Link-sys WPC11 Mini-HOWTO

Gerardo Arnaez

<dude@mung.net>
Raintree I.T.??
Department of Advanced Skunk Works
Revision History                                                             
Revision 2.2.4            2004-06-03           Revised by: gea               
Cleaning up this HOW-TO. I have since moved on and offer this document for   
adoption or at least consider it obsolete at this time. Also my (ex) girl    
friend never did write the documentation to how she got the card working with
Suse. Sorry.                                                                 
Revision 2.2.3            2003-07-31           Revised by: gea               
WPC11 CARD DRIVERS HAVE CHANGED. Thanks to Bill Atkins for providing         
information and solution                                                     
Revision 2.2.2            2003-07-05           Revised by: gea               
Most likely last update for this manual. The new 2.5 (to be 2.6) kernel      
appears to work fine with respect to wireless cards and hence you can build  
wireless support directly into the kernel and not have to go 'outside' it    
like this.                                                                   
Revision 2.2              2003-04-07           Revised by: gea               
Made a few typo corrections. Publish it on Freshmeat                         
Revision 2.0.2            2003-02-24           Revised by: gea               
Thanks to Justin Stockton for helping me eliminate a confusing bit of        
reading.                                                                     
Revision 2.0              2003-01-15           Revised by: gea               
I have decided to generalize this document to other distributions then just  
Debian. The redhat section is due to the generous contribution of Tony Perrie
of Involution (.DOT.) com. I also recently got a fast connection again and   
was able to update kernel and patches info. I also tried out the new wlan-ng 
module                                                                       
Revision 1.2              2003-01-11           Revised by: gea               
Made clear where to get most up-to-date documents                            
Revision 1.1.4            2002-12-22           Revised by: gea               
I forgot what i did here                                                     
Revision 1.1.3            2002-06-09           Revised by: gea               
Made clear what version on linux-wlan I actually used.                       
Revision 1.1.2            2002-05-26           Revised by: gea               
In part 2 of the HOWTO, the last item says make-kpkg --revision-custom.1.0   
kernel_image when later on you used the correct one make-kpkg --revision=    
custom.1.0 kernel_image . Where there is an equal sign before the word custom
and not a dash. This has been corrected. thanks to Raj Prakash,              
raj@rajeshprakash.com                                                        
Revision 1.1.1            2002-04-27           Revised by: gea               
some more grammar improvements, and highlighting to make things clearer      
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. 
Revision 1.1.4            2002-8-10            Revised by: gea               
I attempted to follow my own instruction on re-installing on the same laptop 
and found my how-to a little lacking. Have made things a bit clearer on what 
I am using. Also made a table to two                                         


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. Other systems
are addressed.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Table of Contents
1. Preliminaries
    1.1. Where to Get Most Recent Updates
   
   
2. WARNING ABOUT WPC11 VERSION 4
3. Link-sys WPC11 install on Debian
    3.1. Why Debian and why just this card?
    3.2. Required Hardware
    3.3. Software Requirements
    3.4. Notes on additional helpful software
   
   
4. Debian Kernel Configuration
    4.1. What TO enable
    4.2. What NOT to Enable
   
   
5. Building PCMCIA-SOURCE
6. Using make-kpkg to build the new kernel and pcmcia-source modules
7. Wlan Drivers for You Link-Sys Card
8. Checking things in case they don't work
9. Wireless tools
10. RedHat Installation
    10.1. Drivers
    10.2. Hermes.conf Hack
    10.3. Redhat PCMCIA Services
    10.4. Redhat System Tools
    10.5. Restart the network.
   
   
11. Wireless Access Point
12. Request for comments

1. Preliminaries

1.1. Where to Get Most Recent Updates

The most recent updates to this mini-doc are at the [http://www.mung.net]
mung[dot]net. If you mirror this document, please try to keep it the most
recent one.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

2. WARNING ABOUT WPC11 VERSION 4

Caution The NEW WPC11 CARDS HAVE Realtek 8180 CHIPSET INSTEAD OF THE RTL8180.
        Thanks to Juan Natera for clarification                              

Caution It had come to my attention that the new version, Version 4 are not  
        compatible with my old instructions. I include a set of instruction  
        provided by bill atkins                                              

Until I can clean this up, I include Bill atkins email for sake of urgency

Quote from Bill Atkins

OK.

First of all, make sure you have a V4 card. Type
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|cardctl ident                                                              |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
as root. If one of the entries shown is a
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|RealTek RTL8180L                                                           |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
or something similar, then you have a version 4 card.

Caution If not, then you can probably just follow the rest of the            
        instructions in the HOWTO.                                           

Now you need to get drivers for the card. Go to RealTek's download AND do a
search fo 8180 from the downloads section

or you can download the driver that works with Bill's email at
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|ftp://152.104.125.40/cn/wlan/rtl8180l/rtl8180_24x_suse82.zip               |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+

and pick up the drivers for SuSE (you don't need to be running SuSE for the
drivers to work - I used them with Gentoo. However, the other divers don't
seem to work at all).

Unpack the incoming tarball. As of this writing, there is a minor bug in the
driver code that must be repaired in order to make the card work.

Open up r8180_type.h.

Caution On line 128, you'll see a line with two slashes before the text.     
        Remove these slashes. Now you're ready to build.                     

At the shell prompt, type make. The drivers will build themselves. If there
are any problems making the drivers, open up the Makefile and check the
kernel version settings on the first few lines.

Now open up the wlanup file.

Uncomment line 5 (remove the #) and change the SSID to the SSID of your
network.

Uncomment line 8 and set the ssid2scan to your network's SSID. Uncomment line
9 and set the networktype to infra (unless you really are using adhoc). Save
your changes.

 

Now eject the card
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|cardctl eject                                                              |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
and plug it in again.

From the directory where you unpacked the drivers, type
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|insmod -f rtl8180_24x.o                                                    |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+

You will get a warning - ignore it.

Now run the wlanup script found in the driver package. Your card should now
appear when you type ifconfig. You should configure your IP address at this
point. If you use DHCP, just type "dhcpd wlan0". Try pinging google.com. You
should get replies back. If so, your card is working!

Now copy rtl8180_24x.o to /lib/modules/YOURKERNELNAME, where YORUKERNELNAME
is the name of the directory in /lib/modules.

Then copy the wlanup and wlandown scripts to /sbin.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

3. Link-sys WPC11 install on Debian

3.1. 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. :)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

3.1.1. Redhat installation

I have gotten a few requests for help on getting the card installed on other
distributions. I will try to address the RedHat Installation in this
mini-how-to
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

3.1.2. Suse Installation

My girlfriend got the WPC-11 card working on Suse. I am waiting for her to
give me her how to
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

3.2. 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
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

3.2.1. What is the linksys card based on?

It is an Inersil Prism 3-based card
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

3.3. Software Requirements

3.3.1. Debian Software Requirements

Table 1. Debian Software Requirements
+--------------+---------------------+--------------------------------+--------------------+
|Software      |Version              |URL link                        |notes               |
+--------------+---------------------+--------------------------------+--------------------+
|Debian        |Stable ("Woody")     |[http://www.debian.org]         |linux-2.4.20.tar,   |
|Distribution  |                     |www.debian.org                  |patched with        |
|              |                     |                                |patch-2.4.21-pre3.bz|
|              |                     |                                |[a]                 |
+--------------+---------------------+--------------------------------+--------------------+
|Absolute      |0.1.16-pre8          |[http://www.linux-wlan.com/     |Make sure you       |
|Systems       |                     |linux-wlan/] Absolute systems   |download the 11Mbps |
|              |                     |                                |version. Works for  |
|              |                     |                                |0.1.16-pre8         |
+--------------+---------------------+--------------------------------+--------------------+
|pcmcia-source |Stable               |+------------------------------+|<---type this       |
|              |                     ||apt-get install pcmcia-source ||                    |
|              |                     |+------------------------------+|                    |
+--------------+---------------------+--------------------------------+--------------------+
|pcmcia-cs     |stable               |+------------------------------+|<---type this       |
|              |                     ||apt-get install pcmcia-cs     ||                    |
|              |                     |+------------------------------+|                    |
+--------------+---------------------+--------------------------------+--------------------+
|wireless-tools|Stable               |+------------------------------+|<--type this        |
|              |                     ||apt-get install wireless-tools||                    |
|              |                     |+------------------------------+|                    |
+--------------+---------------------+--------------------------------+--------------------+
|pump          |stable               |+------------------------------+|Useful to see if    |
|              |                     ||apt-get install pump          ||card works          |
|              |                     |+------------------------------+|                    |
+--------------+---------------------+--------------------------------+--------------------+
|kernel-package|stable               |+------------------------------+|Good way to build   |
|              |                     ||apt-get install kernel-package||kernel and the one I|
|              |                     |+------------------------------+|describe.           |
+--------------+---------------------+--------------------------------+--------------------+
|Kernel        |2.4.20, patched with |[http://www.kernel.org]         |You must know how to|
|              |patch-2.4.21-pre3.bz2|www.kernel.org                  |build and patch a   |
|              |                     |                                |kernel to do this.  |
|              |                     |                                |Its not hard and I  |
|              |                     |                                |will show you[b]    |
+--------------+---------------------+--------------------------------+--------------------+
|Notes:                                                                                    |
|a. This new patched kernel worked amazingly well                                          |
|b. Note to patch a kernel you type                                                        |
|+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+|
||bzip2 -dc patch-2.4.21-pre3.bz2 | patch -p0                                             ||
|+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+|
|                                                                                          |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

3.3.2. RedHat Software Requirements

Table 2. RedHat Software Requirements
+----------+-------------+--------+-------------------------------+
|Software  |Version      |URL link|notes                          |
+----------+-------------+--------+-------------------------------+
|Redhat 8.0|stock kernel |*       |[http://www.redhat.com] RedHat |
+----------+-------------+--------+-------------------------------+
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

3.4. Notes on additional helpful software

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
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

4. Debian Kernel Configuration

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 Radio).

In these examples, I use
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|make menuconfig                                                            |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
to configure my kernel.

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 using 'make menuconfig' to configure my kernel

  [*] Wireless LAN (non-hamradio)
  < >   STRIP (Metricom starmode radio IP)
  < >   AT T 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
  <*>     Prism 2.5 PCI 802.11b adaptor support 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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.

Caution 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                     
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

5. Building PCMCIA-SOURCE

Download pcmcia-source, by typing
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|apt-get install pcmcia-source                                              |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
This will download the source into
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|/usr/src                                                                   |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
as
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|pcmcia-cs.tar.gz                                                           |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+

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

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

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

Steps to build the kernel

  * 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 pointing to whatever kernel
    source you have set up.
   
  * Type
    +---------------------------------------------------------------+
    |make-kpkg clean                                                |
    +---------------------------------------------------------------+
    to clean
   
  * 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 do indeed want to rebuild any other modules that are
located in source when you are ready to build your new kernel.

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...                                              |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Caution There are a couple of assumptions that make-kpkg makes about your    
        lilo.conf file. One is that you have not radically changed it.       
        Make-kpgk will make make symbolics links from '/boot' where the      
        actual kernel resides to 'vmlinuz' which is under '/'. In other      
        words, under '/', you will see vmlinuz and vmlinuz.old which are     
        symbolic links to the real kernel images under /boot/. Anyway if you 
        have any questions ask me.                                           
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

7. 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.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

8. Checking things in case they don't work

1. Be sure to type
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|ifconfig                                                                   |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+

You should something like this

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  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:0
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)

wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:06:25:A8:AE:64
          inet addr:192.168.1.104  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:35197 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:57676 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
          RX bytes:43386657 (41.3 MiB)  TX bytes:2670811 (2.5 MiB)
          Interrupt:3 Base address:0x100

The keys point here are that inet addr:has a real IP address, and that Bcast
and Netmask are set up such that they are on the same "wave-length" as your
Wireless Access Point.

2. If you don't, you might have had the same problem i did which was that
there was no easy script to initiate the wlan0 device setup. That is to say,
if the card was recognized but you still did not get a connection and say
that ifconfig showed wlan0 present but with no IP address. In other words,
you might see something like this:

text:/home/dude# ifconfig

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:14 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:14 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:700 (700.0 b)  TX bytes:700 (700.0 b)

wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:06:25:A8:AE:64
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:1 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
          RX bytes:46 (46.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)
          Interrupt:3 Base address:0x100
 

As you can see, the interface device, the Wireless pcmcia card, is noted, but
there is no inet addr. The pcmcia software recognized the card, but it has
not successfully connected with the Wireless Access Point.

I used the command,pump to send a simple DHCP request to the DHCP server for
the device in question. I used
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|pump -i wlan0                                                              |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
which essentially runs a simple DHCP request to set up that card, wlan0, in
this case.

You can get the pump by
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|apt-get install pump                                                       |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+

While I needed to use
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|pump -i wlan0                                                              |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
on my laptop, I did not need this when I set up the link-sys wireless WPC11
card on my girlfriend's laptop. She has a Link-Sys WPC11 version 2.5 pcmcia
card.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

9. Wireless tools

While it is not necessary to include this in your kernel configuration, you
can enable Wireless tool extensions by going (i assume you use xconfig or
menuconfig) to
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Network device support                                                     |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
and then go to
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Wireless LAN (non-hamradio)                                                |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
and enable support for the
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Hermes chipset 802.11b support (Orinoco/Prism2/Symbol)                     |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
. This will let you use the Wireless Tools like
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|iwconfig                                                                   |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
,
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|iwspy                                                                      |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
and such.

The one thing I found this good for is that by repeated typing iwconfig, you
can see your Link Quality. Its quite good
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

10. RedHat Installation

This is a summary of what Mr.Tony Perrie of [http://involution.com]
involution.com fame has wriiten. I include here with his permission. I
encourage you to visit his site because he has a great "how-to" on [http://
involution.com/iptables_demo/] IPtables.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

10.1. Drivers

The stock kernel driver to use with the WPC11 is the orinoco_cs. Make sure
that it's loaded.
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|modprobe orinoco_cs                                                        |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+

If you get some error messages after executing modprobe, insure that the
wavelan_cs and wvlan_cs drivers are unloaded. By doing
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|lsmod | egrep lan                                                          |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+

If they are loaded do the following:
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|rmmod wavelan_cs                                                           |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+

and
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|rmmod wvlan_cs                                                             |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

10.2. Hermes.conf Hack

The hack is putting the following in

+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|/etc/pcmcia/hermes.conf.                                                   |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+

card "Instant Wireless Network PC Card"
manfid 0x0274,0x1613
bind "orinoco_cs"
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

10.3. Redhat PCMCIA Services

You'll then need to restart pcmcia service.
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|service pcmcia restart                                                     |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

10.4. Redhat System Tools

Go to the Redhat System Tools and hit Configure. Then add a wireless device
in Managed mode if you have an access point.

Setup dhcp, and the WEP key. The channel autoconfigures to 6 in managed mode.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

10.5. Restart the network.

+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|service network restart                                                    |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

11. Wireless Access Point

Perhaps its it missing the forest for the trees, but I did not spend any
discussion setting up the actual Wireless Access Point. The reason is that
the documentation that comes with the WAP is well written. The only thing I
haven't spoken about is enabling Wireless Encryption Protocol in the WAP
(Wireless Access Point) which I really don't suggest as I don't think WEP has
been properly set up in the drivers for the Pcmcia Wireless Cards. However,
let me know if you have any problems and I will be glad to help.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

12. Request for comments

I will be glad to help anyone out and if things are a bit confusing in this
quite mini how to, please tell me how I can fix it to make it better.

Thanks!
