Wireless setup - FC5 Linksys WPC54GS WPA

[Gerry Tool]

Knute Johnson wrote:
> When I first tried to setup my Linksys WPC54GS card on FC4 I had a 
> really hard time finding the right information.  Since it went really 
> smooth on FC5, and it works even better, I thought I would post it 
> for anybody else trying to figure out how to make it work.  I can't 
> be the only one that had trouble although I guess it is possible :-).
>
> The Linksys WPC54GS card needs ndiswrapper, Windows drivers and 
> wpa_supplicant.  FC5 includes wpa_supplicant so that makes it a 
> little simpler.  So here are the steps I followed:
>
> 1)  If you don't have it already get the kernel-devel package:
> yum install kernel-devel
>
> 2)  Get ndiswrapper source from here: 
> http://sourceforge.net/projects/ndiswrapper/
>
> 3)  There is a great wiki for installation here: 
> http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/mediawiki/index.php/Installation
> but I will list the steps
>
> 4)  Download the Windows drivers for the WPC54GS card from Linksys.  
> The wiki tells you to be careful about which drivers you use but I'm 
> using version 2.1 and they work fine.
>
> 5)  Extract the source tree from the downloaded tar.gz file, change 
> into the ndiswrapper-1.?? directory and run make distclean and make 
> install.  CD into the Windows driver directory and:
>
> /usr/sbin/ndiswrapper -i LSBCMNDS.inf
>
> to install the driver.  Then type
>
> /usr/sbin/ndiswrapper -l
>
> to check the installation.  Then type:
>
> /usr/sbin/ndiswrapper -m
>
> to put the file ndiswrapper in /etc/modprobe.d.  The ndiswrapper file 
> has the line - alias wlan0 ndiswrapper.
>
> Then do /sbin/depmod -a
>
> and /sbin/modprobe ndiswrapper
>
> 6)  Now you need to configure your wpa_supplicant.conf file located 
> in /etc/wpa_supplicant.  Mine looks like this:
>
> ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant   # for wpa_cli support
>
> network = {
>     ssid="MYSSID"
>     psk="paSSPhraSe"
>     key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
>     proto=WPA
>     pairwise=TKIP
>     group=TKIP
> }
>
> If you are not using TKIP then change the file accordingly.
>
> You can now bring up the wireless network by typing:
>
> /sbin/service wpa_supplicant restart
> /sbin/dhclient wlan0
>
> I wanted to have my network start up when I started my computer so I 
> added a couple of other items:
>
> In /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts add an ifcfg-wlan0 file:
>
> DEVICE=wlan0
> BOOTPROTO=dhcp
> ONBOOT=no
> TYPE=wireless
> USERCTL=no
> PEERDNS=yes
> IPV6INIT=no
> DHCP_HOSTNAME=kjlaptop
>
> I set ONBOOT=no because this script will run before wpa_supplicant is 
> running so it would fail if it is set to yes.  The only other thing 
> that needs to happen is to call ifup.  I wanted that to happen 
> automatically so I added a file to /etc/rc.d/rc5.d, S57startwlan0, 
> right before S58ntpd, to give wpa_supplicant time to associate.
>
> It has one line:
>
> /sbin/ifup wlan0
>
> I am by no means a Linux or wireless expert.  This setup works for me 
> but I would certainly appreciate any suggestions or comments.  I 
> wanted to post this to hopefully help some other Linux blivets like 
> me get their wireless cards up and running on FC5.
>
>   
Thanks for posting this!  I have a Linsys WPC54G card I want to get 
working and have not yet succeeded.  I'll try your technique later 
today.  A couple of questions:
1) Is there a specific reason you started with ndiswrapper source rather 
than install the rpm from livna repo?
2) If I use only WEP encryption, should I be able to just ignore the 
steps above associated with wpa_supplicant?

Thanks. Gerry