On Sat, 2003-08-23 at 17:54, engage wrote:
> I've been trying to figure out why wireless seems to behave so weird on both 
> RedHat and Mandrake. This has been an on-going problem. I got rid of RedHat 
> because I've had better success with Mandrake. I'm currently running ML 9.0 
> on my server and 9.1 on the notebook. 
> 
> On the server box, I'm using a Cisco Aironet 350 for my internet (not 
> intranet) connection. It usually works OK but on some reboots or network 
> restarts, the configuration changes and an old SSID shows up. I once used MCC 
> to configure the parameters so I'm wondering if MCC created config files 
> other than /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth1 and 
> /etc/pcmcia/wireless.opts.
> 
> On the notebook, I'm running a Netgear MA401. It works great when booted to 
> the Windows 2000 partition but I've had a lot of trouble getting the card to 
> use WEP on the Linux partition. I got WEP working but a reboot or network 
> restart won't enable the WEP. If I execute the command iwconfig eth0 key 
> <somekey>, the WEP works. I have WIRELESS_ENC_KEY="somekey" line in 
> /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 and I have the key listed in 
> /etc/pcmcia/wireless.opts. I remarked out the line from ifcfg-eth0 but that 
> didn't help. Then I unremarked that line and removed the key value in 
> wireless.opts.  That didn't help. The only way I've been able to get the WEP 
> to consistently work is by executing the appropriate iwconfig command in 
> /etc/rc.local (that doesn't help on a network reboot though). I plan to 
> eventually get away from WEP and use VPN instead. Until I learn more about 
> VPN, I still need to find a way to make my system consistent with WEP. If a 
> firmware upgrade comes out for this card so that I can use WPA, I might go 
> with that. It depends on which encryption method is easiest to configure and 
> which is the most secure.
> 
> Actually, configuring wireless stuff on Linux is a mystery. I haven't seen any 
> documentation that clearly explains how to install and configure wireless 
> cards. BTW, I've even tried using linux-wlan-ng-0.2.0 with no real success (I 
> continue to have problems with WEP).
> 
> As time goes by, I get closer to a "correct" solution to my problem. But, why 
> can't there be a step-by-step instruction for installing wireless devices? At 
> least provide a complete list of configuration files that details their use 
> and how they interact with other files. For example, how does 
> /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 interact with 
> /etc/pcmcia/wireless.opts and /etc/pcmcia/network.opts? Should I configure 
> ifcfg-eth0 with the wireless parameters or should I configure wireless.opts? 
> Without experimenting (and possibly crashing your system), how is one to know 
> which is correct? See what I mean?


Hi, I have just gotten a cisco aironet 350, but I actually use a orinoco
internal mini-pci card for my home network now.  I have the issue of
multiple networks in my area that I sometimes pickup instead of mine,
and often I would get switched to one instead of mine.  I also enabled
wep.  to do it consistantly, I put all the configs in the 
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth1 file.

it looks like the following.  I actually use the AP="" param too to get
it to lock onto my AP.  I am running on mandrake 9.1.  I also have the
cisco card in the pcmcia slot, but that is mostly for war driving and
fooling around with kismet.  

DEVICE=eth1
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
ONBOOT=no
MII_NOT_SUPPORTED=yes
DHCP_HOSTNAME=any.domain.com
NEEDHOSTNAME=no
ESSID="MY_ESSID"
AP="AP_MAC_ADDRESS"
KEY="FIRST KEY [1] key SECOND KEY [2] key THIRD KEY [3] key FOURTH KEY
[4]"


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