Network FAQ


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Revision as of 05:27, 8 August 2007 by Chip.ling (Talk | contribs)

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Q: How do I get my DSL to work that allready works on my windows xp in California?

A: the following instruction should work: http://howto.htlw16.ac.at/at-highspeed-howto-2.html (German)

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Alternate method, by a noob---for Knoppix 5.1.1 I don't claim to be an expert, but this worked for me!  :-) (All these steps may not be necessary, but it worked for me-YMMV.)

  • From the Knoppix taskbar icon, -configure networking 
netcardconfig
-try 'yes' to autoconfigure  (This didn't work for me.  No idea why.)
ifconfig
  • If the network interface card is correctly configured, you should see BOTH the 127.0.0.1 loopback interface AND a local network address. It takes up about 15 lines. If yes, you're golden, if not..
  • From another machine on the network, log on to the router. (Look at the instructions that came with your router for how to do this.) In my Siemens SpeedStream 2614 4 port DSL/Cable Router, the location is 192.168.254.254 and after logging in, the opening page shows the following:

INTERNET Cable/DSL : CONNECTED WAN IP: 74.68.xx.yyy Subnet Mask: 255.255.240.0 Gateway IP: 74.68.ff.ggg DNS: 24.29.www.xyz

In 'Simple Setup' the allowed range of IP addresses is defined.

  • From your root shell, enter this sequence of commands: 
netcardconfig --select 'no' to manually configure the NIC
  -enter an unused IP address in the acceptable range for your router
  -when asked for the following, enter the information from the router:
  -Subnet Mask:  255.255.240.0  
(I accepted the default, 255.255.255.0,  and it worked fine.  
Like I said, I'm not an expert!)
  -Gateway IP: (from your router)  74.68.ff.ggg
  -Name server: DNS:  24.29.www.xyz   ('Domain Name Server')
ifconfig

to see if network interface card is correctly configured, as above. If not, lather, rinse, repeat. If it is, try 

ping 192.168.254.254   (the IP address of the router above)  and 
ping 192.168.254.xxy   (the IP address of the other machine)
(Hit <CTRL> C   to stop the pinging!)

If this works, you're in!

Q: How to setup the wireless connection using ndiswrapper under Knoppix 5.1.1

A: I am not an expert in networking. And I cannot find a centralized area which allows users to record down all the successful cases on using wireless under Knoppix among various hardwares. As a newbie, I spent quite sometime getting a little piece information from one thread and another pieces from other threads. I hope this Q & A can be helpful to other newbies from the pain I had experienced by including a very detail step by step approach. (in other word, it is really long-winded, so be patient)

The information here may not be 100% correct, but it works for me. However, if you find something is wrong. Please let me know. Thank you.

Chip Ling July 2007

I have success on Dell D600, D610 under knoppix 5.1.1. It has Dell Wireless 1450 Dual-Band WLAN miniPCI card with Broadcom BCM43xx chipset.

I also have success on a Compaq n600c with Linksys wpc11 v.4 wireless card.

I don't know how to compile the Linux kernel so I will use the ndiswrapper method.

Here are the steps I make my D600 and D610 work:

Assumption: You have wireless running on your windows OS. If not, install the wireless driver and make it works on windows environment first, and then proceed.

More info: I followed the same steps here and tried it on DSL (Damned Small Linux), and it works too.

1. Get the windows xp driver files for the wireless card.

1.1 Find out the wireless driver file and it's location.

1.1.1 Open windows explorer => right click on my computer => select property

1.1.2 Click Hardware tab => click Device Manager button => expand the network adapters

1.1.3 Right click on the wireless network adapter => select property

1.1.4 Click Driver tab => click Driver Details button

1.1.5 It will display your wireless driver file with the full path. My machine is using c:\windows\system32\drivers\BCMWL5.SYS

1.2 Find out the corresponding inf file.

1.2.1 With Windows explorer open, on the left panel, click on c:\windows\inf folder

1.2.2 Click the "search" button

1.2.3 Click the "All files and folders" on the left panel.

1.2.4 On the "A word of phase in the file" field, enter "bcmwl5.sys" => click "search" button

1.2.5 On the right panel, it shows c:\windows\inf\oem0.inf

1.3 Now I know the driver files are 

c:\windows\inf\oem0.inf

and the 

c:\windows\system32\drivers\BCMWL5.sys

2. Copy the 2 driver files to c:\wireless folder

2.1 Create a new folder right under c: drive called wireless

2.2 Copy c:\windows\inf\oem0.inf and c:\windows\system32\drivers\BCMWL5.SYS to it.

I have some old steps here before trying to rename the BCMWL5.SYS to lower case. But after a testing, I found I was wrong and case does not matter when working with ndiswrapper.

3. Find out the ESSID and the channel on the wireless router.

3.1 Log on to your wireless router via internet explorer.

3.2 Find out your network ESSID name, for example: my wireless network ESSID name is "TESTSSID"

3.3 Find out the wireless channel your network is using, for example: my wireless network is using channel 11.

4. With the knoppix 5.1.1 on the cd drive, boot up the OS with no cheat code.

4.1 Keep your eyes on the info shown on the screen when the autoconfigurating devices. From both of my machines, knoppix found two network cards in my machine, i.e. eth0 and eth1. However, my Compaq n600c only have eth0 detected.

4.2 Wait until the knoppix x-window starts and finally you have the knoppix up and running.

4.3 Start the Konsole, i.e. click on the black TV like icon on the task bar. The system console will be up and running (looks like a DOS box)

4.4 Switch to supper user: (i.e. $ is the prompt symbol) 

$ su
#

5. Mount your c: drive to mount point /media/???1

Be careful here, my D600 has the mount point called /media/hda1 but my D610 has the mount point called /media/sda1.

To check the name of the mount point, use the following command: (again, # is the prompt symbol means now you are the super-user or so call "root") 

# ls /mnt

It will give back all the name related to your harddisk/partition. (i.e. I have hda1, hda4 and hdc on my D600, hdc is my cd rom, hda1 is drive c: and hda4 is drive d: )

To mount the c: drive to the linux file system, type the following command: 

# mount -t ntfs /dev/hda1 /media/hda1 -o ro,umask=000

If your c: drive is not in NTFS format, say in FAT32, you need to use the switch "-t vfat" to replace the "-t ntfs" in the above command. The same idea applies to "/dev/???a" in the command.

Option: I also tried to copy the two driver files to an USB drive first under windows xp and mount the USB drive to linux at this point. It works.

6. Go to the directory where the windows driver files are located. 

# cd /media/hda1/wireless
# ls

the files oem0.inf and BCMWL5.SYS will be shown.

7. Copy the two driver files to the root's home directory 

# cp *.* ~

8. Go to root's home directory to see if the files are there. 

# cd ~
# ls

You should see the two files are there.

9. Unmount the c: drive mount point. (optional). I usually don't want the Live CD OS hook up to my harddisk. I only mount them whenever I need them. But it is just the personal taste only. You can skip this part if you want. 

# umount /media/hda1

10. If on step 4.1, you see there are two network cards detected (eth0 and eth1), most likely knoppix already loaded the bcm43xx driver module. However, this driver module will have conflict with the ndiswrapper network driver we are going to use, so if this is the case, we need to remove the bcm43xx driver module.

Note: it does not happen on my Compaq n600c with Linksys wpc11 v.4 card so this step is required when needed.

The removal of bcm43xx driver here is just for the Dell D600 & D610, or any computer Knoppix recognised it's wireless network card and installed the bcm43xx driver at boot time.

If your computer using another wireless chipset but Knoppix recognised it on boot time, you have to do the same step here but you need to find out what the wireless driver is. Try to use "lsmod" command and see if you can find the driver installed.

10.1 Check to see if the bcm43xx is there 

# lsmod | grep bcm43xx

10.2 If the lsmod command returns some information back, it means the bcm43xx module are installed. Then remove it with the follow command. Else go to step 11. 

# modprobe -r bcm43xx

10.3 Check the successful of the command 

# lsmod | grep bcm43xx

It should return no entry.

11. Wrap the windows driver to the ndiswrapper module.

11.1 Enter the command 

# ndiswrapper -i ~/oem0.inf

11.2 The command will return a couple of lines feedback as 

installing oem0 ...
forcing parameter IBSSGMode from 0 to 2
:
:

11.3 Check to see the driver is inserted into ndiswrapper 

# ndiswrapper -l

11.4 It should say "oem0 driver installed"

12. Install the ndiswrapper module (now wrap with bcmwl5 driver)

12.1 Enter the command 

# modprobe ndiswrapper

12.2 Check if the ndiswrapper is installed. 

# lsmod | grep ndiswrapper

You should see entries return with ndiswrapper in there.

13. Find out what is your wireless card symbolic name:

13.1 Enter the command 

# iwconfig

13.2 My system returns three information back: 

lo : no wireless extensions

eth0: no wireless extensions

eth1: IEEE 802.11g ESSID: off/any blah blah blah ...

Here eth0 is my wired network card, eth1 is the wireless card. Be careful your system may return difference name like wlan0 etc. If that is the case, replace eth1 with wlan0 in all the following steps.

14. Set up the wireless network with ESSID and channel (for example: my wireless network essid=TESTSSID using channel 11) 

# iwconfig eth1 essid TESTSSID channel 11

15. Check the result 

# iwconfig

You should see the ESSID is set to TESTSSID and also the access point on the second line now has a valid ID.

16. Start the wireless network card 

# ifconfig eth1 up

17. Check the result 

# ifconfig

eth1 should appear in the result list.

18. Force the DHCP server to generate an IP address to your wireless network connection. 

# pump -i eth1

19. Check the result 

# ifconfig

The eth1 should have the IP address on the second line.

20. Exit the super user 

# exit
$

21. You are ready to go, start the Web browser and now you can surf the internet. Welcome to the wireless world in Knoppix.

Q: How to automate the wireless connection ?

A: Once I have my wireless hardware up and running, the next target is "How to automate the setup process" so I do not need to do it every time.

This is the solution I come up with. The whole idea is to save the configuration to a drive and then add all the setup wireless driver steps into the knoppix.sh script.

Once the wireless setup steps are in place, we can automate the process by using the cheat-code 

knoppix myconfig=scan

to load the driver at boot time.

The drive can be either an USB thumb drive or the hard drive. I will use an USB drive with the Dell D610 here as an example.

Chip Ling Aug 3, 2007

1. Copy the two wireless driver files oem0.inf and bcmwl5.sys to the USB thumb drive \wireless directory.

2. With the USB thumb drive connected to the machine, boot up the Knoppix 5.1.1 from the CD with no cheat-code.

3. Save the configuration to the USB thumb drive:

==> Click the Knoppix icon on the task bar

==> Select Configure

==> Select Save Knoppix Configuration

==> The Create Knoppix Configuration Archive window popup

==> By default, all items are selected except "All files on Desktop"

==> Click OK

==> Output to the USB thumb drive : /media/sdb1

==> Click OK

4. Mount the USB thumb drive as read/write enable.

4.1 Find the USB thumb drive, enter the following command from the console. 

$ ls /mnt

On the Dell D610, the USB thumb drive is /media/sdb1

4.2 Issue the mount command: 

$ sudo mount -t vfat /dev/sdb1 /media/sdb1 -o rw,umask=000

5. Edit the /media/sdb1/knoppix.sh

Use the editor you like, append the following code to the knoppix.sh shell script. 

sleep 5
echo "Remove old bcm43xx module..."
modprobe -r bcm43xx
sleep 5
echo "Wrap bcmwl5.sys into ndiswrapper..."
ndiswrapper -i /media/sdb1/wireless/oem0.inf
sleep 5
echo "Install ndiswrapper module..."
modprobe ndiswrapper
sleep 5
echo "Unmount the USB drive..."
umount /media/sdb1
sleep 5
echo "Setup the ESSID and channel..."
iwconfig eth1 essid TESTSSID channel 11
sleep 5
echo "Start the eth1..."
ifconfig eth1 up
sleep 5
echo "Get IP address..."
pump -i eth1

Then save the file and exit. The first three lines are for Dell D610 only. So exclude them if you have other machine.

6. Shutdown the knoppix and you are done.

7. From now on, boot up knoppix with the cheat-code: 

knoppix myconfig=scan

Wireless should be up and running. Start the web browser to test the connection.

Q: How to automate the search for a predefined list of wireless connections ?

A: I have a wireless connection at the office and one at my home. This section help me to use one knoppix.sh script to access them all. All I have to do is to enter the cheat-code at bootup time: 

knoppix myconfig=scan

This example assumes my office has the ESSID=OFFICE on channel 9 and my home has the ESSID=HOME on channel 11.

All steps are the same as the FAQ "How to automate the wireless connection"

Chip Ling 5 Aug 2007

Follow the steps mentioned on FAQ "How to automate wireless connection". The only difference is on step 5.

On step 5, find out the code "iwconfig eth1 essid TESTSSID channel 11"

Replace this line with the following piece of code: 

for i in OFFICE HOME; do
  sleep 5
  if [ "$i" = "OFFICE" ]; then
    channel=9
  elif [ "$i" = "HOME" ]; then
    channel=11
  else
    echo "Error on searching network"
  fi
  echo "Searching for network $i with channel $channel"
  iwconfig eth1 essid $i channel $channel
  sleep 5
  result=$( iwconfig eth1 | grep $i )
  if [ "$result" = "" ]; then
    echo "Network $i channel $channel not found"
    echo "Now check for the next network on the list..."
  else
    echo "Network $i channel $channel found"
    break
  fi
done

Be-aware of the spaces in the code, especially on the if statement. You must type in exactly as how my code looks like. Cut and paste is not a bad idea here.

Save the knoppix.sh file.

No matter where you are, at home or at office, just enter the cheat-code at boot time: 

knoppix myconfig=scan

should connect your knoppix to the right wireless network.

If you have more wireless networks you want the script search for on the bootup time. (says SALESDEPT, FRONTDESK, ACCOUNTDEPT at work) Just add these networks ESSID to the line as below: 

for i in OFFICE HOME SALESDEPT FRONTDESK ACCOUNTDEPT; do

then add the corresponding elif statement block to set the channel number right before the "else" statement. 

 if [ "$i" = "OFFICE" ]; then
   channel=9
 elif [ "$i" = "HOME" ]; then
   channel=11
 elif [ "$i" = "SALESDEPT" ]; then
   channel=10
 elif [ "$i" = "FRONTDESK" ]; then
   channel=8
 elif [ "$i" = "ACCOUNTDEPT" ]; then
   channel=11 
 else
   echo "Error on searching network"
 fi

The machine will search for the network in the order that appears on the "for" statement. Once the first available network is found, it will stop the searching.

So if you want to log on to the SALESDEPT first, if not found, search the FRONTDESK, and then ACCOUNTDEPT and finally OFFICE. Then you have to rewrite the "for" statement as below. 

for i in HOME SALESDEPT FRONTDESK ACCOUNTDEPT OFFICE; do

You need to do nothing on the "if-then-elif-else" statement block if you are not adding in new network item. Ordering in there does not matter.

Q: What machines does the Trendnet TEW-424UB Wireless USB adaptor supports ?

A: After a success with the onboard wireless adaptors on all the three laptops I have. I switch to the Trendnet TEW-424UB Wireless USB adaptor and see which machine can use it.

Chip Ling Aug 2, 2007

Version: the Trendnet TEW-424UB is version 2 with SiS hardware.

I use the 2 driver files directly from the Trendnet installation CD. I went to \drivers\windows XP directory and copy the SiS163u.INF and SiS163u.sys to c:\wireless folder and then follow the instruction as the above FAQ.

Testing results on various machines: (please append to this list if you can)

Machine: Dell D610 laptop

Result: positive

Machine: Dell D600 laptop

Result: positive

Machine: Compaq EVO N600C laptop

Result: negative

Machine: Compaq DeskPro EN Desktop with 1G Hz P3 CPU

Result: negative

Machine: Compaq EVO Desktop with 2G Hz P4 CPU

Result: negative

Machine: IBM NetVista Desktop 1G Hz P3 CPU

Result: negative

Machine: No Brand Name Desktop with AMD 2G Hz CPU and ECS K7S5A motherboard

Result: positive

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