Wireless when encryption is required

mariel77 · posted: 2009-12-17 18:37

I have wireless at home now and so am trying to connect. In the past I have used rutilt to connect wirelessly to open networks at coffee shops. I have never tried to connect to an encrypted network before.

I set my network up to use WEP (I have also tried WPA), but was unable to connect using wicd or rutilt. Wicd said that it could not find the ip address; rutilt gives another error.

When I changed the network to be open (no encryption), I was able to connect using rutilt, but not wicd; wicd could not find the ip address again.

What can I try to connect with encryption?

Also wicd is turned on during startup; if it doesn't connect, how can I turn it off? I have used Control Center to see it, but I can't remember how to toggle the asterisk off. Thanks!

Here is my inxi output:
inxi -F
System: Host laptop Kernel 2.6.27-1-mepis-smp i686 (32 bit) Distro antiX-M8.2 Tȟašúŋke Witkó - Crazy Horse 24 July 2009
CPU: Single core Mobile Intel Pentium III - M (UP) cache 512 KB flags (sse) bmips 2392.68 clocked at 1197.00 MHz
Graphics: Card Intel 82830 CGC [Chipset Graphics Controller] X.Org 1.4.2 Res: 1024x768@60.0hz
GLX Renderer Mesa GLX Indirect GLX Version 1.4 (2.1 Mesa 7.0.4) Direct Rendering No
Audio: Card Intel 82801CA/CAM AC'97 Audio Controller driver Intel ICH at ports d800 dc80
Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Version 1.0.17
Network: Card 3Com 3c905C-TX/TX-M [Tornado] driver 3c59x at port ec80
Disks: HDD Total Size: 20.0GB (18.0% used) 1: /dev/hda IC25N020ATCS05-0 20.0GB
Partition: ID:/ size: 15G used: 3.4G (24%) ID:swap-1 size: 1.26GB used: 0.00GB (0%)
Info: Processes 77 Uptime 10 min Memory 219.3/501.5MB Client Shell inxi 1.0.17

anticapitalista · posted: 2009-12-17 18:45

You could try using ceni.

To turn off wicd from icewm/fluxbox remove the entry from the startup files.

(Also you could use in antiXcc the set up services option and scroll down to wicd)

plvera · posted: 2009-12-17 21:12

Both wicd and ceni work for me. I typically just use wicd, havent had much problem with it for encryption.

secipolla · posted: 2009-12-18 00:08

As a side note, you toggle the asterisk off ncurses apps (like rcconf) with the space bar.

oldhoghead · posted: 2009-12-18 13:39

mariel77,

Don't waste your time using WEP, it is almost worthless as far as security, if you are behind a nat router, then you are protected from outside attacks, assuming that your router is setup not using the default password. That being said, first try to connect without any security, then setup WPA2 with EAS as opposed to TPIK, as it has lately become somewhat vulnerable. Run these commands in terminal as root and post them so we can see what's going on:

ifconfig
iwconfig
lspci | grep -i network (or:) lsusb | grep -i network (for a usb adapter)
ndiswrapper -l

cheers,
oldhoghead

mariel77 · posted: 2009-12-21 04:37

ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:08:74:23:62:07
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
Interrupt:11 Base address:0x8c00

eth1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:02:2d:86:ad:a2
inet addr:192.168.1.6 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::202:2dff:fe86:ada2/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:2319 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:2272 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:1763331 (1.6 MiB) TX bytes:772612 (754.5 KiB)
Interrupt:5 Base address:0xe100

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:6 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:6 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:340 (340.0 B) TX bytes:340 (340.0 B)
------
# ndiswrapper -l
airplus : driver installed
bcmwl5 : driver installed
bcmwl5a : driver installed
lstinds : driver installed
mrv8k51 : driver installed
net8185 : driver installed
netr33x : driver installed
prismnic : driver installed
wlannic : driver installed
wlanuig : driver installed
wlipnds : driver installed
---
lspci | grep -i network gives nothing.
-------
With an open network:
# iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

eth1 IEEE 802.11b ESSID:"Shruwey-Guest" Nickname:"default"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.417 GHz Access Point: 06:24:B2:D8:82:DA
Bit Rate:11 Mb/s Sensitivity:1/3
Retry limit:4 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality=43/92 Signal level=-49 dBm Noise level=-93 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:11
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

I'll try to connect again to the encrypted network and post iwconfig again.
Thanks, secipolla, for the tip about the space bar.

oldhoghead · posted: 2009-12-22 14:20

mariel77,

Code: Select all

Bit Rate:11 Mb/s Sensitivity:1/3
Retry limit:4 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality=43/92 Signal level=-49 dBm Noise level=-93 dBm

The link quality is very low, mine runs 96/100

How about lspci in terminal.

cheers,
oldhoghead

mariel77 · posted: 2010-01-16 23:22

I'm finally getting back to this.

What I've found is that yes, the signal quality appears low, but my desktop (running Mepis 7.5 and using a usb wireless with a ralink driver) measures it higher than the laptop running antix. On the desktop the link quality is always over 85%. The other thing is that on both of them, it seems that I have to have the"Use static IP settings" checked and the wireless IP address put in for me to be able to connect at all when the wireless is encrypted. I get nothing for lspci otherwise.

I can connect with the desktop to encrypted wireless using a combination of mnetwork and rutilt, so that's good.
I also got the laptop to connect to the encrypted network using mnetwork and wicd once, but have never been able to repeat it. I'm using wicd because rutilt won't connect to WPA unless I use version .18, but only .16 is available in the repos, and I had dependency issues that I couldn't get past trying to compile .18. Anyway I like wicd fine for what I need.
Here is my lspci, but why do I need to use static IP settings instead of use DHCP?

Code: Select all

#lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82830 830 Chipset Host Bridge (rev 04)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 82830 CGC [Chipset Graphics Controller] (rev 04)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation 82830 CGC [Chipset Graphics Controller]
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801CA/CAM USB Controller #1 (rev 02)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev 42)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801CAM ISA Bridge (LPC) (rev 02)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801CAM IDE U100 Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801CA/CAM AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.6 Modem: Intel Corporation 82801CA/CAM AC'97 Modem Controller (rev 02)
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: 3Com Corporation 3c905C-TX/TX-M [Tornado] (rev 78)
02:01.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1410 PC card Cardbus Controller (rev 02)
02:03.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1410 PC card Cardbus Controller (rev 01)

Thanks for all the help! __{{emoticon}}__

oldhoghead · posted: 2010-01-17 16:40

Hello mariel77,

Something is wrong here, none of your posts shows a wireless nic, so let's try in terminal as root

lspci -nn

and

lspci | grep Wireless

cheers,
oldhoghead

mariel77 · posted: 2010-01-18 04:08

OK, that's what I thought; thanks, oldhoghead!
lspci -nn gives exactly what I pasted above.
lspci | grep wireless gives nothing (just the prompt).

In ceni it says this:

Code: Select all

eth1 wireless 00:02:2d:86:ad:a2 orinoco_cs Dell TrueMobile 1150 Series $

And there is wireless because I'm connected now to an open (unencrypted) network.
Thank you!

dolphin_oracle · posted: 2010-01-18 05:02

mariel77,

out of curiosity, does your router that your desktop connects to have dhcp enabled? that's the only thing I could think of.

mariel77 · posted: 2010-01-18 06:52

Yes, the router is set to act as a DHCP server. I turned it off to see if it made a difference. Then I wasn't able to connect with the laptop on the open network; it couldn't find the IP address using wicd. DHCP should be ON, shouldn't it? Thanks.

dolphin_oracle · posted: 2010-01-18 11:48

Yep, DHCP on.

Do I understand that you can"see" your encrypted network, just can't connect to it?

Have you tried switching wicd's dhcp client to"dhclient" under preferences.

mariel77 · posted: 2010-01-20 02:23

Yes, I can see all the networks. I just can't connect, unless I open the network and don't require encryption. The error I always get is that it can't find the IP address. It's like the hand-shaking is off somewhere.
I'm beginning to think that it's just not possible with this wireless.

oldhoghead · posted: 2010-01-20 02:45

mariel77,

I have done some research on your wireless nic, and it cannot do WPA unless you jump through a lot of hoops including recompiling the kernel, some iterations of this card cannot even do WEP, so my advice is to deep six it and get a card that is known to work in Linux, I have some links that you can peruse for wireless cards, but not on the computer I'm on at the moment, but will get back to you with the info soon.

cheers,
oldhoghead