After faffing about a bit trying to get everything to boot up on startup, it all ended up being simpler than I expected.
First, create your configuration file for wpa_supplicant. Because I started off using the network-tool, this is /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_psk.conf for me.
gordon> more /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_psk.conf
network={
ssid="Sunnydale"
scan_ssid=1
key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
psk="xxxxxxxxxxxxx"
}
Simple and I think typical for a basic home network. Sunnydale is the domain defined on my router and xxxxxxxxxxxxx is my 13 character ascii passphrase as setup on the router. Replace these with your own values.
The next pleasant surprise, after contemplating writing an init.d script to start wpa_supplicant was that the network interface file supports wpa options! The file /etc/network/interface is read by the ifup command when the system boots, telling it which interfaces to bring up. It originally only had an entry for the loop back adapter.
gordon> more /etc/network/interfaces
# This file describes the network interfaces available on your system
# and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5).
# The Netgear wg121 USB Adapter loaded via ndiswrapper
auto wlan0
iface wlan0 inet static
address 192.168.11.12
netmask 255.255.255.0
gateway 192.168.11.1
# I don't know why the next line isn't ndiswrapper but
# wpa_supplicant reports that it doesn't support WPA.
wpa-driver wext
wpa-conf /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_psk.conf
# The loopback network interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback
reboot and I'm posting this from the laptop wirelessly! Yay!
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Tearing My Hair Out (ha ha)
Right, the last post details how to get the adapter working assuming you have a working ndiswrapper.
My girlfriend bought herself a new laptop a couple of weeks ago, thereby freeing up my very old Toshiba Satellite 1800 laptop which I hadn't managed to touch since she moved in. Since I'm not actually running a Linux desktop at the moment I thought this would be ideal to try stuff out on. Unfortunately Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon (7.10) wasn't having any of it and the installer kept freezing with a corrupted display. The Ubuntu Alternate CD was an option but I found a couple of references to fluxbuntu, an Ubuntu based distro using the fluxbox window manager. I'd used fluxbox before so thought it was worth a try. The installation failed once when the laptop switch itself off (almost as if it timed out and powersave kicked in) but worked perfectly on a second attempt if I pressed the spacebar every now and again. (Who knows?)
Once installed the first thing is to get on-line and get any patches and whatnot. While there are some new drivers (madwifi) around since I last tried this, they don't support the Broadcom chipset in my Netgear wg121 USB wireless adapter.
So the accepted solution is to use ndiswrapper, a Linux implementation of Windows' Network Driver Interface Specification (NDIS) APIs. This will load Windows drivers for your wireless adapter and allow Linux to use them. The ndiswrapper project consists of two parts,
Now! This next bit below (in red) is WHAT I DID WRONG! This is for background and what to check if you're having similar problems. Don't do this!
It looked like the ndiswrapper util came pre-built so I just cd'd into ndiswrapper-1.52/driver and build the module
gordon> cd ~/ndiswrapper-1.52/driver
gordon> make
All worked fine. This generated ndiswrapper.ko which should be copied to /lib/modules//ubuntu/misc/ndiswrapper, taking a backup of the existing one just in case.
gordon> sudo cp ndiswrapper.ko /lib/module/2.6.22-14-generic/ubuntu/misc/ndiswrapper
And then, followed the steps as described in the last post. the only difference (ha!) was that ndiswrapper wasn't on the su path so I had to run it manually from ~/ndiswrapper-1.52/utils/ndiswrapper every time.
Everything seemed to work, except where the rest of the world saw their wlan0 interface enabled, I had nothing. modprobe reported ndiswrapper module had been loaded correctly. ndiswrapper -l reported the driver and device were both present. It wasn't until I checked my ndiswrapper version that I realised what was wrong
gordon> ndiswrapper -v
module version is too old!
I eventually realised that I should have compiled the ndiswrapper utils after all, particularly the loaddriver object file, There was a Makefile in the top level of the ndiswrapper-1.52 download which I'd missed.
gordon> cd ~/ndiswrapper-1.52
gordon> sudo make uninstall
gordon> make
BANG! Screens and screens of errors. it seems that Fluxbuntu comes with the gcc compiler, binutils and even the linx kernel header, but not the libc6-dev package which includes all the useful files like stdlib.h.
Well shit.
If I was on the internet then it would be easy via apt-get, but of course what am I trying to achieve today!?
Back to the PC and manually download the libc headers from http://packages.ubuntu.com. I needed
gordon> sudo dpkg -i linux-libc-dev
gordon> sudo dpkg -i libc6
gordon> sudo dpkg libc6-dev
Aaaaand back to ~/ndiswrapper-1.52 to rebuild
gordon> cd ~/ndiswrapper-1.52
gordon> make
gordon> sudo make install
And it looks like we finally have a result! the step in the last post now work.
Sorry that was so long but it's covered a number of things including ndiswrapper gotchas, installing debian packages manually and discovering what's missing from a fluxbuntu basic install. don't get me wrong, fluxbuntu is in early stages and can' guess what setup and circumstances are going to affect everyone using their distro. Apart from these teething troubles it looks very nice otherwise. Maybe ensure a full set of build packages are n the installation CD would be nice though.
My girlfriend bought herself a new laptop a couple of weeks ago, thereby freeing up my very old Toshiba Satellite 1800 laptop which I hadn't managed to touch since she moved in. Since I'm not actually running a Linux desktop at the moment I thought this would be ideal to try stuff out on. Unfortunately Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon (7.10) wasn't having any of it and the installer kept freezing with a corrupted display. The Ubuntu Alternate CD was an option but I found a couple of references to fluxbuntu, an Ubuntu based distro using the fluxbox window manager. I'd used fluxbox before so thought it was worth a try. The installation failed once when the laptop switch itself off (almost as if it timed out and powersave kicked in) but worked perfectly on a second attempt if I pressed the spacebar every now and again. (Who knows?)
Once installed the first thing is to get on-line and get any patches and whatnot. While there are some new drivers (madwifi) around since I last tried this, they don't support the Broadcom chipset in my Netgear wg121 USB wireless adapter.
So the accepted solution is to use ndiswrapper, a Linux implementation of Windows' Network Driver Interface Specification (NDIS) APIs. This will load Windows drivers for your wireless adapter and allow Linux to use them. The ndiswrapper project consists of two parts,
- The ndiswrapper module. This is the runtime component of the project and loads the API wrappers into your Linux system so that they're available to the Kernel. (I think)
- The ndiswrapper utils, which is a command line tool to help you configure stuff and load your windows drivers.
Now! This next bit below (in red) is WHAT I DID WRONG! This is for background and what to check if you're having similar problems. Don't do this!
It looked like the ndiswrapper util came pre-built so I just cd'd into ndiswrapper-1.52/driver and build the module
gordon> cd ~/ndiswrapper-1.52/driver
gordon> make
All worked fine. This generated ndiswrapper.ko which should be copied to /lib/modules/
gordon> sudo cp ndiswrapper.ko /lib/module/2.6.22-14-generic/ubuntu/misc/ndiswrapper
And then, followed the steps as described in the last post. the only difference (ha!) was that ndiswrapper wasn't on the su path so I had to run it manually from ~/ndiswrapper-1.52/utils/ndiswrapper every time.
Everything seemed to work, except where the rest of the world saw their wlan0 interface enabled, I had nothing. modprobe reported ndiswrapper module had been loaded correctly. ndiswrapper -l reported the driver and device were both present. It wasn't until I checked my ndiswrapper version that I realised what was wrong
gordon> ndiswrapper -v
module version is too old!
I eventually realised that I should have compiled the ndiswrapper utils after all, particularly the loaddriver object file, There was a Makefile in the top level of the ndiswrapper-1.52 download which I'd missed.
gordon> cd ~/ndiswrapper-1.52
gordon> sudo make uninstall
gordon> make
BANG! Screens and screens of errors. it seems that Fluxbuntu comes with the gcc compiler, binutils and even the linx kernel header, but not the libc6-dev package which includes all the useful files like stdlib.h.
Well shit.
If I was on the internet then it would be easy via apt-get, but of course what am I trying to achieve today!?
Back to the PC and manually download the libc headers from http://packages.ubuntu.com. I needed
- libc6-dev
- libc6
- linux-libc-dev
gordon> sudo dpkg -i linux-libc-dev
gordon> sudo dpkg -i libc6
gordon> sudo dpkg libc6-dev
Aaaaand back to ~/ndiswrapper-1.52 to rebuild
gordon> cd ~/ndiswrapper-1.52
gordon> make
gordon> sudo make install
And it looks like we finally have a result! the step in the last post now work.
Sorry that was so long but it's covered a number of things including ndiswrapper gotchas, installing debian packages manually and discovering what's missing from a fluxbuntu basic install. don't get me wrong, fluxbuntu is in early stages and can' guess what setup and circumstances are going to affect everyone using their distro. Apart from these teething troubles it looks very nice otherwise. Maybe ensure a full set of build packages are n the installation CD would be nice though.
I Have The Power!
A few days absent due to
First of all, find the Windows drivers for your adapter. In my case this is a Netgear wg121 USB adapter with V2 of its firmware installed. I already had the latest files from Netgear; WG121V200.zip. Plug in the USB stick and mount it under a directory under /media. Unzipping the file created a directory under my home area.
gordon> cd ~/WG121V200/ndis5
In this directory is the inf file describing the driver, netwg121.inf. fluxbuntu is set up to do everything using sudo rather than logging in as root. We are going to use ndiswrapper to load the Netgear Windows driver.
First unload the ndiswrapper module just in case it's already doing something else.
gordon> sudo modprobe -r ndiswrapper
Check there are no other drivers loaded by ndiswrapper.
gordon> sudo ndiswrapper -l
If anything is returned use
gordon> sudo ndiswrapper -r <driver name>
to unload anything loaded. (Technically ndiswrapper might have other Windows drivers loaded. You'll just have to use good judgement to decide whether one of those is for wireless adapter that you're not actually using and might cause a conflict with what we're trying to do)
Now load the netgear driver (or your own .inf file)
gordon> sudo ndiswrapper -i netwg121.inf
installing netwg121 ...
Excellent, check we've loaded the driver
gordon> sudo ndiswrapper -l
netwg121 : driver installed
device (0846:4210) present (alternate driver: p54usb)
Get ndiswrapper to write a modprobe conf file. this will ensure that the driver is loaded as wlan0 every time modprobe loads the ndiswrapper module.
gordon> sudo ndiswrapper -m
Now use modprobe to load the ndiswrapper module into memory. Module are like dynamic libraries which can be loaded on demand to give your Linux installation extra capabilities.
gordon> sudo modprobe -i ndiswrapper
And DING! Power and signal LEDs on the adapter are both on!
I'm not all the way there yet but this is a significant jump forward over the sweat and tears of Tuesday and complete stalemate of Wednesday. I still have to set up wpa_supplicant to handle my WPA encryption and make sure everything is reloaded automatically on rebooting. I'll cover the problems I had getting to here in the next post.
(There's weren't really tears. If Linux ever really makes me cry then it's time to get a new hobby)
- having a life at weekends
- f%*$ing fluxbuntu, ndiswrapper, modprobe et al
First of all, find the Windows drivers for your adapter. In my case this is a Netgear wg121 USB adapter with V2 of its firmware installed. I already had the latest files from Netgear; WG121V200.zip. Plug in the USB stick and mount it under a directory under /media. Unzipping the file created a directory under my home area.
gordon> cd ~/WG121V200/ndis5
In this directory is the inf file describing the driver, netwg121.inf. fluxbuntu is set up to do everything using sudo rather than logging in as root. We are going to use ndiswrapper to load the Netgear Windows driver.
First unload the ndiswrapper module just in case it's already doing something else.
gordon> sudo modprobe -r ndiswrapper
Check there are no other drivers loaded by ndiswrapper.
gordon> sudo ndiswrapper -l
If anything is returned use
gordon> sudo ndiswrapper -r <driver name>
to unload anything loaded. (Technically ndiswrapper might have other Windows drivers loaded. You'll just have to use good judgement to decide whether one of those is for wireless adapter that you're not actually using and might cause a conflict with what we're trying to do)
Now load the netgear driver (or your own .inf file)
gordon> sudo ndiswrapper -i netwg121.inf
installing netwg121 ...
Excellent, check we've loaded the driver
gordon> sudo ndiswrapper -l
netwg121 : driver installed
device (0846:4210) present (alternate driver: p54usb)
Get ndiswrapper to write a modprobe conf file. this will ensure that the driver is loaded as wlan0 every time modprobe loads the ndiswrapper module.
gordon> sudo ndiswrapper -m
Now use modprobe to load the ndiswrapper module into memory. Module are like dynamic libraries which can be loaded on demand to give your Linux installation extra capabilities.
gordon> sudo modprobe -i ndiswrapper
And DING! Power and signal LEDs on the adapter are both on!
I'm not all the way there yet but this is a significant jump forward over the sweat and tears of Tuesday and complete stalemate of Wednesday. I still have to set up wpa_supplicant to handle my WPA encryption and make sure everything is reloaded automatically on rebooting. I'll cover the problems I had getting to here in the next post.
(There's weren't really tears. If Linux ever really makes me cry then it's time to get a new hobby)
Friday, February 1, 2008
smb.conf
Phew!
Startup script /etc/init.d/S27-shares-cleanup was calling the removeExternalShares.pl perl script. It should probably be trying to be clever and only removing shares that it finds under /shares/external that aren't listed under /proc/mounts. It's sufficient for now just to comment out the removeExternalShares line.
Startup script /etc/init.d/S27-shares-cleanup was calling the removeExternalShares.pl perl script. It should probably be trying to be clever and only removing shares that it finds under /shares/external that aren't listed under /proc/mounts. It's sufficient for now just to comment out the removeExternalShares line.
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