(DWA-556) Atheros AR5008/Master mode

[sanemanmad]

Sure, Let's see iwconfig

Then look for wlan0 or ath0
then in terminal, which is where you will use those other commands;

iwlist "wlan0/ath0" scanning

[areamike]

#iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.
eth0 no wireless extensions.
pan0 no wireless extensions.

#iwlist "wlan0/ath0" scanning
wlan0/ath0 Interface doesn't support scanning.

Funny thing also is in my /etc/network/interfaces file, there is nothign listed about ath0.

[sanemanmad]

I do recommend for a much faster resolution, you should open a new thread. [It will show up as a new post and will receive many more views and responses]

[sanemanmad]

#iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.
eth0 no wireless extensions.
pan0 no wireless extensions.

#iwlist "wlan0/ath0" scanning
wlan0/ath0 Interface doesn't support scanning.

Funny thing also is in my /etc/network/interfaces file, there is nothign listed about ath0.

Are you sure the drivers are loaded? Also I meant for only one option wlan0 or ath0

"lsmod|grep ath"

[areamike]

Are you sure the drivers are loaded? Also I meant for only one option wlan0 or ath0

"lsmod|grep ath"

I'll start another thread.


New thread started here:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1068917

[sanemanmad]

Ok I have managed to get this adapter to work in Master mode using the standard madwifi drivers "ath".

Do the following:

sudo vi /etc/modprobe.d/madwifi

add this line options ath_pci autocreate=ap

sudo modprobe ath_pci
sudo ifconfig ath0 up
iwconfig ath0 should show "mode: Master"
sudo iwconfig ath0 essid "YOUR_WIRELESS_NAME" key "0123456789"

Otherwise you will want to reboot. If needing to adjoin multiple networks, the use of bridge-utils may be required also.

[Brezhonneg]

Hi there,

For the record, I just managed to set this board up (DWA-556) as an AP using hostapd and ath9k. This required bleeding edge packages, but if anyone is interested, here is how I did:

1/ I used a fresh and updated Jaunty alpha 5 server install
2/ The wireless-crda package comes installed by default and you need to take care of this bug if you have version <=1.6 for this package. I guess that should be fixed with next versions.
3/ I installed the Debian sid iw package, since an iw package is not provided by Ubuntu yet. So wget and 'dpkg -i' are your friends here.
4/ I installed libln1 (this one is in the repos)
5/ I also needed a fresh ath9k provided by the linux-backports-modules-`uname -r` package. Make sure to reboot after this installation (or to play with modprobe a bit).
6/ And last but not least, I grabbed a recent hostapd packaged in this ppa.

I actually found the list of required packages on this page, but managed to avoid the 'compile them all' approach. As you can see, I only used deb's. The ppa I used for hostapd does not provide the latest hostapd version, but this version seems to be sufficient.

Fiddle with hostapd.conf a little et voila. I can see the AP from my eee pc. There is no DHCP server running on that machine yet so I have not tried to connect yet (well, I have and that went well until the point where the eee requested an IP...), so I cannot confirm if this actually works and at what speed but this seems promising.

Cheers

EDIT: the hostapd package provided by the PPA I mentioned did not fire up the daemon at boot for me. This is because the init script refers to a $RUN_DAEMON variable that was not defined in my environment. Anyways, if you have this problem, just edit /etc/init.d/hostapd and add RUN_DAEMON=yes below the INIT INFO block.

EDIT2: next time I will open my eyes and read... the correct way to make the daemoon start at boot is to edit /etc/default/hostapd and uncomment the RUN_DAEMON=yes line. D'uh

[Brezhonneg]

Alright, I am back to complete my report...

Since my first post, iw has been included in Jaunty repos, the crda bug was fixed and the ppa was updated to the latest hostapd (0.6.8). So any fresh install should be just smooth and easy now.

Everything works very well for me, and I can connect with WPA2 and MAC filtering, everything I wanted. My download speed from my eee is capped at 13-14 Mbps (1.7MB/s) on FTP, but then I am not sure if the AP is limiting, or if the limit is reached on the eee (which is still drived by ath5k on crunchbang 8.10). I'll know more when I upgrade the eee to Jaunty, but till then, I can do with what I have.

I hope this can help anybody who would like to go down this road.

Have fun!

[bastler]

Hi There!

I too am in the middle of setting up an AP with an Atheros AR5008 card on Jaunty using Ath9k, and I've run into a strange problem.

Thanks to your posts here I managed to get hostapd up and running, it detects the card, puts it in access point mode, fires it up, handles encryption and everything. Both ifconfig and iwconfig output look normal (I don't see an essid in iwconfig output any more, but I'm told that's by design when using the 80211-driver).

when looking at the logs I can see the card receiving probe requests for SSID broadcasts from my laptop. The only problem is it cannot connect!

no matter wether I tell hostapd to show or hide the ssid, the network does not appear in the list of available networks on the stations, and when manually connecting to the access point it just times out...

Has anyone else ever had this problem and knows a solution to it?


running jaunty stable on 2-6-28.11-generic x86_64 with the newest packages I could get my hands on...

[Brezhonneg]

Hi Bastler,

There are dozens of different issues that could give these symptoms... It could be related to hostapd, to your dhcp config, to your AP firewall, to your client firewall, to your client WiFi driver...

I guess you should first try to disable any security or encryption protocols in hostapd, go for a static IP (no dhcp), shut down your firewalls and investigate from here. If you get a connexion, then turn those components back on one by one. Otherwise, run hostapd in verbose mode and see if you can spot any useful message.

In any event, I am affraid that nobody will really be able to provide you with valuable advice until you narrow down the source of your problem a little.

Best of luck!