# ifconfig or iwconfig don't find wireless extensions [solved]

## hvenz

I am trying to get a Netgear 111v2 USB WLAN stick working using ndiswrapper and wpa_supplicant.

I guess the driver is installed successfully:

```
# ndiswrapper -l

installed drivers:

net111v2            driver installed, hardware (0846:6A00) present

```

This is how my /etc/conf.d/net looks like

```
config_eth0=( "dhcp" )

modules_wlan0=( "wpa_supplicant" )

wpa_supplicant_wlan0="-Dndiswrapper"

wpa_timeout_wlan0=60

config_wlan0=( "dhcp" )

```

When I try iwconfig I get

```
# iwconfig

lo         no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

```

ifconfig only finds the loopback device (eth0 is currently unplugged).

I've created a link from /etc/init.d/net.wlan0 -> net.lo but that doesn't seem to matter for i?config.

Trying to start the wlan interface manually seems to know that wlan0 has to do with wpa_supplicant but also fails

```
# /etc/init.d/net.wlan0 start

Starting wlan0

 Loading networking modules for wlan0

  modules: apipa arping ccwegroup macchanger macnet rename wpa_supplicant essidnet iptunnel ifconfig system dhcpd ip6toip4

   wpa_supplicant provides wireless

   ifconfig provides interface

   dhcpd provides dhcp

 wpy_supplicant only works on wireless interfaces

 unless the -D wired option is specified

 Bringing up wlan0

  dhcp

   network interface wlan0 does not exist

   Please verify hardware or kernel module (driver) 

```

I tried to follow the HOWTO http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Wireless_Configuration_and_Startup but am pretty clueless now. How can I first see if the wlan0 interface works at all without dealing with any kind of encryption yet?

Thanks in advance!Last edited by hvenz on Sun Jan 07, 2007 7:59 pm; edited 1 time in total

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## Underdone

I tried to find the card you mentioned (Netgear 111v2 USB) and on the netgear site there are multiple products with the 111 at the end. Are there any other digits in front of the 111?

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## hvenz

The card is a Netgear WG 111v2; ndiswrapper lists it under net111v2, but I guess it just took this from the name of the windows .inf file.

I got that stick to work under Ubunto 6.10 before using ndiswrapper. There I had to blacklist a few modules (e.g. realtec ones) to prevent them from being loaded. Can/shall the same be done in gentoo and if yes: how? I have not found any suspicious messages with dmesg yet so I was assuming that stuff is not loaded.

Do you think that the output of ndiswrapper -l 

 *Quote:*   

> installed drivers:
> 
> net111v2            driver installed, hardware (0846:6A00) present 

 

gives a false confidence and the stick is not working yet?

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## Underdone

 *hvenz wrote:*   

>  *Quote:*   installed drivers:
> 
> net111v2            driver installed, hardware (0846:6A00) present  
> 
> gives a false confidence and the stick is not working yet?

  Yeah, i don't think that says that its working, just that it has the drivers for it and that its plugged in.

According to this post I found Wireless success via USB: Netgear WG111, ndiswrapper, WPA You need to do a modprobe ndiswrapper and once you do that post the relevant output of dmesg.

Sorry if i'm a little off on what you need to do here, my wireless card uses the madwifit drivers.

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## apollo29a

Alright I recompiled my kernel so that the orinoco drivers are external. When I ls /lib/....../driver/net/wireless/

```
hermes.ko  orinoco.ko

```

dmesg is still ->

```

usb 2-3: USB disconnect, address 2

usb 2-3: new full speed USB device using ohci_hcd and address 3

usb 2-3: new device found, idVendor=049f, idProduct=0076

usb 2-3: new device strings: Mfr=0, Product=1, SerialNumber=2

usb 2-3: Product: Compaq WLAN MultiPort W200

usb 2-3: SerialNumber: PG34JL9AALE8

usb 2-3: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice

```

iwconfig ->

```
eth0      no wireless extensions.

lo        no wireless extensions.

sit0      no wireless extensions.

```

ifconfig ->

```
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:08:02:D9:12:F2  

          inet addr:192.168.0.22  Bcast:192.168.0.255  Mask:255.255.255.0

          inet6 addr: fe80::208:2ff:fed9:12f2/64 Scope:Link

          UP BROADCAST NOTRAILERS RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1

          RX packets:657 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0

          TX packets:629 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0

          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 

          RX bytes:574542 (561.0 Kb)  TX bytes:64174 (62.6 Kb)

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:6 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0

          TX packets:6 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0

          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 

          RX bytes:300 (300.0 b)  TX bytes:300 (300.0 b)

sit0      Link encap:IPv6-in-IPv4  

          NOARP  MTU:1480  Metric:1

          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0

          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0

          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 

          RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)

```

And I still have no idea how to set this alias.

Bump.

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## hvenz

I read around on http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net and that got me on the same track as what you were suspecting: the stick is not working. They have a huge list of supported USB devices (that Netgear adapter seems to exist with a couple of different chipsets). At the first sight it seems that I have the correct driver installed (compared the output from lsusb with a conf file that ndiswrapper created) but dmesg is not listing a loaded interface. I will try with a few different ones tomorrow and post the results.

Thanks for your help - now I know at least where to start.

----------

## Underdone

Did you try this?

```
modprobe ndiswrapper
```

Then check the output of dmesg.

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## hvenz

I did all this. I've almost tried all possible windows drivers from the netgear site: 1.3, 1.4 (which is the version on my CD and worked with Ubuntu previously), 2.0, 2.0.1 for 98, ME, 2000 and XP. I followed this sequence:

```

# stop ndiswrapper module

rmmod ndiswrapper

# remove previous version

ndiswrapper -e net111v2

# install new version

cd dir_of_new_driver

ndiswrapper -i net111v2.inf

# load it

modprobe ndiswrapper

# check for result

dmesg

# it always gave me only

ndiswrapper version 1.25 loaded (preempt=no,smp=no)

```

According to the ndiswrapper documentation it would need to print what interface it started up and such things.

But I also run

```
# emerge -pv ndiswrapper

These are the packages that would be merged, in order:

Calculating dependencies... done!

[ebuild   R   ] net-wireless/ndiswrapper-1.25  USE="-debug -usb" 0 kB

```

Does this hyphen mean that ndiswrapper was compiled on my machine *with* or *without* usb support.......?

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## desultory

 *hvenz wrote:*   

> Does this hyphen mean that ndiswrapper was compiled on my machine *with* or *without* usb support.......?

 The prefix hyphen indicates that the flag is logically inverted, the lack of a postfix asterisk indicates that the flag has the same state as when the package was installed. In short, without.

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## hvenz

Hah then this is of course the show stopper for ndiswrapper. Ok, I added usb for ndiswrapper in  /etc/portage/package.use and got a modprobe output that it could load that module for wlan0 interface.

What I still don't understand is why ndiswrapper -l gave a feedback that the hardware is present when the stick was really connected but didn't print that message when the USB stick was removed...

Unfortunately, wpa_supplicant still didn't work regardless if I used encryption or not. I also tried to start it with 

```
wpa_supplicant -Dwext -iwlan0 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -dd 
```

 but it couldn't associate with my router. The only way to fix that was to also specify the generic wext module instead of ndiswrapper in /etc/conf.d/net  

```
wpa_supplicant_wlan0="-Dwext"

```

That would lead me the questions:

* where do these USE flags (-debug -USB) come from? Are there always some flags set/unset by the person that created a particular ebuild? Do I always have to pay attention to these flags and eventually override them?

* Why is USB support turned off by default for ndiswrapper? A lot of external WLAN devices come as USB sticks. Overlooking that little flag costed me about 15h and I really feel that it should be there by default!!

Anyway it is working now which makes me a very happy Gentoo user  :Very Happy:   :Very Happy:   :Very Happy: 

Thanks again to everybody that replied and helped me to come here!! I hope that further activities are less painful as the starting point (GTK installer wiped my partition table, PCMCIA networkcard not working with selfcompiled kernel, getting ATI driver in X-server, WLAN problems...)

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## desultory

 *hvenz wrote:*   

> That would lead me the questions:
> 
> * where do these USE flags (-debug -USB) come from?

 The default USE flags for the currently used profile are specified in the USE variable in /etc/make.profile/make.defaults.

 *hvenz wrote:*   

> Are there always some flags set/unset by the person that created a particular ebuild?

 No. When an ebuild is created the USE flags which modify the behavior of that ebuild should be declared in the IUSE variable in that ebuild.

 *hvenz wrote:*   

> Do I always have to pay attention to these flags and eventually override them?

 No, though there are benefits to doing so.

 *hvenz wrote:*   

> * Why is USB support turned off by default for ndiswrapper?

 Because that flag is not set by default in the profile in use, nor it would seem in /etc/make.conf or /etc/portage.package.use.

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