Weird iwl3945 wireless problem

[Kevin J. Cummings]

Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote:

> 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.

Interesting info.  I wish I knew that while I was still there and could 
play around.  In all of my attempts, I seem to remember trying both Open 
Network (the default) and Shared Key.  I wish NM was more verbose in the 
*reason* it couldn't get a lease.  I get really frustrated not knowing 
how to tweak things and only hearing:  Wrong, try again!

> 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.

If I delete the network and start again, it prompts for the passphrase. 
  After I've entered it, every subsequent attempt by NM uses the Hex 
encrypted key, but it never started with 0x.  I would have thought that 
even though WEP is less secure than it was designed to be, that it would 
be better known by software like NM and be easier to use!  When the inn 
tells me "no one else is having problems connecting" that Linux Wireless 
(in particular the tools that support it) isn't where it needs to be yet.

There was a 3rd WEP option available to me while I was playing around, I 
think it was WEP 40/128 ASCII.  I wasn't able to use the passphrase or 
the encrypted string here either.

> Mikkel

Thanks for the response.  Does anyone have a resource I can use to catch 
up on this stuff?  Obviously there is a lot I need to learn to be able 
to use tools like NM effectively.

-- 
Kevin J. Cummings
kjchome at rcn.com
cummings at kjchome.homeip.net
cummings at kjc386.framingham.ma.us
Registered Linux User #1232 (http://counter.li.org)