wireless networking - halfway solved

Anthony Simm simm.anthony at googlemail.com
Fri Oct 24 18:01:26 UTC 2014


Hello all,

based on a suggestion from Warren, I added

legal.intel_ipw.license_ack=1

to

/boot/loader.conf

and changed the entries in

/etc/rc.conf to:

   wlans_ipw0="wlan0"
   ifconfig_wlan0="WPA SYNCDHCP"

then I rebooted and sure enough, the wireless light is on! Yeeeeeahhh!

But

$ ping mail.google.com

times out, and gives

$ ping: cannot resolve mail.google.com: Host name lookup failure

(I tried ping mail.ru as well, same result)

So, there is another issue; probably has to do with the likely fact that 
the firmware is outdated and the card does not support WPA while my 
brand new wireless router is using that protocol.

There is a way to silently update the firmware of the wireless card 
under Windows according to Warren and I will try to do that.

As for now, at least the initial issue seems to be SOLVED!!

Thank you all for your efforts, and I hope you will have a good weekend!

Best regards,

Anthony





On 10/24/2014 07:07 PM, Warren Block wrote:
> On Fri, 24 Oct 2014, Anthony Simm wrote:
>
>>> Anthony,
>>>
>>> Have you tried Warren's suggestion?
>>>
>>>> I would try to check if the driver that is required for that wireless
>>>> is loaded or not with
>>>> # kldstat
>>>>
>>>> if it is, then why is it not associated?
>>
>>
>> Hello Antonio,
>>
>> Yes, I just tried Warren's suggestions.
>> I overlooked the kldstat suggestion in the first place.
>>
>> Here is what kldstat gives
>>
>> Id  Refs  Address      Size      Name
>> 1   7     0xc0400000   1289f7c   kernel
>> 3   1     0xc1697000   b9a0      if_wi.ko
>>
>> It seems to me that if_wi.ko should be a wireless driver.
>>
>> Warren's question as to why it is not associated really leaves me
>> blank-faced. I have no idea.
>
> Not my question.  Your private mail identified it as ipw, an Intel 2100
> card.
>
> That is more like what I'd expect, an Intel wireless card, in fact, an
> Intel 2100, which is the same thing my T42 has.  The license has to be
> acknowledged for that to work.  Add this to /boot/loader.conf:
>
>    legal.intel_ipw.license_ack=1
>
> Then the entries in /etc/rc.conf are:
>
>    wlans_ipw0="wlan0"
>    ifconfig_wlan0="WPA SYNCDHCP"
>
> Some good news and bad news about that card:
>
> Bad news: it is 802.11b only.
> Good news: that's usually good enough.
>
> Bad news: it does not support WPA.
> Good news: with a firmware update, it can support WPA.
>
> Bad news: there are no firmware updates.
> Good news: updating the Windows XP driver to the last version available
> silently updates the firmware on the card.
>
> Bad news: that driver has to be updated on Windows.
> Good news: Windows XP probably came with the system.
>

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