Cannot associate IPW2200 with WEP WLAN

phoenix66 · Post by **phoenix66** » 2007/04/28 12:10:51

Hey all, I'm after a little assistance if possible. I am struggling to get my IPW2200 WLAN card working properly under CentOS5. Here are the symptoms:

Card firmware seems to be loaded OK:

dmesg | grep -i ipw2200
ipw2200: Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2200/2915 Network Driver, 1.2.0kmprq
ipw2200: Copyright(c) 2003-2006 Intel Corporation
ipw2200: Detected Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG Network Connection
ipw2200: Detected geography ZZD (13 802.11bg channels, 0 802.11a channels)

I believe that my if configuration is all good:

more ifcfg-Wireless
# Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 2200BG Network Connection
DEVICE=eth1
ONBOOT=yes
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
HWADDR=00:13:ce:5e:xx:xx
NETMASK=
DHCP_HOSTNAME=latitude.jab
IPADDR=
DOMAIN=
TYPE=Wireless
ESSID=jabwlan
CHANNEL=11
MODE=Managed
RATE=Auto
USERCTL=no
IPV6INIT=no
PEERDNS=yes

Modules are all loaded (though ieee80211_crypt is loaded in a bit of a round about way rather than directly by ipw2200:

/sbin/lsmod | grep ipw
ipw2200 137385 0
ieee80211 33161 1 ipw2200

/sbin/lsmod | grep ieee80211
ieee80211_crypt_wep 9153 1
ieee80211 33161 1 ipw2200
ieee80211_crypt 10049 2 ieee80211_crypt_wep,ieee80211

BUT, the card just won't associate with the AP:

/sbin/iwconfig eth1
eth1 unassociated ESSID:"jabwlan" Nickname:"latitude.jab"
Mode:Managed Channel=0 Access Point: Not-Associated
Bit Rate:0 kb/s Tx-Power=20 dBm Sensitivity=8/0
Retry limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:3746-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xx Security mode:open
Power Management:off
Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

Any thoughts / suggestions would be gratefully received. I had this all working under RHEL4, and I think I am going round in circles now!!!!

Thanks, P66

Lenard · Post by **Lenard** » 2007/04/28 14:53:23

Maybe you forgot to check or create the /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/keys-Wireless file. It is usually is in the format of one key per line which looks like;

KEY=3746-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xx

Then (as root or equivalent) restart the network service; service network restart

phoenix66 · Post by **phoenix66** » 2007/04/28 17:48:41

Ok, had a look at that, and all appears to be in order, but you must be on the right track, as I removed WEP encryption from my AP and it associated first time, but as soon as WEP goes back on, I cannot get it connected.

From a WEP point of view, what needs to be in place?

Thx

Lenard · Post by **Lenard** » 2007/04/28 19:32:45

Just a few things, the big one is both the router and wireless device need to use the same key using the same encryption version (40/64 vs 108/128).

Since the router and wireless device communicate and you get a connection without WEP then maybe you need to remove the dashes (KEY=3746xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx) from the /etc/sysconfig/network/scripts/key-eth1 file.

Also make sure that the /etc/sysconfig/networking/devices and /etc/sysconfig/networking/profiles/default directories are empty then restart the network service.

With WEP enabled on the router try the following:

ifdown eth1
iwconfig wlan0 essid "jabwlan"
iwconfig wlan0 key 3746xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
ifup eth1

If you still have a problem then have a look at the output from the typed command; iwlist eth0 scan

If one device is using 104/128bit encryption and the other is using 40/64bit encryption then WEP does not work.

CentOS