 -iwifi0"
INTERFACES="-ieth1"
# ndiswrapper and prism
# DRIVERS="-Dndiswrapper -Dprism"
DRIVERS="-Dwext"

[idiotprogrammer]

well, that's interesting.

No, I know all about the travails of ndiswrapper. I don't know why that's there. (maybe the underwear elves are doing their thing).

I think I tried changing it to "auto" without success.

Let me try that.

rj

[Iron_Mike]

well, that's interesting.

No, I know all about the travails of ndiswrapper. I don't know why that's there. (maybe the underwear elves are doing their thing).

I think I tried changing it to "auto" without success.

Let me try that.

rj

It's:

RATE=Auto

exactly like the above

[idiotprogrammer]

A few notes:
the RATE=Auto comes from a bug in the Network Manager interface. I set mode as Auto, but for some reason it went to Managed which caused the Rate= field to be grayed out. I tried it again, and I was able to keep the "Auto" value in both fields.

I added DRIVERS="-Dwext" and when I started the wpa_supplicant service, I got the message that wpa_supplicant was successfully started. That's progress, I think.
(BTW, why wext instead of the ipw switch for intel firmware?)

After I restarted the network service, I was able to activate the eth1 profile successfully. However, no internet.
2 things I have yet to investigate:
1)my nat/networking settings
2)the key management.

About 1) I'm using the exact same settings as my eth0 configuration
2)Here's what I put in the file:

network={
scan_ssid=1
ssid="196bigidiot"
key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
proto=WPA
pairwise=CCMP
psk="ddd/dd" (<-- THIS is plain text without any weird ASCII characters)
}

Is putting a slash in the psk field considered "wierd"?

After reading the wpa_supplicant readme, I ran wpa_supplicant -c/etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf -ieth1 -d

Here's what I'm getting on the wpa_supplicant debug info:

eceived 719 bytes of scan results (3 BSSes)
Scan results: 3
Selecting BSS from priority group 0
0: 00:12:17:41:32:40 ssid='1965bigidiot' wpa_ie_len=30 rsn_ie_len=26 caps=0x11
selected based on WPA IE
Trying to associate with 00:12:17:41:32:40 (SSID='196bigidiot' freq=0 MHz)
Cancelling scan request
WPA: clearing own WPA/RSN IE
Automatic auth_alg selection: 0x1
WPA: using IEEE 802.11i/D3.0
WPA: Selected cipher suites: group 8 pairwise 24 key_mgmt 2
WPA: set AP WPA IE - hexdump(len=30): dd 1c 00 50 f2 01 01 00 00 50 f2 02 02 00 00 50 f2 04 00 50 f2 02 01 00 00 50 f2 02 00 00
WPA: set AP RSN IE - hexdump(len=26): 30 18 01 00 00 0f ac 02 02 00 00 0f ac 04 00 0f ac 02 01 00 00 0f ac 02 00 00
WPA: using GTK TKIP
WPA: using PTK CCMP
WPA: using KEY_MGMT WPA-PSK
WPA: Set own WPA IE default - hexdump(len=24): dd 16 00 50 f2 01 01 00 00 50 f2 02 01 00 00 50 f2 04 01 00 00 50 f2 02
No keys have been configured - skip key clearing
wpa_driver_hostap_set_drop_unencrypted: enabled=1

Any idea what to make of this?

[idiotprogrammer]

ok, I changed /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf a bit to make it more like yours

ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant
ctrl_interface_group=wheel
update_config=1

network={

scan_ssid=1
ssid="196bigidiot"
key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
proto=WPA
pairwise=CCMP TKIP
psk="password" (<-- THIS is plain text without any weird ASCII characters)

}

my router is using wpa 2 using TKIP+AES.
W
One thought is to remove encryption temporarily, and that will store my wifi settings in nm-applet, so that when I change the encryption, it will prompt me. Remember, I was able to get everything to work simply using Network manager the first time.
YOu wrote:

6. Rebooted to get rid of the garbage and clear any hiccups that I might have caused. Now the fun, I left clicked on the NetworkManager icon to see if it was picking up any wireless networks, it was and I selected mine and hit enter. The 1st thing that popped up was a dialog box asking for the "Network Key" which is your encryption key in plain text. The 2nd thing that popped up was a dialog box asking for the "Key Ring Manager" password this is used to store keys and passwords, enter whatever password you want.

Now when I click on my SSID in NetworkManager it asks for the keyring manager, I enter the password and it connects. A couple notes that I noticed, when you reboot the computer NetworkManager sort of remembers the last connection you had so it automatically pops up the keyring manager, if you don't want to connect to the network select deny. Another note, In the "services" menu there is a process to start wpa_supplicant, there is no need to put a check mark in the box for the service as NetworkManager will start it as it deems necessary.

I'm not sure how Key Ring Manager is summoned. I have a feeling that I'm not supposed to be debugging at this low a level. It was a hopeful sign that originally I was able to do everything through Network Manager. BTW, when you are creating a new device or activating/deactivating, what are you doing really? Aren't you just creating the ifcfg-eth0 and ifcfg-eth1 scripts?

The other thing I wonder is whether when you did this

DRIVERS="-Dwext" <-----Added this as I couldn't get -Dipw to work with quotes

whether that in fact was a kludge you weren't supposed to do. That really doesn't sound right. Wext is a generic setting but ipw is a setting specifically for the Ipw2200 wifi devices.

[Iron_Mike]

ok, I changed /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf a bit to make it more like yours

my router is using wpa 2 using TKIP+AES.
W
One thought is to remove encryption temporarily, and that will store my wifi settings in nm-applet, so that when I change the encryption, it will prompt me. Remember, I was able to get everything to work simply using Network manager the first time.
YOu wrote:


I'm not sure how Key Ring Manager is summoned. I have a feeling that I'm not supposed to be debugging at this low a level. It was a hopeful sign that originally I was able to do everything through Network Manager. BTW, when you are creating a new device or activating/deactivating, what are you doing really? Aren't you just creating the ifcfg-eth0 and ifcfg-eth1 scripts?

The other thing I wonder is whether when you did this whether that in fact was a kludge you weren't supposed to do. That really doesn't sound right. Wext is a generic setting but ipw is a setting specifically for the Ipw2200 wifi devices.

They changed the driver settings in wpa_supplicant and are going with the "Wireless Extensions" (wext) settings). Network Manager is the way to go. The keyring manager is a file to store password and should popup when selecting a encrypted AP. Eveything is working correctly. When you select your AP from Network Manager and enter the wpa password, does it connect?? (the NM icon change to a connected wireless icon)

[idiotprogrammer]

When you select your AP from Network Manager and enter the wpa password

What do you mean by AP here?
That's the problem. I don't get any prompt for a wpa password. Previously, I had an icon on the top right of my screen which showed my existing wireless connections. I seem to have turned this off, and I was hoping that once I configured everything else right, the prompt would reappear.

[Iron_Mike]

What do you mean by AP here?
That's the problem. I don't get any prompt for a wpa password. Previously, I had an icon on the top right of my screen which showed my existing wireless connections. I seem to have turned this off, and I was hoping that once I configured everything else right, the prompt would reappear.

AP=Access Point, wireless. Do you no longer have the NetworkManager icon on the top notification panel? Check your services and make sure NetworkManager and NetworkManagerDispatcher services are still enabled.

[idiotprogrammer]

yes, they are enabled. That is the problem. I don't seem to be able to see the applet running up at the top. I assumed that this only happened when the wifi connection was successfully managed.

Previously, this applet worked fine. It would be visible most of the time.

That is why the next step I'm going to take is to try to enable wifi when my network doesn't use encryption. Will do and follow up. rj

[idiotprogrammer]

Ok, I seem to have found a solution. The solution is complicated, more of a matter of retracing my steps correctly than having a lightbulb go off.

Essentially I need to follow the steps listed here.

Here's what happened.

When I tried to change from dynamic ip to static on my wifi connection, I ended up removing some rpms and reinstalling them. That ultimately caused my problem. (and ironically, it had nothing to do with the dynamic ip to static ip change I made).

First, I accidentally removed the NetworkManager without realizing that it existed as a separate app which I installed separately from system-config-network (the default config tool in gnome). I had incorrectly assumed that this applet would pop up if the profile configured the device correctly. (here's more info about network manager (gui)

(per the instructions, I needed to run yum install NetworkManager NetworkManager-gnome

The other problem was that yumex wasn't showing me the latest firmware rpm, which turned out to be firmware-3.0 (oh, yes, you need to reboot for the new firmware to take effect).

the installation instructions I'd been following warned about mixing repositories , so anything on livna would not be visible to me. For all practical purposes, yum/yumex is becoming less useful if the repositories are diverging in the important rpms they carry (maybe it's just a matter of some repositories lagging behind others).

(see more info about ipw2200-firmware rpm

rpm -ihv http://rpm.livna.org/fedora/5/i386/l...5-4.noarch.rpm
# yum install ipw2200-firmware

I really have to wonder why neither of these applications appeared in my repositories on yumex, leading me to question its usefulness.

The NetworkManager had the advantage of letting you configure the connection through a gui, so when I just filled out a form, it prompted me for the key (and worked almost instantaneously).

Looking back, I suspect that with Iron Mike's expert advice, I probably could have hardcoded the settings to get wifi wpa2 to work. But I wasn't confident I could continue to make it work for additional connections.

The thing that still mystifies me is KeyRing Manager. What controls that? How did I get this to prompt me when configuring Wifi services?

Thanks, Iron Mike, for your suggestions.