RedHat 9 with Netgear MA111 USB Wireless

[adelaideyip]

Hi,

I've been having so much troubles configuring the wireless PCI card with linux. I'm trying my go at Netgear MA111 USB Wireless and so far it's been better than the prior experiences. Still having troubles tho ...

I have installed all the linux-wlan-ng RPMS and completed the steps in the http://www.siliconvalleyccie.com/lin...mp11-linux.htm tutorial as best as I could. The tutorial seemed to finish off the PCI and PCMCIA configuration, but doesn't talk about USB configuration as much.

It seems like the system detects the wireless USB device because when I do a ifconfig and iwconfig, it detects wlan0:

[root@chemicalbrothers tmp]# ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:50:BA:C1:B0:81
inet addr:192.168.132.44 Bcast:192.168.132.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:597 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:808 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
RX bytes:154749 (151.1 Kb) TX bytes:109178 (106.6 Kb)
Interrupt:10 Base address:0xe800

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:21353 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:21353 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:1459292 (1.3 Mb) TX bytes:1459292 (1.3 Mb)

wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:09:5B:67:9F:E4
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:39 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)


[root@chemicalbrothers tmp]# iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

wlan0 IEEE 802.11-b ESSID:"linux-wlan" Nickname:"linux-wlan"
Mode:Auto Frequency:2.467GHz Access Point: 00:00:00:00:00:00
Bit Rate:2Mb/s Tx-Power:2346 dBm
Retry min limit:8 RTS thrff Fragment thrff
Encryption keyff
Link Quality:0/92 Signal level:-69 dBm Noise level:-90 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

eth0 no wireless extensions.

(eth0 is the cable ethernet card)

However, when I restart the wlan process (/etc/init.d/wlan restart), I get a bunch of errors:
[root@chemicalbrothers tmp]# /etc/init.d/wlan restart
Shutting Down WLAN Devices: Shutting Down WLAN Devices: message=lnxreq_ifstate
ifstate=disable
resultcode=success
p80211: Device or resource busy
Starting WLAN Devices: /lib/modules/2.4.20-31.9/kernel/drivers/net/prism2_pci.o: init_module: No such device
Hint: insmod errors can be caused by incorrect module parameters, including invalid IO or IRQ parameters.
You may find more information in syslog or the output from dmesg
/lib/modules/2.4.20-31.9/kernel/drivers/net/prism2_pci.o: insmod /lib/modules/2.4.20-31.9/kernel/drivers/net/prism2_pci.o failed
/lib/modules/2.4.20-31.9/kernel/drivers/net/prism2_pci.o: insmod wlan0 failed
/lib/modules/2.4.20-31.9/kernel/drivers/net/prism2_pci.o: init_module: No such device
Hint: insmod errors can be caused by incorrect module parameters, including invalid IO or IRQ parameters.
You may find more information in syslog or the output from dmesg
/lib/modules/2.4.20-31.9/kernel/drivers/net/prism2_pci.o: insmod /lib/modules/2.4.20-31.9/kernel/drivers/net/prism2_pci.o failed
/lib/modules/2.4.20-31.9/kernel/drivers/net/prism2_pci.o: insmod wlan0 failed
/etc/init.d/wlan: line 51: /sbin/prism2dl: No such file or directory
[root@chemicalbrothers tmp]# [ OK ]

I'm getting frustrated with configuring wireless with linux, and it doesn't help that I'm also a newbie at this as well.

It'd be super if you could give me some suggestions as to where I went wrong. Or how I can find out what is wrong. :P

Thanks so much,
Addie

[adelaideyip]

Making slow progress by modifying the ifcfg-wlan0 file and ensuring that the correct module has been loaded (i.e. prism2_usb). But ...

The wireless router that our office connects to requires an encrypted key to access it and connect to the Internet. Right now iwconfig returns:

lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

wlan0 IEEE 802.11-b ESSID:"NETGEAR" Nickname:"NETGEAR"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.437GHz Access Point: XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX
Bit Rate:2Mb/s Tx-Power:2346 dBm
Retry min limit:8 RTS thrff Fragment thrff
Encryption keyff
Link Quality:92/92 Signal level:-40 dBm Noise level:-96 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

iwconfig recognizes the "Access Point" as the wireless USB adapter HWADDR, I have just blanked it out for security. However, I am unable to switch the "Encryption Key" to on.

I've tried:
1) Adding the line "KEY=1234567890" to /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-wlan0.
AND
2) "iwconfig wlan0 key 1234-5678-90" returns:
Error for wireless request "Set Encode" (8B2A) :
SET failed on device wlan0 ; Function not implemented.

Everytime I do iwconfig wlan0 <some iwconfig command>, I get either a SET/GET failed on device wlan0. What does this mean? Any ideas on how I can fix it?

As well, this error message is constantly displaying in /var/log/messages:

Aug 19 23:44:39 chemicalbrothers last message repeated 2 times
Aug 19 23:45:33 chemicalbrothers kernel: linkstatus=DISCONNECTED (unhandled)
Aug 19 23:45:35 chemicalbrothers kernel: linkstatus=CONNECTED
Aug 19 23:45:35 chemicalbrothers kernel: ** WLAN busy-sleeping in interrupt context!

Please bare with me, I'm a newbie at this.

Thanks,
Adelaide