Link-sys WPC11 Mini-HOWTO

Gerardo Arnaez

garnaez_((AT))_yahoo.com

Revision History
Revision 1.1	2002-04-13	Revised by: gea
Correct grammar, made things a little more clearer, made software requirements more explicit.
Revision 1.0	2002-03-24	Revised by: gea
Written because I spent enough figuring this out that I wanted to store "how I did it" somewhere I wouldn't lose it and figure you all might like it too.

This is a Cookbook on how to set up a Wireless Link-Sys WPC11 card using a Link-SYS Wireless Access Point/DSL/Switch on a Debian system .

Table of Contents

1. Link-sys WPC11 install on Debian

1.1. Why Debian and why just this card?
1.2. Required Hardware
1.3. Software Requirements
1.4. Kernel Configuration

2. Using make-kpkg to build kernels

3. Building PCMCIA-SOURCE

4. Using make-kpkg to build the new kernel and pcmcia-source modules

5. Wlan Drivers for You Link-Sys Card

6. Checking things in case they don't work

7. Wireless tools

8. Wireless Access Point

9. Request for comments

1. Link-sys WPC11 install on Debian

1.1. Why Debian and why just this card?

I have been trying for months to get wireless working on Debian and after reading far and wide and getting help from irc.debian.org, I realized that there really is no Cookbook in getting wireless set up. Thus having just done it I want to commit to 'paper' so that you all can use it and I can refer to it knowing it is safe somewhere. :)

1.2. Required Hardware

By required I mean, here is what I used to get this to work, and may serve as guide to anyone who wants to know what really works.

BEFW11S4- EtherFast? Wireless AP + Cable/DSL Router w/4-Port Switch. I really really like this WAP (Wireless Access Point). It is OS independent (read, linux friendly) and is configured using a browser so no need to touch Microsoft software at all, even to configure it. And if you don't know what a switch is, let me tell ya, they rock. Essentially they allow the NIC to communicate in both directions at the same time. I highly recommend one.

Link-sys WPC11. I have a version 3.0 and don't recommend any thing less than a version 2.5 Cost about 80 dollars

1.3. Software Requirements

Debian Distribution. I find the 'testing' distribution to work well

go to Absolute Systems and download the 11Mbps linux-wlan(tm) Project

you need the pcmcia-cs. Get this by
apt-get install pcmcia-cs

This is different from pcmcia-source which I also asked you apt-get. Thus also do
apt-get install pcmcia-source

You need the wireless tools so
apt-get install wireless-tools

You will also need some way to setup you IP address on your wireless card, I recommend either
apt-get install DHCP-client
to install the DHCP-client that will automatically configure your IP address, if you have a DHCP server. The WAP-11 hardware does provide DHCP server capabilities

Or at least have the pump application, which also will query a DHCP server and get you an IP address from the DHCP server. Note I tend to use pump when I am trying out new hardware to see if there is a connection, since to test a particular device, say eth0 I would type
pump -i eth0
where the option -i tells pump what device to try to get an IP address. In this particular case, when I could not get Debian to automatically set up my wireless card, which was device wlan0, I would type
pump -i wlan0
and pump would try to set up the device. Anyway, the point is, that it is a good trouble shooting command, and you should know about it, and I talk more about it later.

I also recommend you use the "kernel-package" package when you want to build your new kernel, which I will get to. This tool is very good and you should be using it anyway when you are building new kernel for the Debian distribution. You can install it by typing
apt-get install kernel-package
Also, be sure to read the documentation it comes with, in case I don't do a good job explaining how to use it, later in this document

1.4. Kernel Configuration

1.4.1. What TO enable

In order to use the wireless tools, like iwconfig, which will allow you tell how good your connection is, you need to enable support for Wireless LAN (Non-Ham Rasio).

You can do this by:

Go to:

Network Device support -->

then Select:

Wireless LAN (non-hamradio) --->

Then Choose the options, so that it looks like below, or something as close to this. Note I am uing 'make menuconfig' to configure my kernel

[*] Wireless LAN (non-hamradio)

< >   STRIP (Metricom starmode radio IP)

< >   ATT WaveLAN & DEC RoamAbout DS support

< >   Aironet Arlan 655 & IC2200 DS support

< >   Aironet 4500/4800 series adapters

< >   Cisco/Aironet 34X/35X/4500/4800 ISA and PCI cards

<*>   Hermes chipset 802.11b support (Orinoco/Prism2/Symbol)

< >   Hermes in PLX9052 based PCI adaptor support (Netgear MA301 et

1.4.2. What NOT to Enable

One of the main stumbling blocks was to realize that the pcmcia support in the kernel is not as good as the pcmcia-source support that one gets when you build it from pcmcia-source.

I use either
make xconfig
or
make menuconfig
to configure my kernel, so when you configure your kernel, be sure to not have pcmcia support enabled under
General setup

Nor do you want to select any particular pcmcia card under
Network device support
. I repeat you do not want this under the kernel and you will be building it when you download pcmcia-source.

Be sure to download all the necessary components before you take pcmcia support out of the kernel, otherwise, if you were using a pcmcia card for net access, you will not be able to connect to the Internet using the new kernel, until you have built both pcmcia support and module drivers for the wireless card

2. Using make-kpkg to build kernels

Note: makepine -kpkg was installed when you installed kernel-package

Once you have configured your kernel just save and exit, and don't use make-kpkg yet! I will show you a good way to make sure sure everything is builds well.

Follow the instruction in the make-kpkg documentation but essentially:

You need to be in the
/usr/src/linux
directory, then

make-kpkg clean

to clean all the binaries out and prepare to build a new kernel, then:

make-kpkg --revision-custom.1.0 kernel_image

Don't Do this Yet!

We need to get the pcmcia-source ready to be built at the same time as the kernel is built. This is a very neat feature of make-kpkg!

3. Building PCMCIA-SOURCE

First, be sure to download pcmcia-source, by typing
apt-get install pcmcia-source
This will download the source into
/usr/src
as
pcmcia-source.tar.gz

You now need to gunzip the file by
gunzip pcmcia-source.tar.gz
and then untar the file by
tar xvf pcmcia-source.tar

You should see pcmcia-source unpacked into the directory
/usr/src/modules/pcmcia-cs

4. Using make-kpkg to build the new kernel and pcmcia-source modules

Be sure the pcmcia-source is under /usr/src/modules.

Go ahead and configure your kernel and be sure that pcmcia support IS NOT compiled in as an option in the kernel.

To build the kernel and pcmcia-source, be sure you are under the
/usr/src/linux
or have a symbolic link from /usr/src/linux to whatever kernel source you have set up. Then type
make-kpkg --revision=custom.1.0 kernel_image modules_image

The kernel_image option will build the kernel while the modules_image option will build all modules located under
/usr/src/modules/
so be sure that you it is ok to build any other modules there.

After some chugging, go up one level to
/usr/src
and you should see two new Debian packages that should look something like this:

kernel-image-2.4.19-pre4_custom.1.0_i386.deb

pcmcia-modules-2.4.19-pre4_3.1.31-7+custom.1.0_i386.deb

You first want to install the kernel image so you would type
dpkg -i kernel-image-etc....

Now install the modules by typing
dpkg -i pcmcia-modules.etc...

There are a couple of assumptions that make-kpkg makes about your lilo.conf file is that you have not radically changed it. the new kernel will be installed over the older kernel image and the older kernel image will be moved to linux.old. Anyway if you have any questions ask me.

5. Wlan Drivers for You Link-Sys Card

You have downloaded the 11 Wlan project. Go a head and read the instruction, and put it under modules. Follow the instructions when you
make config
The one key is to make sure you specify the pcmcia-source as under
/usr/src/modules/pcmcia-cs
and not choose the default it gives you.

Go ahead and
make all
and
make install

I suggest you read the documentation that comes with it, but essentially, if you have a WAP that is connected to your DSL or cable modem then you have a infrastructure set up. I found that it was best to edit the
networks.opt
under the
/etc/pcmcia
directory.

To make things easier edit the option

# Use DHCP (via /sbin/dhcpcd, /sbin/dhclient, or /sbin/pump)? [y/n]

DHCP="y"

to what I have, i.e., set it to yes.

The documentation talks about setting ESSID but when you edit the
wlan-ng.opts
you will only see

#=======INFRASTRUCTURE STATION START===================

# SSID is all we have for now

AuthType="opensystem" # opensystem | sharedkey (requires WEP)

DesiredSSID="howardnet"

From what I can gather,DesiredSSID means ESSID and it works when the WAP and link-sys pcmcia card share the same name.

At this point, you should reboot and should have a working link-sys card that gets its address via DHCP.