WiFi Configuration On Ubuntu Workstation/Server
Posted by Paul on 2nd January 2010
802.11g Wireless Networking
A recent change of office required some wireless networking, involving installation of TP-Link TL-WN321G USB dongles on an Ubuntu Linux 9.10 workstation, 8.04 server and a couple of Windows XP workstations. This article summarises getting the device to work on an Ubuntu Linux system.
I broadly followed the (out-of-date) Ubuntu Community Documentation Wifi How To, with a few tips from elsewhere, and a recollection that it’s sometimes better to be without Gnome’s Network Manager.
Kernel Driver Support
After plugging in the dongle, `lsusb` gave the following (snipped)
information:
$ lsusb Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub Bus 001 Device 002: ID 148f:2573 Ralink Technology, Corp. RT2501USB Wireless Adapter ...
The second line of output gives the vendor (148f) and product (2573)
identifiers for the device. Checking a Linux wireless adapter chipset directory showed that supporting kernel drivers exist for this device’s chipset.
Listing the currently loaded kernel drivers showed that both the rt73usb and rt2500usb drivers had been automatically loaded:
$ lsmod Module Size Used by ... rt73usb 26336 0 rt2500usb xxxxx 0 ...
Seeing that two drivers had been loaded I chose to blacklist one of them – the rt2500usb. For that I created a new, custom blacklist file in the /etc/modprobe/ directory, avoiding editing any existing blacklist file that my distribution had created. I chose to create the file /etc/modprobe/blacklist-custom.conf:
$ cat /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-custom.conf blacklist rt2500usb
The rt2500usb driver may work, though I haven’t tested it.
Gnome Network Manager Problems
The Ubuntu workstation default setup makes use of Gnome Network Manager to manage wired and wireless network connectivity. Inspecting the kernel message log showed that although the wireless interface was being activated, it was then very quickly deactivating:
$ dmesg ... [ xxxx.xxxxxx] rt73usb 1-2:1.0: firmware: requesting rt73.bin [ xxxx.xxxxxx] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan2: link is not ready [ xxxx.xxxxxx] wlan2: authenticate with AP xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx [ xxxx.xxxxxx] wlan2: authenticated ... [ xxxx.xxxxxx] wlan2: deauthenticating by local choice (reason=3) ...
Suspecting that Network Manager may be trying to maintain a wired-only connection and knowing the workstation doesn’t move anywhere, I decided to dispense with the network-manager package altogether:
$ sudo apt-get remove network-manager ...
Network Interface Configuration
In order to test the connection with my WAP I first disabled authentication and encryption on the WAP through its configuration interface. Here’s the simple configuration details for the USB dongle in the workstation’s /etc/network/interfaces file:
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback
address 127.0.0.1
netmask 255.0.0.0
auto wlan2
iface wlan2 inet static
address 192.168.1.115
netmask 255.255.255.0
gateway 192.168.1.1
# Wireless config
wireless-essid myssid
wireless-channel 1
wireless-mode managed
Using iwconfig I could see that the USB dongle was connecting to the WAP.
Now that we know that we can connect to the wireless access point, we can protect our communication. I’m using WPA2 to connect to and encrypt the communication channel to my WAP. Here’s the snipped /etc/network/interfaces:
auto lo iface lo inet loopback address 127.0.0.1 netmask 255.0.0.0 auto wlan2 iface wlan2 inet static address 192.168.1.115 netmask 255.255.255.0 gateway 192.168.1.1 # WPA2 config wpa-psk secretpasskey wpa-driver wext wpa-key-mgmt WPA-PSK wpa-proto WPA2 wpa-ssid myssid pre-up sleep 5
WPA2 details can go straight into the interfaces file, though you may wish to externalise the WPA2 supplicant information into a separate file that is read-protected from anything but the root user and group.
A check of the network interfaces shows a working wlan network interface:
$ ifconfig lo Link encap:Local Loopback inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0 inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1 RX packets:33 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:33 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 RX bytes:1831 (1.8 KB) TX bytes:1831 (1.8 KB) ... wlan2 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx inet addr:192.168.1.115 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0 inet6 addr: fe80::227:19ff:feb7:668a/64 Scope:Link UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:468550 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:398811 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 RX bytes:406451098 (406.4 MB) TX bytes:184734469 (184.7 MB)
Checking wireless connection information with iwconfig shows the wlan interface is connected:
$ iwconfig lo no wireless extensions. ... wmaster0 no wireless extensions. wlan2 IEEE 802.11bg ESSID:"myssid" Mode:Managed Frequency:2.462 GHz Access Point: xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx Bit Rate=54 Mb/s Tx-Power=9 dBm Retry long limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off Power Management:on Link Quality=38/70 Signal level=-72 dBm Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0 Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0