Linux: Configuring Wireless Networking

Contributed Information Note

Computing Services does not officially support or maintain wireless networking for Windows CE and Linux based platforms. However, some members of Computing Services have been able to use Wireless Andrew on these platforms and have provided configuration files and hints that may help you, also.

Support:

The following information is provided by Russell Yount (rjy@cmu.edu), Kevin Miller (kcm@cmu.edu), and Andrew Widdowson (apw2 at andrew). Please contact them if you have any questions or problems with these files.

RedHat Linux 8.0

The procedure for configuring wireless under Redhat 8 is quite different. See Configuring Wireless under Redhat 8 for more information.

RedHat Linux 7.3

Starting with RedHat 7.3, all you have to do to make your Lucent wireless card work is edit /etc/pcmcia/wireless.opts, edit the first section labeled "Lucent Wavelan IEEE (+ Orinoco, RoamAbout and ELSA)", and set the following parameters:

ESSID="CMU"
MODE="Managed"
KEY="off"

RedHat Linux Before 7.3

These files contain the Lucent Wavelan2 driver compiled for RedHat Linux. You may find what kernel version you're running with: uname --release.

If you are running a different version you must upgrade to this to use the precompiled driver. Also included in this tar image are the configuration files pre-configured for the CMU environment.

If you are running a generic installation of RedHat 7.0 the wavelan drivers are included by default. To configure your system for the CMU network download this file: stock-rh70.tar. Once you have downloaded this file, su to root and issue the following commands:
cd /
tar xvpf stock-rh70.tar

Release	Kernel	Driver	Version
RedHat 6.0	2.2.5-22	wavelan2_cs-4.00-RH2.2.5-22.tgz	4.00
RedHat 6.1	2.2.12-20	wavelan2_cs-4.00-RH2.2.12-20.tgz	4.00
RedHat 6.2	2.2.14-12	wavelan2_cs-4.00-RH2.2.14-12.tar	4.00
RedHat 6.2	2.2.14-5.0	wavelan2_cs-4.00-RH2.2.14-5.0.tar	4.00
RedHat 6.2	2.2.16-3	wavelan2_cs-4.00-RH2.2.16-3.tar	4.00
RedHat 6.2	2.2.14-12	wavelan2_cs-6.00-RH2.2.14-12.tar	6.00
RedHat 6.2	2.2.14-12	wavelan2_cs-6.02-RH2.2.14-12.tar	6.02
RedHat 6.2	2.2.16-3	wavelan2_cs-6.02-RH2.2.16-3.tar	6.02
RedHat 7.0	2.2.16-22	wavelan2_cs-6.06-RH2.2.16-22.tar	6.02
RedHat 7.0	2.2.17-14	wavelan2_cs-6.06-RH2.2.17-14.tar	6.02

To install this image on your system execute the following commands as root.


cd /
tar xvpf [appropriate tar file from above]

Other Distributions of Linux

wavelan2_cs-4.00.tar
wavelan2_cs-6.00.tar
wavelan2_cs-6.02.tar
wavelan2_cs-6.06.tar
These files contain the source for the Linux Lucent Wavelan2 driver releases. It requires you to have kernel source installed on your system. See the README file inside the tar image for details on how to compile and install the driver.

General Notes on using Lucent Wavelan2 cards at CMU under Linux

For the card to work at CMU you must have the wireless network name set to "CMU". This is done by using module options in one of the PCMCI configuration files:

In /etc/pcmcia/config.opts place the line (without leading spaces):
module "wavelan2_cs" opts "card_power_management=Y network_name=CMU"

In this example the power management capabilities of the card are also enabled to extend your battery life.

Your card must be registered and your system must use DHCP. This may require you to install the DHCP client software "pump". See the man page for pump for more details. The Lucent card looks like an ethernet adapter to the system and can be configured to use DHCP using standard network configuration tools. Alternatively on a standard RedHat 6.0 system, creating the file /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0
containing the lines:


DEVICE=eth0
USERCTL=yes
ONBOOT=no
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
BROADCAST=
NETWORK=
NETMASK=
IPADDR=

will enable eth0 (the Lucent Wavelan2 card) to use DHCP.