J_K9 @ Linux

Finally Connected To A WPA-Encrypted Network On Linux

February 11, 2007 on 11:39 pm | In Linux, Hyperactive |

Connected to Wireless Network You cannot possibly imagine how many hours I’ve spent trying to connect both my Linux desktop and laptop to my WPA-encrypted home wireless network. I’ve tried every configuration option in the latest snapshot of wpa_supplicant, tweaked /etc/network/interfaces to no end, and installed the newest releases of the wireless drivers for my cards all to no avail. I had even tried Gnome’s network-manager (KDE has an equivalent called Knetwork-manager), which was meant to have WPA and even WPA2 support for a wide range of drivers, but not even that worked - it wouldn’t recognise my card. At least, not until today.

Today, while I was going through my bookmarks, I came across a thread which I had bookmarked a while back about setting up wpa_supplicant on Ubuntu and configuring it to work with the IPW2200 driver/card (which is what my laptop has). I flicked threw it, knowing that I had tried those instructions before and had not received anything but a bit more junk at the end of it, and I came across a post about network-manager. The poster recommended network-manager over the wpa_supplicant approach, for it was simpler and was far more reliable, but for it to work the configurations for the wireless card in /etc/network/interfaces had to be erased or commented out. Oh.

To cut a long story short, I commented out those lines, restarted the computer and, sure enough, network-manager picked up my card. The reason it hadn’t picked it up in the first place was because the card had already been configured by /etc/network/interfaces! Ah, sweet irony. Network-manager found my wireless network, and all I had to do was select it and enter my password and, lo and behold, here I am posting wirelessly from my Ubuntu laptop with a WPA-encrypted connection between my laptop and router. How about that?

Speaking of irony, my desktop has a wireless card based on a Ralink RT2500 chipset specifically chosen because there is an Open Source driver available for it. The only problem is that the driver still doesn’t have WPA support so, network-manager or not, I can’t connect my desktop to the network wirelessly - the 20m ethernet cable it is

// Edit

By the way, to download and install network-manager on Ubuntu or Debian all you need to do is run the following command from a Terminal window:

sudo apt-get install network-manager

Or, alternatively, if you are using Ubuntu, go to Applications->Add/Remove… and install ‘Network Manager’ in the Internet section.

9 Comments »

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Thanks.

Wireless support is such a pain. On my laptop I guess I need to use ndiswrapper. Drivers are a pain, particularly with wireless.

I guess I’ll bookmark this post now since I might need it at some point of time

Comment by hari — February 12, 2007 #
Using Mozilla 1.8.1.1 on Debian GNU/Linux
I get that sort of thing a lot. Search and search and then read something that you *know* won’t help and….it helps

Congrats on being wireless.

Comment by ray — February 12, 2007 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.1 on Windows XP
Hari - No problem. I was quite fortunate in that my inbuilt wireless card has an Open Source driver available for it, but I do remember trying ndiswrapper and not having much luck with it (back when I was trying to get my Linksys WPC54G PCMCIA wireless card to work). However, others have their wireless cards running perfectly with ndiswrapper, so I wish you much luck when trying it And wireless drivers really *are* a pain, although I’m hoping that the situation improves in the (not too distant) future.

Ray - Haha! Yeah, that happens scarily often.

Comment by J_K9 — February 12, 2007 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.1 on Ubuntu Linux
[…] rewarding. I flew back home last night because I’ve got a week of holiday - this is where I first got WPA working on Ubuntu. My old router, a Linksys WAG54G, had been giving me a few problems over Christmas - its ethernet […]

Pingback by J_K9 @ Linux » Today: In Retrospect — February 12, 2007 #
Using WordPress 2.1
Great post! I have been there, but was never successful. Currently, I don’t have a need, but your success will give me more confidence next time (and hopefully a couple releases from now it will be packaged in Ubuntu)

Comment by Lloyd Budd — February 13, 2007 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.1 on Ubuntu Linux
It’s in the next release of Ubuntu - 7.04

I’m glad I’ve inspired you! Network-manager really is a great tool once you’ve got it set up properly. However, it all comes down to your wireless driver in the end, and if that doesn’t support encryption of a certain sort or is unstable then you’re not going to have much luck with network-manager (my desktop is a case in point).

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Using Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.1 on Ubuntu Linux
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