This guide assumes that you have already installed the card and the card is recognized by the OS. The guide is designed for and tested on RedHat Enterpise WS 3 (RHEL3) but should also work with most other linux distributions.
This guide will assume you are using a Enterasys, Cabletron, Orinoco, Cisco Aironet, Intel Prowireless 2200, and various others.
Notes:
The intel Pro Wireless series of cards will not work with RHEL 3 due to the fact that you need at least a 2.6.4+ kernel. If you have one of these kernels you can get installation instructions from ipw2200.sourceforge.net. If you have a cisco aironet card you may need the cisco client utility to make it work.
You will also need some form of root or sudo privileges on your machine to use this guide.
After configuring your wireless card, you MUST register the card within a few minutes; open a browser to https://netreg.jlab.org/ then fill in the username and your JLab CUE password, read the Acceptable Network Usage Policy, check the box and click the submit button at the bottom of the page, then reboot as prompted.
INSTRUCTIONS:
To begin, make sure you have a WEP Key. You can obtain that at the WEP
Registration Page.
You will need to modify the ifcfg script that controls this device. As an example, my ifcfg file looks similar to this. Yours may be different based on which device name and number you use. This could be eth0 or wlan0 or jwlan0. The name really does not matter. It is also recommended that users use dhcp for the BOOTPROTO. Using these two commands to get to and to display the file. Make sure you create the new ifcfg-ethX or ifcfg-wlanX or ifcfg-jwlanX file in "/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/" directory
# cd /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/
# more ifcfg-eth1
DEVICE=eth1
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
ONBOOT=yes
ESSID="jlab"
KEY="s:XXXXXXXXXXXXX"
USERCTL=yes
#
*Note that the all XXX...'s will be the key you obtain from the registration
page. the "s" and the "colon" are literal.
*Note that I included USERCTL=yes so I do not have to be root or sudo the
command ifup eth1 or ifdown eth1. Being a laptop it isn't very important
if users have this control.
If all is well you can insert the card into the machine if needed. To check
your settings you could use this command.
# iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.
eth1 IEEE 802.11-DS ESSID="jlab"" Nickname:"iowa"
Mode:Managed
Frequency:2.437GHz Access Point: 00:E0:63:81:CC:34
Bit Rate:5.5Mb/s
Tx-Power=15 dBm Sensitivity:1/3
RTS thr:off
Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xx
Power Management:off
Link Quality:25/92
Signal level:-68 dBm Noise level:-93 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0
Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0
Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0
# ifconfig -a
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:08:74:4A:3D:89
BROADCAST MULTICAST
MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0
overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:4 errors:0 dropped:0
overruns:0 carrier:4
collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)
TX bytes:1830 (1.7 Kb)
Interrupt:11 Base address:0xec80
*Note I have a built in wired port as well which uses eth0
The two important things that you should see are the ESSID portion filled
in with jlab and the Encryption key part filled in when you did the iwconfig
command.
You can now try and start the network interface. This can usually be done by issuing this command.
# ifup eth1
When you do the "ifconfig -a" part if you see an IP address (inet addr:)
in your adapters config, in this case eth1 AND this is the first time you
have used this card on the network with DHCP you should open a web browser
and attempt to go to a web site, it should redirect you to https://netreg.jlab.org. If it doesn't that means you have already registered your card before
or you are using static DNS settings. In any case, you should register
your card quickly or your connection will be banned from using DHCP services
until you contact the Computer Center Help Desk at 269-7155.
Troubleshooting Information
You were once able to use the network resources, but now you are unable.
If you were able to access network resources such as email and web pages
when you first completed this tutorial but are now unable to user any network
resources, check your settings to make sure you have an IP Address for your
connection by using this command "/sbin/ifconfig -a" If you do not see
an address for your wireless cards interface number, but had one before, and
you are SURE you are in a wireless covered area most likely you will need
to get your card unblocked by the DHCP server because you failed to register
your card when you first brought it online. Contact the helpdesk at 7155 to have your card removed
from the ignore list.
You followed all the steps but you are still unable to communicate wirelessly.
First you will need to make sure you are in an area covered by wireless,
this includes the wings of CEBAF Center, all of the Testlab's highbay area,
parts of the ARC including the 6th floor, and almost all of the Counting House
including the second floor. If you are certain you are in the wireless
coverage area, you can execute the iwconfig command with the required parameters directly by issuing the following command. The X's represent the WEP key.
# iwconfig eth1 essid jlab key s:XXXXXXXXXXXXX
Now you can issue the following command and you should see the essid and the key set. You should also see a Hexadecimal address asocciated with the access point.
