Home WLAN based on Rt2500

E@zyVG · 04-05-2005, 11:20 AM

Here is the situation. I am running WiFi PCI card based on rt2500, which came with my Asus mobo.
Here are the specs of my PC:

Asus A8V Deluxe Wi-Fi based on PCI Rt2500 chipset
SUSE 9.2 Pro x86-64 | 2.6.8-24.13 Kernel | X.ORG 6.8.2 | KDE 3.4

This wifi card runs perfectly on WinXP, as SoftAP. I do understand that AP is not supported at the moment for Linux,
with your drivers (there are none other, on par with yours atleast). What I have on WinXP:
My Desktop got Marvell Ethernet connected to LAN (my ISP), and have static IP. Then my Asus WiFi acting as
AP. And I got notebook which got D-Link D650+ PCMCIA. My desktop is configured to assign IP to my notebook, through DHCP, once it gets connected. This way I connect to my desktop, and then use internet on my notebook and browse my desktop shared files, as desktop is acting as router.

Now, I would like to have same thing going on Linux.

I have downloaded and installed serialmonkey´s 1.1.0-b2 driver. Got'em installed perfectly under my 64bit susu 9.2
I have assigned 192.168.0.1 IP to my WiFi and samba, dhcp or any other services are not installed yet. To my notebook, I have assigned manually IP, Mask, Gate (192.168.0.100, 255.255.255.0, 192.168.0.1). My Ethernet LAN (eth0), uses static IP for connecting to my ISP.

The problem is that since HostAP is not supported, and Managed is not what I am needing to run, Ad-Hoc is remained option.

Here is "ifconfig" log:

Quote:

eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:11:2F:0F

9:16
inet addr:x.x.x.x Bcast:x.x.x.x Mask:255.255.255.224
inet6 addr: fe80::211:2fff:fe0f:d916/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:3326464 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:174 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:1729262395 (1649.1 Mb) TX bytes:15083 (14.7 Kb)
Interrupt:177 Memory:fb800000-0

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:2167 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:2167 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:211130 (206.1 Kb) TX bytes:211130 (206.1 Kb)

ra0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:11:2F:10:84:E2
inet addr:192.168.0.1 Bcast:192.168.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::211:2fff:fe10:84e2/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:837 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:1600 errors:3 dropped:3 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:22 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:109603 (107.0 Kb) TX bytes:144583 (141.1 Kb)
Interrupt:169

Quote:

a64extreme-vg:~ # iwconfig

ra0 RT2500 Wireless ESSID:"a64extreme"
Mode:Ad-Hoc Frequency=2.412 GHz Cell: C2:86:B7:48:80:FE
Bit Rate=11 Mb/s
RTS thr

ff Fragment thr

ff
Encryption key:xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xx Security mode

pen
Link Quality=90/100 Signal level:-183 dBm Noise level:-256 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

Quote:

a64extreme-vg:/home/vg # iwlist ra0 scan
lo Interface doesn't support scanning.

ra0 Scan completed :
Cell 01 - Address: C2:86:B7:48:80:FE
Mode:Ad-Hoc
ESSID:"a64extreme"
Encryption key

n
Channel:1
Quality:0/100 Signal level:-238 dBm Noise level:-256 dBm

Cell 02 - Address: 00:40:F4:95:23:31
Mode:Managed
ESSID:"WORKGROUP"
Encryption key

n
Channel:6
Quality:0/100 Signal level:-208 dBm Noise level:-256 dBm

1. Strange, but when I configure it as Ad-Hoc, only 11Mb/s is available, though when as Managed, I am able to get 54Mbit.
2. But again, odly enough, they don´t get connected to each other, or see, or ping, unless I execute the ¨iwlist ra0 scan¨ command. And I have to do this everytime I launch my Linux !!!
After this, requests to ping are working, both ways.
3. In ¨iwlist scan¨ I see my desktop, is that ok?
4. Do I need to setup DHCP server, or assigning manually is OK, as I got only one notebook
5. Now, is it possible to use my desktop as router for my only 1 notebook, using Ad-Hoc?
6. How should I configure?

I know, this has been a long read, but I tried to give as much info as nearly possible.

Help me with this quest.

david_ross · 04-05-2005, 12:19 PM

Moved: This thread is more suitable in Wireless Networking and has been moved accordingly to help your thread/question get the exposure it deserves.

E@zyVG · 04-05-2005, 04:31 PM

Thanks for moving. Hope to see some answers.

E@zyVG · 04-07-2005, 02:52 PM

I am really getting fed-up installing this. Getting on my &^*% nerves.

I am able to connect and share through samba, but after booting I have to run as root "iwlist ra0 scan", for full connection to get established. I have setup DHCP server and it assigns 192.168.0.100 to my notebook. But I am still unable to connect to internet using my notebook, through my desktop, in which I have specified all correct settings in Routing section of DHCP Server (my ISP dns and 192.168.0.1 as a gateway for notebook, as is same IP for my desktop wireless card).

What the hell is going wrong, and why it is only 11Mbps.

Help me out, or soon I'll go crazy. Spent (*&% 4 hours with no results.

E@zyVG · 04-09-2005, 10:31 AM

It came out that desktop wasn't assigning correct DNS address to my notebook, so I manually, this is WinXP machine remember, assigned the DNS of my ISP.
Instead it was somehow managing to assign my desktops Gateway as DNS to notebook!

And Voila.