[driverloader] Getting lost setting up a Realtek card

[Colin Brough]

Disclaimer: this is probably down to me not knowing anything about
wireless networking, rather than anything specific to driverloader,
but I haven't had responses elsewhere...

I am trying to get an ad-hoc wireless network working, but don't
really know what I'm doing! Guidance appreciated!!

Currently I have working:

	internet <----> Linux box <-- crossover cable--> Win XP laptop

What I want:

	internet <----> Linux box <--    wireless    --> Win XP laptop

(The internet connection is blueyonder broadband through eth0.)

The wireless card in the Linux box is based on the Realtek 8180
(rtl8180) chipset. (Its an Edimax PCI card,
http://www.edimax.com.tw/html/english/products/EW-7126PC.htm)

The card appears to configure OK, but the driverloader FAQ assumes you
know what you are doing in setting up a wireless network, and only
fills in the specifics of "how do I do task XXX with driverloader" -
when I don't know what steps I need to take! This is all made worse by
the fact that the other side of the link is a Win XP box, and I know
nothing about administering it! (Used Windows sporadically - ie, once
every few weeks on a dual boot machine - over the last decade!) The
price of being almost Windows free for so long is I now can't use the
**** thing! :-)

Sadly, I'm in the situation where I don't really know what questions
to ask... sorry! Responses along the lines of "have you done XXX? What
messages did you see?" would be most appreciated!

On the Linux box:
	eth0 is the internet, IP via DHCP
	eth1 is the wired interface, IP 192.168.1.2, which is working
	eth2 is the wireless interface, IP 192.168.0.1, which is not working

On the Win XP laptop:
	the IP of the wired interface is 192.168.1.3
	the IP of the wireless interface is 192.168.0.2

Here's the output of various commands - I don't know what is relevant
and what is not, so apologies for all the redundant guff:

cmb > ifconfig eth2
eth2      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:50:FC:F2:AC:65  
          inet addr:192.168.0.1  Bcast:192.168.0.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:3 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:100 
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)

cmb > cat /proc/net/wireless 
Inter-| sta-|   Quality        |   Discarded packets               | Missed
 face | tus | link level noise |  nwid  crypt   frag  retry   misc | beacon
  eth2: 0000    1   161.   56        0      0      0      0      0        0

cmb > iwlist ap                 # But its meant to be ad-hoc!
eth2      No Access Point in range

cmb > iwlist scan
iwlist: unknown command `scan'  # (despite what the man page says!)

cmb > iwlist enc
eth2      2 key sizes : 40, 104bits
          4 keys available :
                [1]: off
                [2]: off
                [3]: off
                [4]: off
          Current Transmit Key: [1]

cmb > iwlist power
eth2      Supported modes :
                        o Receive all packets (unicast & multicast)
                        o Receive Unicast only (discard multicast)
          Fixed period  ;  min period:0us
                           max period:65.535s
          Fixed timeout ;  min timeout:0us
                           max timeout:65.535s
          Current mode:off

cmb > iwspy eth2
eth2      No statistics to collect

cmb > iwgetid 
eth2      ESSID:""

cmb > iwgetid 
eth2      ESSID:"Brough Net`@PDa@`"   <- later, once allowed laptop to
                                         connect to a non-secure network
cmb > iwgetid -a
eth2      Access Point: 02:E0:A4:17:FD:A0

   (But the MAC address of the laptop card is: 00:50:FC:F2:5F:45, and the
    MAC address of the wireless card on the Linux box is: 00:50:FC:F2:AC:65)

cmb > iwgetid -s
BroughNetPD

cmb > iwconfig 
eth2      IEEE 802.11-DS  ESSID:""  Nickname:"unknown"
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.412GHz  Bit Rate=11Mb/s   Tx-Power=20 dBm
          RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality:1/1  Signal level:-95 dBm  Noise level:-200 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

cmb > ping 192.168.0.2
PING 192.168.0.2 (192.168.0.2) from 192.168.0.1 : 56(84) bytes of data.
>From 192.168.0.1 icmp_seq=1 Destination Host Unreachable
>From 192.168.0.1 icmp_seq=2 Destination Host Unreachable
>From 192.168.0.1 icmp_seq=3 Destination Host Unreachable

cmb > route
Kernel IP routing table
Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags Metric Ref    Use Iface
192.168.1.0     *               255.255.255.0   U     0      0        0 eth1
192.168.0.0     *               255.255.255.0   U     0      0        0 eth2
82.41.80.0      *               255.255.248.0   U     0      0        0 eth0
127.0.0.0       *               255.0.0.0       U     0      0        0 lo
default         82-41-80-1.cabl 0.0.0.0         UG    0      0        0 eth0


Other stuff: driverloader is currently version v1.56, license is the
free trial - due to expire in a couple of days. I'd like to get this
working before then so I can buy with confidence! :-)

System is currently Mandrake 9.0, though migration to Mandrake 9.2
imminent.

Cheers

Colin

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Colin Brough                             Colin.Brough at blueyonder.co.uk