Fixing Fedora 8 wireless network problems

Fixing Fedora 8 wireless network problems

Fedora 8's wireless is really disappointing.

So far, bugs findings include

1. wpa_supplicant is buggy & cannot connect.
2. default ath_5k driver conflicts with madwifi driver from livna
3. network manager is also buggy.

I have a DLink G520 using the atheros chipset. Here is how I managed to get it working.
Note: This method will give you a fixed ip 192.168.0.17(or dhcp ip if you like) & the startup
files will connect you to your preferred wireless network without any manual intervention by users
like using network manager, which does not work anyway.

1. Blacklist ath_5k in /etc/modprobe.conf & /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.
2. Installed kmod-madwifi from livna
3. disabled network manager as it will interfere with the configuration below.
4. updated wpa_supplicant

Tricky steps:

5. Previous version of Fedora before 8, atheros chipset is recognized as ath0. In
Fedora 8, this does not work. Atheros chispet is recognized as wlan0. So, I have
changed all previous reference to ath0 to wlan0.
6. I removed the ath_5k driver from kernel as some suggested. Not sure if this is
absolutely necessary though.
7. At /etc/rc5.d, there is this file SXXwpa_supplicant. My case, XX=12. Change it to a bigger
no. I changed it to 98. Reason being, wpa_supplicant was started before other services &
so it does not work. S98wpa_supplicant makes wpa_supplicant starts after most other services.
8. 4 files to be modified/created

/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-wlan0
/etc/dhclient-wlan0.conf
/etc/sysconfig/wpa_supplicant
/etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf


My configuration files are as follow:

# /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-wlan0
# Atheros Communications, Inc. AR5212 802.11abg NIC
DEVICE=wlan0
ESSID=fedoragroup
BOOTPROTO=none
ONBOOT=yes
PEERDNS=yes
PERSISTENT_DHCLIENT=Y
DHCLIENTARGS=-nw
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
HWADDR=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
DHCP_HOSTNAME=
IPADDR=192.168.0.17
DOMAIN=
TYPE=Wireless
USERCTL=yes
IPV6INIT=no
CHANNEL=6
MODE=Master
RATE=Auto
GATEWAY=192.168.0.1
------------------------------------------------------------

# /etc/dhclient-wlan0.conf
interface "wlan0" {
# Don't bother with NTP over a radio link
request subnet-mask, broadcast-address, routers, domain-name, domain-name-servers, host-name;
}
-------------------------------------------------------------

# /etc/sysconfig/wpa_supplicant
INTERFACES="-iwlan0"
DRIVERS="-Dmadwifi"
# old config is INTERFACES="-iath0"
# old config is DRIVERS="-Dmadwifi"

-------------------------------------------------------------
# /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant
# ctrl_interface_group=wheel
network={
ssid="fedoragroup"
scan_ssid=1
#psk="mypasskey"
psk=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
proto=WPA
pairwise=TKIP
}