# b43, wpa_supplicant, networkmanager and wep I need HELP

## 3igHankCh0w

I have been trying to get my wireless network connection to connect at boot or after my desktop comes up

(I boot up to the console and then start X to fluxbox). I have broadcom wireless on my HP dv6000 laptop that comes on

during boot and I connect to my AT&T 2Wire wireless access using WEP from the console with iwconfig wlan0 essid "my essid ID

enc my passwd" <enter> and then dhcp wlan0 <enter> and I am connected. I have networkmanager installed but cannot

seem to use it to connect I have also setup a wpa_supplicant.conf file. The reason I post is that I would like to use my laptop

at work and the coffee shop and although they use WPA I would like to get my laptop working at home before I try it somewhere

else. I would like to add that I can set my 2WIRE to use WPA and that may be what I need to do any help would be greatly

appreciated I have looked all over the web for some time and it just seems I am unable to put everything together in the right way

to get it all to work Thank You.

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## Turingtest

The howto for networkmanager is here. If you've followed that and are still having problems you should post more details of what's going wrong, error messages etc. 

networkmanger should start wpa_supplicant for WPA networks without you having to manually setup the config file. 

Though if you want to manually use wpa_supplicant to connect to a WPA protected network it's easy enough, I use the following, though the commands will vary based on your networks/hardware

```

wpa_passphrase "ssid" "passphrase" > /tmp/wpa_supplicant.conf

wpa_supplicant -BDwext -ieth0 -c/tmp/wpa_supplicant.conf

dhcpcd eth0

```

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## 3igHankCh0w

thats what I need to understand I am using WEP do I need to change my 2WIRE wireless access point to WPA or will networkmanager

work with WEP and I have gone over the link a few times it helped get the wireless to come up at boot at boot. Thank You

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## pappy_mcfae

You are much better off using wpa, as it's a lot more secure. If your AP supports it, switch to wpa.

Blessed be!

Pappy

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## Turingtest

 *3igHankCh0w wrote:*   

> thats what I need to understand I am using WEP do I need to change my 2WIRE wireless access point to WPA or will networkmanager
> 
> work with WEP and I have gone over the link a few times it helped get the wireless to come up at boot at boot. Thank You

 

networkmanager should connect to both WEP and WPA networks without any problems. Though I agree with pappy that you'd be much more secure switching your AP to WPA, as WEP is trivial to crack.

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## 3igHankCh0w

I always like the phrase with out any problem; you should be able to replace the clutch with out any problem; you should be able to

replace that hot water heater with out any problem. But alas there is always something, I followed the instruction at the networkmanager

wiki and I have not been able to connect to my 2WIRE wireless access point with WEP or WPA. I have searched the web high and low

and I cannot find a solution that will work I can post any info that might help just let me know what you would like to see. Again I have

an HP dv6000 laptop with Broadcom 4311 wireless b43 works well and I am using a shell startup script in /etc/conf.d/local.start to make

my wireless connection at home it would just be nice to go to the coffee shop or library I might add I was able to use networkmanager to logon to a guest network but was not able to do anything this may be because I was able to log on to the network but did not have the required permission to do anything I don't know.  Thank you all who have taken the time to respond to my post your help is appreciated

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## Turingtest

 *3igHankCh0w wrote:*   

> I always like the phrase with out any problem; you should be able to replace the clutch with out any problem; you should be able to
> 
> replace that hot water heater with out any problem. But alas there is always something....

 

lmao.... so true. 

You say that you're using a startup script to connect to your wireless at home, I think you'll need to disable this before network manager will work for you. The wiki reccommends removing any baselayout networking scripts from your default runlevels, so custom scripts will probably cause the same issues. 

So first thing I'd do is remove any existing network configuration from your startup scripts, add networkmanager to your default runlevel and try again. I'd also try it (temporarily) without any encyrption to see if the problem is with the encryption. 

Also, you say

 *Quote:*   

> I was able to use networkmanager to logon to a guest network but was not able to do anything this may be because I was able to log on to the network but did not have the required permission to do anything I don't know.  

 

In what sense were you not able to do anything? I'd check several things, firstly open a console and run iwconfig to see if you're actually connected. If it turns out you are you might try assigning an IP address and route to your connection manually to see whether the issue is with DHCP or not. Finally check your logs (wherever networkmanager logs to, I'm not entirely sure, i'd check /var/log and ~/.xsession_errors first) for any errors networkmanager spits at you and post them here. 

Good luck.

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## 3igHankCh0w

Well I took the plunge and updated from baselayout to openrc without a problem! I then went through the networkmanager wiki

again and set it up for openrc I can now connect to my 2WIRE access point but when I do I am unable to access any of my applications

in fluxbox the background is still there I can bring up the menus but I cannot get any thing to come up no firefox; no games; 

no terminal; no nothing. If I "control alt f_key" to get to another terminal I can login and ping an address and I recieve a reply so I am connected to the network. Fluxbox works fine until I run networkmanager then I loose my applications by that I mean as I stated above I still have my background the menus still come up, just no applications come up. I some times wonder why I need so much drama in my life but I must admit I keep learning new things and I tell myself thats what is important Thanks to every one that has viewed my post and also to those of you that have posted replies.

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