Weird iwl3945 wireless problem

Mikkel L. Ellertson mikkel at infinity-ltd.com
Sun Jun 22 23:07:48 UTC 2008


Kevin J. Cummings wrote:
> My laptop has an Intel 3945 wireless builtin.  Under F9, I've had very 
> few problems with it connecting.  At home, I have a Linksys wrt54g and 
> connect using WPA security.  Work fine (95% of the time).  Same at my 
> mother's house, where I set up a similar router.  I'm using NetworkMangler.
> 
> This past weekend, I went on vacation to an inn.  In the "barn" they 
> offered free wireless.  WEP encrypted, and they gave me the passphrase.
> 
> NM found the network right off, and asked me for the passphrase.  WHen 
> it prompted, it asked for the "WEP 128 passphrase".  I typed it in.
> The attempt timed out after 45 seconds, prompting for me to re-enter the 
> passphrase, but this time, its a "WEP 40/128 Hexadecimal" and passphrase 
> its trying to use is different from what I originally typed in, though I 
> might believe it is the passphrase encrypted for the network its trying 
> to connect to.  Subsequent attempts to connect fail, whether I use what 
> it presents back to me, or I re-select WEP-128 Passphrase and re-type in 
> the passphrase.
> 
> Now, here's the funny part.  When I retired to my room (which is 
> supposedly out of range of the inn's wireless, since that network no 
> longer appears in the network list), it connected right away to a nearby 
> non-secured network.
> 
> So, NM works for me with WPA and with no security, but not with WEP? 
> (Size of test sets:  2, 1, 1)
> 
> So, can someone tell me, please, if NM is broken (and I should file a 
> bug), or if I was doing something wrong, and what I should have done in 
> order to connect to the inn's network.
> 
> I'm including a cut/paste of my /var/log/messages for one of NM's 
> connection attempts.  It looks to me like NM found the network, and 
> tried to connect, but died during DHCP lookup (ie, never got a response 
> from the serving router).
> 
One thing I have run into with NM and WEP is that you may have to 
tell it that is is a restricted network and a shared key. The reason 
for this is that when the router is set up that way, you have to 
make an encrypted connection BEFORE you try to get a dhcp lease. If 
you don't, then the router will not give you a lease.

One other thing - if I remember right, the default setup asks for 
the 128 bit key as ASCII, or hex. (Start with 0x for hex.) It does 
not want the pass phrase itself. There is a selection where you can 
give it the pass phrase, and it will generate the hex or ASCII key. 
I don't remember exactly how to access it - I am not on my laptop, 
and it has not had to do it for a while.

Mikkel
-- 

   Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons,
for thou art crunchy and taste good with Ketchup!

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