# Cant set iwconfig eth1 essid "myESSID"

## ritzdank

I have gentoo 2.6.17-gentoo-r8 on ibm x30 with mini-pci 350 cisco wireless card. everything was working fine since a couple of weeks. I did emerge world and things seemed still okay, apart from configuring my network card with iwconfig. iwlist eth1 scanning shows all available networks around, including my own AP. But, if i try to set the AP with:

```
iwconfig eth1 essid MYESSID
```

and retypeing iwconfig eth1, it doesnt set the essid correctly. and/or neither setting the mode to auto,

iwconfig eth1 mode auto is working:

 *Quote:*   

> Error for wireless request "Set Mode" (8B06) :
> 
>     SET failed on device eth1 ; Invalid argument.

 

My wireless-tools version:

```
iwconfig  Wireless-Tools version 28

          Compatible with Wireless Extension v11 to v20.

Kernel    Currently compiled with Wireless Extension v20.

eth1      Recommend Wireless Extension v12 or later,

          Currently compiled with Wireless Extension v20.

wifi0     Recommend Wireless Extension v12 or later,

          Currently compiled with Wireless Extension v20.

```

my .config | grep WIRELESS:

 *Quote:*   

> CONFIG_WIRELESS_EXT=y
> 
> CONFIG_NET_WIRELESS_RTNETLINK=y
> 
> CONFIG_NET_WIRELESS=y
> ...

 

I re-emerge wireless-tools. In the meantime, i tried also ndiswrapper with original windows driver but ndiswrapper seems also very buggy. at least for my machine ...

```
ndiswrapper -l
```

shows:  *Quote:*   

> neta504 : invalid driver!
> 
> 

 

Thanks for helping me!

----------

## NeddySeagoon

ritzdank,

From memory, its

```
iwconfig eth1 essid="MYESSID"
```

I'll need to start my laptop if that fails.

----------

## defenderBG

what is the output of iwconfig, ifconfig -a because your eth1 is NOT your wireless, when using ndiswrapper it is normally wlan0 or wifi0...

@NeddySeagoon: it is iwconfig <interface> essid <essid>

----------

## ritzdank

@neddy

 *Quote:*   

> iwconfig eth1 essid="MYESSID"

 

outputs:

 *Quote:*   

> Error : unrecognised wireless request "essid=myESSID"

 

So the "=" is definitely not right.

@defenderBG

my output of iwconfig looks like following:

 *Quote:*   

> eth0      no wireless extensions.
> 
> lo        no wireless extensions.
> 
> eth1      IEEE 802.11-DS  ESSID:""  
> ...

 

----------

## ritzdank

Trying different things and getting crazy occcassionally, i once again fiddled around with ndiswrapper, finding the correct driver AFAIK:

i installed the driver with ndiswrapper -i ****.inf

```
ndiswrapper -l
```

 *Quote:*   

> netx500 : driver installed

 

so, dmesg|tail shows just

 *Quote:*   

> ndiswrapper version 1.33 loaded (preempt=yes,smp=no)

 

but it doesnt assign a hardware interface for the module. dmesg should look sthg like:

 *Quote:*   

> ....
> 
> wlan0: ndiswrapper ethernet device xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx

 

But, again, i doubt that the error is my driver. The card worked fine for the last half year on my system. Should i try do downgrade wireless-tools to another version? My hardware is Cisco Mini-PCI 350 and according to lspci:

 *Quote:*   

> 01:02.0 Network controller: AIRONET Wireless Communications Cisco Aironet Wireless 802.11b

 

my /etc/conf.d/net looks:

 *Quote:*   

> modules_eth1=( "iwconfig" )
> 
> config_eth1=( "dhcp" )
> 
> mode_eth1="Managed"
> ...

 

I tried connecting on wind00$ and that worked fine, so for 100% there is no bug in connecting to AP (mac-filter or wep-issues!)

thanks

----------

## defenderBG

why do u have 2 wireless adapters??? eth1 and wifi0?

do u have 2 wireless cards?

how did u install the 2 cards?? can u pls post the interesting info from lsmod

the second post is odd... did u try ifconfig -a?

edit: forget the eth1... it looks like it is now wlan0!

----------

## ritzdank

No, i dont have 2wireless cards and i am not sure why wifi0 is showing up. Neither why is installed. My system was working with eth1 as wireless adapter:

```
ifconfig -a                                                                [1736]

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:09:6B:A0:6E:73  

          inet addr:192.168.0.103  Bcast:192.168.0.255  Mask:255.255.255.0

          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1

          RX packets:178777 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0

          TX packets:121008 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0

          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 

          RX bytes:138686716 (132.2 Mb)  TX bytes:14939434 (14.2 Mb)

eth1      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:02:8A:25:29:D8  

          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1

          RX packets:0 errors:3187 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:3187

          TX packets:13 errors:9 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0

          collisions:137 txqueuelen:1000 

          RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:2598 (2.5 Kb)

          Interrupt:11 Base address:0x7000 

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  

          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0

          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1

          RX packets:63376 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0

          TX packets:63376 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0

          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 

          RX bytes:66215093 (63.1 Mb)  TX bytes:66215093 (63.1 Mb)

tunl0     Link encap:IPIP Tunnel  HWaddr   

          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)

wifi0     Link encap:UNSPEC  HWaddr 00-02-8A-25-29-D8-0B-53-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00  

          BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:2312  Metric:1

          RX packets:0 errors:3187 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:3187

          TX packets:13 errors:9 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0

          collisions:137 txqueuelen:100 

          RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:2598 (2.5 Kb)

          Interrupt:11 Base address:0x7000 

```

after running ifconfig eth1 down

```
iwconfig                                                                   [1738]

eth0      no wireless extensions.

lo        no wireless extensions.

eth1      IEEE 802.11-DS  ESSID:""  

          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.412 GHz  Access Point: Invalid   

          Bit Rate:11 Mb/s   Tx-Power=off   Sensitivity=0/65535  

          Retry limit:16   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off

          Encryption key:off

          Power Management:off

          Link Quality=1/100  Signal level=-98 dBm  Noise level=-100 dBm

          Rx invalid nwid:5360  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0

          Tx excessive retries:100  Invalid misc:6015   Missed beacon:1

wifi0     IEEE 802.11-DS  ESSID:""  

          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.412 GHz  Access Point: Invalid   

          Bit Rate:11 Mb/s   Tx-Power=off   Sensitivity=0/65535  

          Retry limit:16   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off

          Encryption key:off

          Power Management:off

          Link Quality=1/100  Signal level=-98 dBm  Noise level=-100 dBm

          Rx invalid nwid:5360  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0

          Tx excessive retries:100  Invalid misc:6015   Missed beacon:1

tunl0     no wireless extensions.

```

and then ifconfig eth1 up

```
iwconfig                                                                   [1740]

eth0      no wireless extensions.

lo        no wireless extensions.

eth1      IEEE 802.11-DS  ESSID:""  

          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.412 GHz  Access Point: Invalid   

          Bit Rate:11 Mb/s   Tx-Power=off   Sensitivity=0/65535  

          Retry limit:16   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off

          Encryption key:off

          Power Management:off

          Link Quality=1/100  Signal level=-98 dBm  Noise level=-100 dBm

          Rx invalid nwid:5360  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0

          Tx excessive retries:100  Invalid misc:6015   Missed beacon:1

wifi0     IEEE 802.11-DS  ESSID:""  

          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.412 GHz  Access Point: Invalid   

          Bit Rate:11 Mb/s   Tx-Power=off   Sensitivity=0/65535  

          Retry limit:16   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off

          Encryption key:off

          Power Management:off

          Link Quality=1/100  Signal level=-98 dBm  Noise level=-100 dBm

          Rx invalid nwid:5360  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0

          Tx excessive retries:100  Invalid misc:6015   Missed beacon:1

tunl0     no wireless extensions.

```

why do u ask for lsmod? my driver for my aironet card is built in:

```
cat /usr/src/linux/.config|grep AIRO                                       [1741]

CONFIG_AIRO=y

CONFIG_AIRO_CS=m

```

But thank you for trying to help me! I really appreciate as i was spending a whole day in freaking out with this network card without any solution!

----------

