1

I've been trying (and failing) all weekend to get my homeserver connected via Wifi (I know it should be cabled, but a house move is imminent ;-). The setup is as follows:

  • HP N40L Microserver
  • Ubuntu Server 12.04 LTS 64bit
  • Edimax EW-7612UAN V2 - USB Wifi adaptor
  • Tenda N150 Wifi Router - run 1 SSID as b/g/n mixed mode, channel 6, WPA2 Personal, AES

On a fresh install of Ubuntu, my output is as follows:

ifconfig

ifconfig wlan0 up  

root@srv:/home/srvadmin# ifconfig
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:9c:02:a9:27:b9
          inet addr:192.168.0.106  Bcast:192.168.0.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::29c:2ff:fea9:27b9/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:1226 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:534 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:124170 (124.1 KB)  TX bytes:78708 (78.7 KB)
          Interrupt:18

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:4 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:4 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:240 (240.0 B)  TX bytes:240 (240.0 B)

wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 80:1f:02:4b:0e:9a
          UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

lshw -C network

root@srv:/home/srvadmin# lshw -C network
  *-network
       description: Ethernet interface
       product: NetXtreme BCM5723 Gigabit Ethernet PCIe
       vendor: Broadcom Corporation
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:02:00.0
       logical name: eth0
       version: 10
       serial: 00:9c:02:a9:27:b9
       size: 100Mbit/s
       capacity: 1Gbit/s
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm vpd msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt 1000bt-fd autonegotiation
       configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=tg3 driverversion=3.121 duplex=full firmware=5723-v3.35 ip=192.168.0.106 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes port=twisted pair speed=100Mbit/s
       resources: irq:42 memory:fe9f0000-fe9fffff
  *-network
       description: Wireless interface
       physical id: 1
       bus info: usb@1:5
       logical name: wlan0
       serial: 80:1f:02:4b:0e:9a
       capabilities: ethernet physical wireless
       configuration: broadcast=yes driver=rtl8192cu driverversion=3.2.0-29-generic firmware=N/A link=no multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bgn

iwconfig

root@srv:/home/srvadmin# iwconfig wlan0
wlan0     IEEE 802.11bgn  ESSID:off/any
          Mode:Managed  Access Point: Not-Associated   Tx-Power=20 dBm
          Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr=2347 B   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off

Steps:
1. wpa_passphrase MySSID MyKey > /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
2. wpa_supplicant -iwlan0 -Dwext -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf

The output is as follows:

root@srv:/home/srvadmin# wpa_supplicant -iwlan0 -Dwext -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
ioctl[SIOCSIWENCODEEXT]: Invalid argument
ioctl[SIOCSIWENCODEEXT]: Invalid argument
Trying to associate with c8:3a:35:2c:63:28 (SSID='MySSID' freq=2437 MHz)
Associated with c8:3a:35:2c:63:28
Authentication with c8:3a:35:2c:63:28 timed out.
CTRL-EVENT-DISCONNECTED bssid=00:00:00:00:00:00 reason=0
ioctl[SIOCSIWENCODEEXT]: Invalid argument
ioctl[SIOCSIWENCODEEXT]: Invalid argument
Trying to associate with c8:3a:35:2c:63:28 (SSID='MySSID' freq=2437 MHz)
Authentication with c8:3a:35:2c:63:28 timed out.

If I try to force a DHCP request with wpa_supplicant -B -iwlan0 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -Dwext && dhclient wlan0, it just seems to hang and I can see DHCPDISCOVER requests in syslog.

I must be doing something silly to get stuck, when other posts make it look so simple (e.g. How do I connect to a WPA wifi network using the command line?).

Does anyone have any ideas on how to resolve this?

1 Answer 1

2

Is your wireless network broadcasting your SSID? If not, you'll need to add

scan_ssid=1 

within your network {...} definition within your wpa_supplicant.conf file

1
  • Thanks - I ended up hard wiring it in the end. My WiFi was broadcasting the SSID. I think in the end it may have been some incompatibility between my old DLink router and the WiFi dongle. I've since replaced both, but haven't re-tried setting up the wireless
    – fistameeny
    Dec 3, 2012 at 13:21

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .