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LeeFlag for United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

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WPA on Ubuntu (Edgy Eft)

Hi,

I wish to setup WPA entcryption on my ubuntu installation. It is a fully patched install of edgy which I think is 6.10 or something like that. I have tried dozens of websites and they all start off by saying things like "Install wpa_supplicant", which I have. They say other handy things like "Install the NetworkManager applet", which I have. When I try and do what they say to do with the network manager applet, I can't because they options they tell me to choose just aren't there. If you need any more info I'll do my best to supply it. If you need me to run any commands to find stuff out, then please let me know.

Cheers,

Lee
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mjutras

Did you tried to manually install it?

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/WPAHowTo
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ASKER

Hi,

Thanks for the reply. Yeah I tried going through that page, but the section entitled "Network Manager" causes me problems. The opening line is where things start going off plan. It says:

"For Ubuntu 6.06 LTS (Dapper) or later (but not for Kubuntu 6.06 or 6.10), there should be a Network Manager icon in the GNOME panel, which looks like a couple of dots. Right click the Network Manager icon to enable the network if necessary."

I have 6.10 edgy eft installed and networking is working perfectly using WEP on my wireless card which is a 3com 3CRWE154G72 Office Connect Wireless LAN Connector. It is using the Prism54 network driver/module as far as I know.

The trouble is that when I right mouse click on the Network Manager icon I have 3 options. They are:

1. Enable Networking
2. Connection Information
3. About

Now, the first option is ticked and my network is working. If I untick it, it does nothing at all and my networking still works. No matter whether the first option is ticked or not, the second option is greyed out. It is NEVER active for me to choose. This is where things go wrong because I have never found a single page that explains what to do in this situation. This means I can't go any further. I know my network card works perfectly because it is what I am using now.

Any suggestions welcome and any more info required, please ask.

Thanks,

Lee
In your /etc/network/interfaces you added the following:

wpa-driver madwifi
wpa-conf /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf

just below:

auto ath0
iface ath0 inet dhcp

if so you see anything in your logs?

It's normal that tick or untick Enable Networking will not do anything on 6.10 edgy
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ASKER

Hi,

I will try that in a few minutes. Just a quick question... Why under the ath0 section?

My interfaces file reads as:

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

#auto eth0
#iface eth0 inet dhcp

auto eth1
iface eth1 inet static
address 192.168.1.209
netmask 255.255.255.0
gateway 192.168.1.1
wireless-essid xxxxxxxx
wireless-key xxxxxxxx

#auto eth2
#iface eth2 inet dhcp

#auto ath0
#iface ath0 inet dhcp

#auto wlan0
#iface wlan0 inet dhcp

Obviously where it says xxxxxxxx is my SSID and WEP Key but the rest is normal.

Cheers,

Lee
Oh sorry, ath0 is for Atheros based WiFi Driver... If your conenction works under eth0 add it to eth0... Anyway the file will be red from top to down it should add the config to your eth0.
Avatar of Lee

ASKER

Hi,

I am just looking at making the change now but somehing that is puzzling m is this line:

wpa-conf /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf

I am assuming this is telling the network interface where the config file for the wpa_supplicant exists. Although I have the wpa_supplicant installed, I do not have a config file.

Any ideas?

Regards,

Lee
Avatar of Lee

ASKER

Hi,

No it seems I was wrong. There is a wpa_supplicant.conf. If contains this:

network={
         ssid="xxxxxxxx"
         proto=WPA
         key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
         psk="my key here"
}

Cheers,

Lee
Your /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf should look like this (dont forget to change the values):

ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant
ctrl_interface_group=0
eapol_version=1
ap_scan=1
fast_reauth=1
network={
        ssid="NetworkEssid" # Your Network SSID
        scan_ssid=1 # Only needed if your access point uses a hidden ssid
        proto=WPA
        key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
        psk= "PassPhrase" # Insert your pass phrase here
}

Or you may replace in your /etc/network/interfaces the line wpa-conf /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf by:

    wpa-ssid NetworkEssid
    wpa-key-mgmt WPA-PSK
    wpa-psk "PassPhrase" # Your pass phrase

And by the way im not sure if your driver should be madwifi just check your hardware doc to see wich one to use
Avatar of Lee

ASKER

Hi,

Well, I still don't have a network connection on my Ubunu laptop, however the progress I have made so far today is further than I've got before. I don't know quite what to do next. I don't know how I even find out what driver I should be using for the network card. I bought it along time ago for an old Windows machine which has long since gone. There is no hardwar docs for it to my knowledge. AllI know is what I mentioned earlier which is:

3com 3CRWE154G72 Office Connect Wireless LAN Connector. It is using the Prism54 network driver/module as far as I know.

This is new ground for me so I'll need some hand holding getting through this. I do appreciate all your help so far.

Many thanks

Lee
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mjutras

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ASKER

Hi,

I am beginning to find that you're probably right in saying that my card doesn't work with Edgy. I have been toying with the idea of changing back to Debian again. I have been "tweaking" Edgy more and more and found that now I am having more problems with Ubuntu. I think this has come as the defining point in my choice to do a new build of Debian on that laptop. You helped me more than any other page did and although I don't have my card working with WPA, you have answered my question byt showing me that it won't work (without huge amounts of effort and even that might not work) so I feel you have earned the points.

Thanks so much for trying. It was informative if not successful. The upshot is that my card is unlikely to work with Edgy Eft. I may give Ubuntu 7 a go when it comes out unless I get Debian up and running properly.

Regards,

Lee