# Authentication Timeout wpa_supplicant with rt2860sta

## electrojustin

Completely new to Gentoo and trying to use it to make a server out of a relatively old computer. I've got it to boot (no small feat when you only have DVDs and the computer only has a CD-ROM drive), but I've run into a snag trying to set up wpa_supplicant to connect to my network through my wifi card. After initializing the driver, a new interface appears called ra0. I linked net.ra0 to net.lo, configured wpa_supplicant.conf and /etc/conf.d/net to connect to my network, started dhcpcd, and ran /etc/init.d/net.ra0 start and get the following warning:

```
WARNING: ra0 has started, but is inactive
```

Running wpa_cli or dmesg reveals some more errors:

```
Association request to the driver failed

Authentication timed out
```

My chipset is rt2860. Searching the internet reveals a lot of trouble with that chipset and linux, especially with WPA, but I don't exactly have another one lying around. Any advice?

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## BillWho

electrojustin,

Welcome to gentoo   :Very Happy: 

Did you enable the kernel setting RT2800PCI   :Question: 

-> Device Drivers

-> Network device support

-> Wireless LAN

-> Ralink driver support

You can remove the net.ra0 symlink   :Wink: 

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## electrojustin

I did not, however I did get the driver from the manufacturer's website. Unfortunately, after doing some research it seems it was only meant for Kernels 2.6 and 2.7, nothing newer. In the end I put the wifi card in another box actually running 2.6.32-5 and started searching for another wifi card. Thanks for the help though! Quick question for future reference, what exactly is the symlink for, anyway?

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## BillWho

 *electrojustin wrote:*   

> I did not, however I did get the driver from the manufacturer's website. Unfortunately, after doing some research it seems it was only meant for Kernels 2.6 and 2.7, nothing newer. In the end I put the wifi card in another box actually running 2.6.32-5 and started searching for another wifi card. Thanks for the help though! Quick question for future reference, what exactly is the symlink for, anyway?

 

That's because the newer kernels directly support ralink network devices.  In short the symlink to net.lo will start any newtork device e.g. eth0, eth1, wlan0 etc.

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