[solved] wireless usb doesn't re-connect at boot

[LeeDB]

Hi,

I managed to get a ZD211 based wireless USB dongle to work in VL 5.9 Standard, but every time I boot the machine, I have to launch Wifi-Radar and manually connect.  I am looking for a way to do that automatically.

Here is what I did to get to where I am now:

Following the HowTo and using the lsusb command, I got the following:
Bus 1 Device 2: ID 0ace:1211 ZyDAS 802.11b/g USB2 WiFi
Bus 1 Device 1: ID 0000:0000

After googling around, it appears the correct name for the driver/device is zd1211rw

Issuing the following comands:
  depmod -aq
  modprobe zd1211rw
results in no errors, which implies that I was on the right track.

Following the HowTo, I edited /etc/modeprope.conf as follows:
  alias eth0 e100
  alias wlan0 zd1211rw
The first line was already there - I added the 2nd one.

Then I edited /etc/ifplug.d/ifplugd.conf as follows:
  before: INTERFACES="eth0"
  after:   INTERFACES="eth0 wlan0"

Then I launched Wifi-Radar - at first it didn't see anything, but then I checked the box under Preferences that says "Ifup Required", which evidently started the interface.  Then it could see my router, and I could add the WEP settings and connect just fine.  The issue is that whenever I re-boot, I have to go back to Wifi-Radar and click the connect button in order to get an IP address.

Other oddities:
WiFi-Radar is dectecting the usb interface (most of the time) as eth0, but one time so far it has detected it as eth1.  While it was eth1, I issued the ifconfig -a command with the following result:

(by the way, the other two interfaces are the wired ethernet port built into the motherboard, and a Netgear PCI Wireless card that I am not using (and have not attempted to use)).

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:03:47:39:FB:15 
          BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)
          Interrupt:9

eth1      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:09:5B:68:1E:EF 
          inet addr:192.168.123.105  Bcast:192.168.123.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST NOTRAILERS RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:2486 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:524 errors:7 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:1102831 (1.0 MiB)  TX bytes:114547 (111.8 KiB)

eth2      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:02:72:4E:45:FE 
          BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback 
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)

Then I re-booted, and Wifi-Radar was back to detecting the usb wireless
interface as eth0, and the ifconfig -a output is now as follows:

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:09:5B:68:1E:EF 
          inet addr:192.168.123.105  Bcast:192.168.123.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST NOTRAILERS RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:43 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:7 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:13475 (13.1 KiB)  TX bytes:3978 (3.8 KiB)

eth1      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:03:47:39:FB:15 
          BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)
          Interrupt:9

eth2      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:02:72:4E:45:FE 
          BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback 
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)

There doesn't seem to be any reference to wlan0 whatsoever, so it appears my editing of modeprobe.conf and ifplugd.conf to add wlan0 had no effect.

Anyway, I may have two issues - I need the wireless interface to connect upon boot, and I appear to have an occasional switch of the assignment of the wireless interface from eth0 to eth1.  The box is very usable now, but it sure would be nice not to have to fire up Wifi-Radar every time and re-connect after starting the machine.  It's also going to be impossible to get my wife to use this PC if she has to connect this way. 

Thanks,
Lee

[easuter]

Hi there! Well, from your post I'll assume you have read the wireless howto

Yes you are indeed correct, the Zydas ZD1211 chip is now driven by the zd1211rw driver.
However, I must warn you that this driver is still very unstable on WPA and WPA2 networks even with the latest kernel (2.6.23) and is likely to crash your system whenever it feels in the mood.

But you shouldn't experience any problems with an open or WEP network.

The issue you are having with the network interfaces switching all the time is because UDEV (the program that assigns interfaces to devices, among other things) does not assign the interfaces to your cards in any specific order at boot time. So if a card identifies itself as an "eth" card, UDEV will just give it a number, starting from zero (0), without giving it a second thought.
The nice part is that you can create a rule that forces UDEV to assign an interface to only one hardware address. It is described in this Howto:

http://www.vectorlinux.com/forum2/index.php?topic=979.0

Creating that rule file, you can assign each card's MAC address that you see in the ifconfig output (HWaddr) to any interface you like (eth or wlan). 

Post back with any problems you may have.


EDIT: If you need help getting a WPA network going, that is possible too by using the windows driver

[LeeDB]

Thanks!  I think I have the usb interface locked in at eth0 now with the other two ethernets locked in as eth1 and eth2.

I'd still like to know how to get a connection to my router without going into Wifi-Radar every time.  Even if it is done in a shell or perl script that I could set up to run after boot-up with a double-click on the desktop.  I don't know, however, what needs to be done at the command line to make it happen.

Thanks for the tip on WPA with the driver.  I am getting by with WEP for now.

Lee

[easuter]

Sure, if you want to auto-start the network at boot, you can simply add the connection commands at the end of /etc/rc.d/rc.local
That file gets run after everything else has been executed, so if you put your connection commands in there, they will be executed just before the login promt appears;)

[LeeDB]

Actually the main issue was simply that I had no clue what the connection commands were.  After some looking around in this forum, I found a posting with some clues in it, and I also found via google a good detailed reference for the iwconfig command.  So, it turned out I needed to add the following to
/etc/rc.d/rc.local

iwconfig eth0 essid myssid key kkkeeeyyyetcetc
dhcpcd eth0

where myssid and kkkeeeyyyetcetc are just a representation of an SSID and a WEP key.

Giving me the /etc/rd.d/rc.local info was still helpful because although I had seen that yesterday when browsing around the forum, I could not remember the location/filename today.  Thanks so much.

Being new to this forum - how do I mark this as solved?  (it's definitely solved as I restarted the computer and the internet connection was up.  Arms raised in triumph!)

[bigpaws]

You can add <Solved> to your header.

Bigpaws

[LeeDB]

Done, thanks.

[LeeDB]

Oops.  I had the MAC addresses of my wireless devices mixed up when I originally posted here.  It turned out that I was actually making it work on the Netgear PCI 802.1b card (Intersil Corporation Prism 2.5 Wavelan chipset (rev 01)) that was also installed in the computer.  I removed the PCI card and tried making it work with the Zydas usb dongle, and although I could see my network and others in Wifi-radar, my router's signal was always down in the mud, and I could not get an IP address.  Strange because the same usb device had plenty of signal when connected to a Mandriva box in exactly the same location a few weeks ago.

I'm still happy - the PCI card is the one I expected to have signal problems - it was very weak in the Mandriva system that I sold recently.  The antenna of the PCI card is essentially blocked by the computer case itself with the router being back in the direction that the front of the PC points to, but it's working fine in this box.  The current PC is significantly smaller physically, so I guess that's enough to make the difference.

BTW, this little Dell PIII-800MHz is at least as fast running VL 5.9 that the AMD Athlon XP 2200+ (1.8 GHz) was running Mandriva 2008.  Gotta love it.