Re: Need Help Config'ing a Broadcomm Wireless NIC
Celejar wrote:
On Sun, 16 Nov 2008 14:58:57 -0600
Kent West <westk@acu.edu> wrote:
westk@evoljasen:~$ sudo aptitude install b43-fwcutter
<snip>
This didn't do any downloading and cutting like my earlier run of
bcm43xx-fwcutter; do I need to be concerned about that?
Do I need to uninstall bcm43xx-fwcutter
That does seem a bit odd; if there's trouble down the line, I suppose
you could try purging both the cutters and then reinstalling
b43-fwcutter, but it seems from the subsequent output that we won't
need to.
Okay; I'll not worry about it for now.
I don't understand it fully myself, but the way to think of it is that
each hardware device that's supported by the mac80211 kernel code that
underlies many modern drivers gets a wmaster interface created for it,
and then the individual drivers can create one or more normal, usable
network interfaces.
So the "master" is the real interface to the card, and the others are
"virtual" interfaces, kind of like how VirtualBox or VMWare, etc,
creates virtual machines on top of real machines? (Sort of....)
Thanks for the 'splanation.
westk@evoljasen:~$ sudo iwlist wlan0 scan
wlan0 Scan completed :
Cell 01 - Address: 00:12:17:CD:47:AB
ESSID:"klonk"
Mode:Master
Channel:6
Frequency:2.437 GHz (Channel 6)
Quality=43/100 Signal level=-69 dBm Noise
level=-60 dBm
Encryption key:off
Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s
24 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s; 6 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s
12 Mb/s; 48 Mb/s
Extra:tsf=00000003bc243004
Cell 02 - Address: 00:1B:5B:FB:BD:A1
ESSID:"2WIRE387"
Mode:Master
Channel:1
Frequency:2.412 GHz (Channel 1)
Quality=36/100 Signal level=-76 dBm Noise
level=-60 dBm
Encryption key:on
Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s; 6 Mb/s
9 Mb/s; 12 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s; 24 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s
48 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s
Extra:tsf=00000004501d2181
Sweet! This means the wireless card is basically working, since it sees
my network ("klonk"), right? (I have no idea who has the 2WIRE387
At least somewhat working :).
network (it's not a default name in my wireless card, talking to itself,
is it? Surely it's a neighbor's network?)
So someone's probably running a 2Wire router near you, and has left it
on its default settings. Bad idea.
Okay; that's what I suspected. Thanks for the confirmation.
Sorry, the iwconfig command should be:
iwconfig wlan0 essid your-essid mode managed
Ah, that brought me back to my command prompt with no errors.
The key question here is whether 'iwconfig wlan0' will show that you
are now associated. If the second line contains 'Access Point:
xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:', you're good. If it says 'Not-associated', not so
good ...
It says "Not-Associated"
(I'm no longer able to cut&paste, as my wired connection has been
removed (not my choice) and now I'm using another machine for this
message. Else I'd give you the entire output. One thing I will mention
is that the ESSID: field just says "".)
What IP range does your AP use?
192.168.1.1is my router's "Local Address". The DHCP server starts
feeding from .100 with a max of 50 connections (for both wired and
wireless? presumably). (This is a home network; router is a
wired/wireless Linksys; it just got moved to another part of the house
where I can't run a wire.)
If it's on a different subnet from
your eth0, then pinging it should tell you whether you're connected
properly, and I suppose that you could always do 'ping xxxxxxxx -I
wlan0' to ensure that you're using the right interface, although I
don't have any experience with that option.
That sounds like the sort of thing I was looking for. I'll check the man
page for ping here in a bit.
BTW, when I suggested that
you give the card an arbitrary IP address, I think that that will only
work if you use the proper IP scheme relative to your AP's.
Yeah, I tried one that should work.
running 'dhclient wlan0' should get you an IP
address from the router.
Nope; it starts off with "wmaster0: unknown hardware address type 801"
twice, then does some listening and sending and DHCPDISCOVERs until it
finally quits with "No DHCPOFFERS received".
Please supply the output of 'dmesg | grep b43', executed following
'modprobe -r b43 && modprobe b43'.
westk@evoljasen:~$ sudo dmesg | grep b43
[ 12.841339] b43-phy0: Broadcom 4318 WLAN found
[ 16.714574] input: b43-phy0 as /class/input/input6
[ 16.796363] firmware: requesting b43/ucode5.fw
[ 16.850180] firmware: requesting b43/pcm5.fw
[ 16.861368] firmware: requesting b43/b0g0initvals5.fw
[ 16.871329] firmware: requesting b43/b0g0bsinitvals5.fw
[ 16.996036] b43-phy0: Loading firmware version 410.2160 (2007-05-26
15:32:10)
[ 18.016540] Registered led device: b43-phy0::tx
[ 18.016616] Registered led device: b43-phy0::rx
[ 18.016687] Registered led device: b43-phy0::radio
This looks okay, but you seem not to have b43 debugging on (it's an
option in the kernel, in the b43 driver section). The devs often gripe
about distros that don't enable it on their stock kernels, thereby
causing people to bug them with insufficient debug information. I use
custom kernels, hewing pretty closely to the Kent West 10 step
procedure :)
HA-HAAA! That's so funny! I've forgotten everything about that and would
have to struggle through a compile nowadays (not that I really
understood it then, but it apparently was a sufficient enough
explanation to make it into the documentation).
westk@evoljasen:~$ modprobe -r b43 && modprobe b43
-bash: modprobe: command not found
westk@evoljasen:~$
westk@evoljasen:~$ sudo modprobe -r b43 && modprobe b43
-bash: modprobe: command not found
The funny thing is, when I drove over to where the computer is and sat
down in front of it instead of remoting in, "modprobe" is here. Maybe
something gets set differently in the path when remoting in, or something.
$ dpkg -S modprobe
...
module-init-tools: /sbin/modprobe
Oh yeah; I never did learn all those switches to dpkg ... :-(
Okay, when I "modprobe -r b43 && modprobe b43", it reports (remember, no
cut&paste at the moment):
... Broadcom 4318 WLAN found
... Broadcom 43xx driver loaded Feature: ....
...
... b43-phy0: Loading firmware version 410.2160 ...
...
... Registered led device (tx and rx and radio)
...
... ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready
And then trying the "dhclient wlan0" I never get any DHCPOFFERs.
"iwlist wlan0 scan" does see my "klonk" ESSID
"iwconfig wlan0 essid klonk mode managed" reports "... wlan0: link
becomes ready", but does not drop me back to a prompt; pressing the up
arrow cycles through various "repeats" of the iwconfig command; I settle
on "iwconfig wlan0" and press ENTER and then I get dropped back to the
command prompt. Running "iwconfig wlan0" at this point now shows my
ESSID as "klonk" and my Access Point as a MAC address, and now running
"dhclient wlan0" I get an address. (Whoa! I wasn't expecting these last
two things! Now, can I hit the net? Give me a sec.... W00T! Yes! I'm
pingin' Wired.com!!
Okay. Whew. Breathe.
Now, how do I automate all this? (Or perhaps, what did I do? Did I hold
my mouth just right? Did the stars finally line up properly with the
planets? Was it the floppy disc I offered as a burn sacrifice?)
Thank you Celejar! Now I really feel like I'm getting there. I see the
light at the end of the tunnel, and I'm no longer afraid it's a train!
Yee-ha-a-a-a-a!
--
Kent
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