Q I'm trying to get online. I have an ADMtek 802.11b wireless card, and Ubuntu has found a driver for it. I'm trying to connect to our LAN, which has WEP encryption. The settings are:
Mode Managed ESSID Eleven Key *** (number 4) Interface eth1 Channel 1
Would it be possible to walk me through the steps? So far (in a terminal window) I have:
iwconfig eth1 mode Managed iwconfig eth1 essid eleven iwconfig key restricted *** [4] iwconfig eth1 channel 1 ifconfig eth1 broadcast
It won't connect, so have I forgotten anything here? I would prefer to do it using a terminal, as I'm not too sure what the tools do.
A It looks like you have done just about everything needed, except bring up the interface. Does your LAN use DHCP? If so, you need to drop the ifconfig command you are using and run
dhclient eth1
after the iwconfig commands. This will cause the interface to go online and fetch its IP address along with DNS and routing information from the network. Otherwise you will have to do this with the ifconfig and route commands, for example:
ifconfig eth1 192.168.1.3 up route add default gw 192.168.1.1
Obviously, you will need to replace the addresses of your computer and the Internet gateway/router with the correct values. You will also need to add the addresses of your LAN or ISP DNS servers to /etc/resolv.conf. None of this is necessary if you use DHCP. Most wireless access points and routers have an option to provide DHCP services. It is usually turned on by default, so running the iwconfig commands you gave followed by dhclient should be enough. However, there is a much easier way. Select System > Administration > Network from the Gnome menu bar and enter your settings. The only drawback with this method is that it only allows you to set one WEP key and it defaults to open mode. This is easily fixed by editing the entry in the /etc/network/interfaces file to look like this:
iface eth1 inet dhcp # wireless-* options are implemented by the wireless-tools package wireless-mode managed wireless-essid eleven wireless-key restricted wireless-key4 123456789ABCDEF
Now you should find the interface starts as soon as the card is detected with no need for any action on your part.