OK, this is more of a pense-bete to myself than anything else. To get WPA v1 working under Xubuntu Feisty with my WPC54G v3 wireless card, I used the following guides:
To install the wireless card: https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=197102
To add WPA: https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=202834
The step by step version is as follows.
Installing the wireless card
1. Download this file to the desktop: https://ubuntuforums.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=30908&d=1177587401
2. Extract the file and run the setup:
cd ~/Desktop
tar -xf bcm4318*.tar.gz
sudo ./ndiswrapper_setup
At this point, the wireless card should be installed correctly. This can be verified as follows:
3. This should display some info about your wireless network interface, probably called ‘wlan0′
nick@nick-laptop:~$ iwconfig
wlan0 IEEE 802.11g ESSID:xxx
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.437 GHz Access Point: 00:14:BF:3D:xx:xx
Bit Rate=54 Mb/s Tx-Power:25 dBm
RTS thr=2347 B Fragment thr=2346 B
Power Management:off
Link Quality:73/100 Signal level:-49 dBm Noise level:-96 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0
4. This should return a list of wireless networks in your vicinity, including the one you want to connect to:
nick@nick-laptop:~/Desktop$ iwlist scan
wlan0 Scan completed :
Cell 01 - Address: 00:11:50:84:1F:F4
ESSID:"espresso"
Protocol:IEEE 802.11g
Mode:Managed
Frequency:2.462 GHz (Channel 11)
Quality:60/100 Signal level:-57 dBm Noise level:-96 dBm
Encryption key:on
Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s; 22 Mb/s
6 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s; 12 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s; 24 Mb/s
36 Mb/s; 48 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s
Extra:bcn_int=100
Extra:atim=0
Adding WPA
1. From the wireless access point, make sure of the following:
- WPA security is enabled using WPA-Personal Shared Key (WPA-PSK)
- The WPA encryption algorithm is set to TKIP (not AES)
- You have a note of the SSID (wireless network name) and the PSK (shared key) - here, we will use ‘expresso’ for the SSID and ‘hohohoho’ as an (insecure) PSK example
2. Make sure wpasupplicant is installed:
sudo apt-get install wpasupplicant
3. Convert your PSK as follows:
wpa_passphrase 'your essid' 'your ascii PSK key'
In our example:
nick@nick-laptop:~/Desktop$ wpa_passphrase 'expresso' 'hohohoho'
network={
ssid="expresso"
#psk="hohohoho"
psk=57245dfdd9663e8c9792bfe9a15f41f07cc34a57bd1fc91f2820e3302dbfa7d1
}
4. Open /etc/network/interfaces for editing:
sudo mousepad /etc/network/interfaces
5. Find the lines that look as follows:
auto wlan0
iface wlan0 inet dhcp
Replace as follows:
auto wlan0
iface wlan0 inet dhcp
wpa-driver wext
wpa-ssid <your ssid>
wpa-ap-scan 1 #this assumes SSID broadcast is enabled - set to 2 if SSID broadcast is disabled
wpa-proto WPA
wpa-pairwise TKIP
wpa-group TKIP
wpa-key-mgmt WPA-PSK
wpa-psk <your hex key>
In our example:
auto wlan0
iface wlan0 inet dhcp
wpa-driver wext
wpa-ssid expresso
wpa-ap-scan 1
wpa-proto WPA
wpa-pairwise TKIP
wpa-group TKIP
wpa-key-mgmt WPA-PSK
wpa-psk 57245dfdd9663e8c9792bfe9a15f41f07cc34a57bd1fc91f2820e3302dbfa7d1
6. Make sure any ethernet cables are unplugged, and restart the network interfaces:
sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart
At this point, WIFI should be working with WPA enabled… For further reference regarding different WPA configurations, the WPA guide on the Ubuntu forums is excellent.