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Revision as of 21:42, 14 July 2013
zh-CN:Wireless Setup Template:Article summary start Template:Article summary text Template:Article summary heading Template:Article summary text Template:Article summary end
Configuring wireless is a two-part process; the first part is to identify and ensure the correct driver for your wireless device is installed (they are available on the installation media, so make sure you install them), and to configure the interface. The second is choosing a method of managing wireless connections. This article covers both parts, and provides additional links to wireless management tools.
About new Arch Linux systems: Most wireless drivers and tools are available during Arch set-up under the base group. Be sure to install the proper driver for your card. Udev will usually load the appropriate module, thereby creating the wireless interface, in the initial live system of the installer, as well as the newly installed system on your hard drive. If you are configuring your wireless functionality after, and not during, Arch Linux installation, simply ensure the required packages are installed with pacman, (driver, firmware if needed, wireless_tools, iw, wpa_supplicant, etc.) and follow the guidelines below. Note that wireless_tools may be optional depending on how recent your wireless hardware is.
Contents
- 1 Part I: Identify Card/Install Driver
- 1.1 Identify and Discover if Supported
- 1.2 Install user space tools
- 1.3 Drivers and firmware
- 1.3.1 rt2860 and rt2870
- 1.3.2 rt3090
- 1.3.3 rt3290
- 1.3.4 rt2x00
- 1.3.5 rt3573
- 1.3.6 rt5572
- 1.3.7 w322u
- 1.3.8 rtl8180
- 1.3.9 rtl8187
- 1.3.10 rtl8192cu
- 1.3.11 rtl8192e
- 1.3.12 rtl8192s
- 1.3.13 madwifi-ng
- 1.3.14 ath5k
- 1.3.15 ath9k
- 1.3.16 ath9k_htc
- 1.3.17 ipw2100 and ipw2200
- 1.3.18 iwl3945, iwl4965 and iwl5000-series
- 1.3.19 orinoco
- 1.3.20 ndiswrapper
- 1.3.21 prism54
- 1.3.22 ACX100/111
- 1.3.23 b43, broadcom-wl and brcmsmac (previously brcm80211)
- 1.3.24 zd1211rw
- 1.3.25 carl9170
- 1.3.26 hostap_cs
- 1.3.27 compat-drivers-patched
- 1.4 Test installation
- 2 Part II: Wireless management
- 3 Power saving
- 4 See also
- 5 External links
Part I: Identify Card/Install Driver
Identify and Discover if Supported
First you will need to check and see if the Linux kernel has support for your card or if a user-space driver is available for it.
Identify your card
You can find your card type by command:
# lspci | grep -i net
Or, if you have a USB device, run:
# lsusb
Discover if the card is supported
- The Ubuntu Wiki has a good list of wireless cards and whether or not they are supported either in the Linux kernel or by a user-space driver (includes driver name).
- Linux Wireless Support and The Linux Questions' Hardware Compatibility List (HCL) also have a good database of kernel-friendly hardware.
- The kernel page additionally has a matrix of supported hardware.
If your card is not listed
If your wireless hardware is not listed above, likely it is supported only under Windows (some Broadcom, 3com, etc). For these, you will need to use ndiswrapper.
Ndiswrapper is a wrapper script that allows you to use some Windows drivers in Linux. See the compatibility list here. You will need the .inf
and .sys
files from your Windows install. If you have a newer card, or a more exotic card, you might want to look up your exact model name and 'linux' and search the Internet before doing this step.
Install user space tools
If you have wired Internet access available
If you have wired Ethernet available and are simply adding wireless functionality to an existing system, and you did not include wireless_tools during initial installation, then install the package wireless_tools.
The drivers' corresponding package names are either highlighted in bold or via monospaced font
on this page. The packages can be installed during initial package selection on the Arch Linux installation media and can also be installed later.
If you have only wireless internet available
The wireless_tools package is now available as part of the base system and is also on the live installation media (CD/USB stick image) under the base-devel group.
You cannot initialize wireless hardware without these user-space tools, so ensure they are installed from the installer media, especially if you have no means of networking other than wirelessly. Otherwise, you will be stuck in a "catch 22" when you reboot your newly installed Arch Linux system: you will need wireless_tools and drivers, but in order to get them, you will need wireless_tools and drivers.
Drivers and firmware
The default Arch Linux kernel is modular, meaning many of the drivers for machine hardware reside on the hard drive and are available as modules. At boot, udev takes an inventory of your hardware. Udev will load appropriate modules (drivers) for your corresponding hardware, and the driver, in turn, will allow creation of a kernel interface.
The interface name for different drivers and chipsets will vary. Some examples are wlan0, eth1, and ath0.
modprobe
it and add the module name in a .conf
file in /etc/modules-load.d/
. Note also that udev may occasionally load more than one driver for a device, and the resulting conflict will prevent successful configuration. Be sure to blacklist the unwanted module.Methods and procedures for installing kernel modules for various chipsets are covered below. In addition, certain chipsets require the installation of corresponding firmware (also covered below). Read Kernel modules for general informations on operations with modules.
rt2860 and rt2870
From Linux kernel 3.0, the staging driver rt2860sta
is replaced by the mainline driver rt2800pci
, and rt2870sta
is replaced by rt2800usb
. As a result, the staging drivers are deleted. Source: Kernel commit. The rt2800 driver automatically works with devices using the rt2870 chipset.
It has a wide range of options that can be configured with iwpriv
. These are documented in the source tarballs available from Ralink.
rt3090
For devices which are using the rt3090 chipset it should be possible to use rt2860sta
driver. The mainline driver rt2800pci
is not working with this chipset very well (e.g. sometimes it's not possible to use higher rate than 2Mb/s).
The best way is to use the rt3090AUR driver from AUR. Compile the rt3090AUR driver from AUR, delete/move the /etc/Wireless/RT2860STA/RT2860STA.dat firmware file to allow installation of the compiled RT3090 package, blacklist the rt2860sta module and setup the rt3090sta module to load at boot.
Note: This driver also works for rt3062 chipsets.
rt3290
The rt3290 chipset is recognised by the kernel rt2800pci
module. However, some users experience problems and reverting to a patched Ralink driver seems to be beneficial in these cases.
rt2x00
Unified driver for Ralink chipsets (replaces rt2500
, rt61
, rt73
, etc). This driver has been in the Linux kernel since 2.6.24, but some devices may require extra firmware. It can be configured using the standard wpa_supplicant and iwconfig
tools.
Some chips require a firmware file, which is installed by default in Arch Linux via the package linux-firmware.
See: Using the new rt2x00 beta driver
rt3573
New chipset as of 2012. It may require proprietary drivers from Ralink. Different manufacturers use it, see Belkin N750 example
rt5572
New chipset as of 2012 with support for 5 Ghz bands. It may require proprietary drivers from Ralink and some effort to compile them. At the time of writing a how-to on compilation is available for a DLINK DWA-160 rev. B2 here.
w322u
Treat this Tenda card as an rt2870sta
device. See: rt2870
rtl8180
Realtek rtl8180 PCI/Cardbus 802.11b is now fully supported in the kernel. It can be configured using the standard wpa_supplicant and iwconfig
tools.
rtl8187
See: rtl8187
rtl8192cu
The driver is now in the kernel, but many users have reported being unable to make a connection although scanning for networks does work.
The dkms-8192cuAUR package in the AUR may be a better choice for some users.
rtl8192e
The driver is part of the current kernel package. It can be configured using the standard wpa_supplicant and iwconfig
tools.
Module initialization fails
The module initialization may fail at boot giving this error message :
rtl819xE:ERR in CPUcheck_firmware_ready() rtl819xE:ERR in init_firmware() step 2 rtl819xE:ERR!!! _rtl8192_up(): initialization is failed! r8169 0000:03:00.0: eth0: link down
A workaround is to simply unload the module:
# modprobe -r r8192e_pci
and reload the module (after a pause):
# modprobe r8192e_pci
rtl8192s
The driver is part of the current kernel package. Firmware may need to be added manually if /usr/lib/firmware/RTL8192SU/rtl8192sfw.bin
does not exist. (dmesg
will report "rtl819xU:FirmwareRequest92S(): failed" if the firmware is missing)
To download and install firmware:
$ wget http://launchpadlibrarian.net/33927923/rtl8192se_linux_2.6.0010.1012.2009.tar.gz # mkdir /lib/firmware/RTL8192SU # tar -xzOf rtl8192se_linux_2.6.0010.1012.2009.tar.gz \ rtl8192se_linux_2.6.0010.1012.2009/firmware/RTL8192SE/rtl8192sfw.bin > \ /lib/firmware/RTL8192SU/rtl8192sfw.bin
madwifi-ng
There are three modules maintained by the MadWifi team:
-
ath_pci
is the older driver. -
ath5k
will eventually phase outath_pci
. Currently a better choice for some chipsets, but not all chipsets are supported (see below) -
ath9k
is the new, official, superior driver for newer Atheros hardware (see below)
For old ath_pci
driver, install package madwifiAUR and optionally madwifi-utils-svnAUR. Then:
# modprobe ath_pci
If using ath_pci
, you may need to blacklist ath5k
. See Kernel_modules#Blacklisting for instructions.
Some users may need to use the countrycode
option when loading the MadWifi driver in order to use channels and transmit power settings that are legal in their country/region. In the Netherlands, for example, you would load the module like this:
# modprobe ath_pci countrycode=528
You can verify the settings with the iwlist
command. See man iwlist
and the CountryCode page on the MadWifi wiki. To have this setting automatically applied during boot, refer to Kernel_modules#Configuration, and note the following module option setting:
options ath_pci countrycode=528
ath5k
ath5k
is the preferred driver for AR5xxx chipsets including those which are already working with madwifi-ng
and for some chipsets older than AR5xxx.
If ath5k
is conflicting with ath_pci
on your system, blacklist (and unload using rmmod
or reboot) the following drivers:
ath_hal ath_pci ath_rate_amrr ath_rate_onoe ath_rate_sample wlan wlan_acl wlan_ccmp wlan_scan_ap wlan_scan_sta wlan_tkip wlan_wep wlan_xauth
then modprobe ath5k
manually or reboot. wlan0 (or wlanX) in sta mode should spawn and become ready to use.
If the device is unable to lease an IP after being loaded, try modprobe ath5k nohwcrypt=1
. See below for details about the nohwcrypt option.
Info:
echo none > "/sys/class/leds/ath5k-phy0::tx/trigger" echo none > "/sys/class/leds/ath5k-phy0::rx/trigger"For alternatives, look here.
rmmod ath5k modprobe ath5k nohwcrypt
And restart your connection. If it helps, make the change permanent by adding into /etc/modprobe.d/010-ath5k.conf
:
options ath5k nohwcryptMore about modprobe options: Modprobe#Options
ath9k
ath9k
is Atheros' officially supported driver for the newer 802.11n chipsets. All of the chips with 802.11n capabilities are supported, with a maximum throughput around 180 Mbps. To see a complete list of supported hardware, check this page.
Working modes: Station, AP and Adhoc.
ath9k
has been part of the Linux kernel as of v2.6.27. (In the unlikely event that you have stability issues that trouble you, you could try using the compat-wireless package.
An ath9k mailing list exists for support and development related discussions.)
Info:
ath9k_htc
ath9k_htc
is Atheros' officially supported driver for 802.11n USB devices. Station and Ad-Hoc modes are supported. The driver is included in the kernel. For more information, see http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/ath9k_htc .
ipw2100 and ipw2200
These modules are fully supported in the kernel, but they require additional firmware. It can be configured using the standard wpa_supplicant and iwconfig
tools.
Depending on which of the chipsets you have, install either ipw2100-fw or ipw2200-fw.
If installing after initial Arch Linux installation, the module may need to be reloaded for the firmware to be loaded; run the following as root:
rmmod ipw2200 modprobe ipw2200
Enabling the radiotap interface
Launch the following as root:
rmmod ipw2200 modprobe ipw2200 rtap_iface=1
Enabling the LED
Most laptops will have a front LED to indicate when the wireless is connected (or not). Add the following to /etc/modprobe.d/ipw2200.conf
:
options ipw2200 led=1
iwl3945, iwl4965 and iwl5000-series
Intel's open source Wi-Fi drivers for Linux (See iwlwifi) will work for both the 3945 and 4965 chipsets since kernel 2.6.24. And iwl5000-series chipsets (including 5100BG, 5100ABG, 5100AGN, 5300AGN and 5350AGN) have been supported since kernel 2.6.27, by the in-tree driver iwlagn.
Since the 2.6.34 kernel update, the firmware files were moved to the linux-firmware
package. Manually installing firmware packages is not required.
Loading the Driver
udev should load the driver automatically. To manually load the driver at start-up, read Kernel modules#Loading, and add iwl3945
or iwl4965
respectively to the new file. For example:
# Load Intel Wi-Fi modules iwl3945
The drivers should now load after a reboot, and running ip addr
from a terminal should report wlan0 as a new network interface.
Disabling LED blink
The default settings on the module are to have the LED blink on activity. Some people find this extremely annoying. To have the LED on solid when Wi-Fi is active:
# echo 'w /sys/class/leds/phy0-led/trigger - - - - phy0radio' > /etc/tmpfiles.d/phy0-led.conf # systemd-tmpfiles --create phy0-led.conf
To see all the possible trigger values for this LED:
# cat /sys/class/leds/phy0-led/trigger
Here is an example for the old way, if you do not have /sys/class/leds/phy0-led
:
# echo "options iwlcore led_mode=1" >> /etc/modprobe.d/modprobe.conf # rmmod iwlagn # rmmod iwlcore # modprobe iwlcore # modprobe iwlagn
On Linux kernels 2.6.39.1-1 and up, the iwlcore
module was deprecated. Use options iwlagn led_mode=1
or options iwl_legacy led_mode=1
instead (find out what module is loaded with lsmod
).
options iwlegacy led_mode=1
.Other Notes
- The MS Windows NETw4x32 driver can be used with ndiswrapper as an alternative to the
iwl3945
andipw3945
drivers. - In some cases (specifically a Dell Latitude D620 with Arch 2008.06, though it could happen elsewhere), after installation you may have both
iwl3945
andipw3945
modules loaded. The card will not work with both modules loaded, so you will have to blacklist theipw3945
module. - By default,
iwl3945
is configured to only work with networks on channels 1-11. Higher frequency bands are not allowed in some parts of the world (e.g. the US). In the EU however, channels 12 and 13 are used quite commonly (and Japan allows for channel 14). To makeiwl3945
scan for all channels, addoptions cfg80211 ieee80211_regdom=EU
to/etc/modprobe.d/modprobe.conf
. Withiwlist f
you can check which channels are allowed. - If you want to enable more channels on Intel Wifi 5100 (and quite possible other cards too), you can do that with the crda package. After installing the package, edit
/etc/conf.d/wireless-regdom
and uncomment the line where your country code is found. When executingsudo iwlist wlan0 channel
, you should now have access to more channels (depending on your location).
orinoco
This should be a part of the kernel package and be installed already.
orinoco
driver and gain WPA support. See this post for more information.To use the driver, blacklist orinoco_cs
, and then add wlags49_h1_cs
.
ndiswrapper
Ndiswrapper is not a real driver, but you can use it when there are no native Linux kernel drivers for your wireless chipset, so it is very useful in some situations. To use it, you need the *.inf
file from your Windows driver (the *.sys
file must also be present in the same directory). Be sure to use drivers appropriate to your architecture (e.g. 32/64bit). If you need to extract these files from an *.exe
file, you can use cabextract.
Follow these steps to configure ndiswrapper.
1. Install the driver to /etc/ndiswrapper/*
ndiswrapper -i filename.inf
2. List all installed drivers for ndiswrapper
ndiswrapper -l
3. Write configuration file in /etc/modprobe.d/ndiswrapper.conf
ndiswrapper -m depmod -a
Now the ndiswrapper install is almost finished; follow the instructions on Kernel modules#Loading to automatically load the module at boot.
The important part is making sure that ndiswrapper exists on this line, so just add it alongside the other modules. It would be best to test that ndiswrapper will load now, so:
modprobe ndiswrapper iwconfig
and wlan0 should now exist. Check this page if you are having problems: Ndiswrapper installation wiki.
prism54
Download the firmware driver for your appropriate card from this site. Rename the firmware file to isl3890
.
If non-existent, create the directory /usr/lib/firmware
and move the file isl3890
inside it. This should do the trick. [1]
If that did not work, try this:
- Reload the prism module (
modprobe p54usb
ormodprobe p54pci
, depending on your hardware)
Alternatively, remove your Wi-Fi card and then reconnect it.
- Use the
dmesg
command, and look at the end of the output it prints out.
Look for a section similar to this:
firmware: requesting isl3887usb_bare p54: LM86 firmware p54: FW rev 2.5.8.0 - Softmac protocol 3.0
and try renaming the firmware file to the name corresponding to the part bolded here.
If you get the message
SIOCSIFFLAGS: Operation not permitted
when performing ip link set wlan0 up
OR
prism54: Your card/socket may be faulty, or IRQ line too busy :(
appears in dmesg
's output this may be because you have both the deprecated kernel module prism54
and one of the newer kernel modules (p54pci
or p54usb
) loaded at the same time and they are fighting over ownership of the IRQ. Use the command lsmod | grep prism54
to see if the deprecated module is being loaded. If so, you need to stop prism54
from loading by blacklisting it (there are several ways to do this which are described elsewhere). Once blacklisted, you may find you have to rename the firmware as prism54
and p54pci
/p54usb
look for different firmware filenames (i.e. recheck the dmesg
output after performing ip link set eth0 up
).
ACX100/111
Packages: tiacx
tiacx-firmware
The driver should tell you which firmware it needs; check /var/log/messages.log
or use the dmesg
command.
Link the appropriate firmware to /usr/lib/firmware
:
ln -s /usr/share/tiacx/acx111_2.3.1.31/tiacx111c16 /usr/lib/firmware
For another way to determine which firmware revision number to use, see the "Which firmware" section of the acx100.sourceforge wiki. For ACX100, you can follow the links provided there to a table of card model numbers vs. "firmware files known to work"; you can figure out the rev. number you need, by looking at the suffix there. For example, a dlink_dwl650+ uses "1.9.8.b", in which case you would do this:
ln -s /usr/share/tiacx/acx100_1.9.8.b/* /usr/lib/firmware
If you find that the driver is spamming your kernel log, for example because you are running Kismet with channel-hopping, you could put this in /etc/modprobe.d/modprobe.conf
:
options acx debug=0
acx
driver does not support WPA/RSN encryption. Ndiswrapper will have to be used with the Windows driver to enable the enhanced encryption. See ndiswrapper, this page, for more details.b43, broadcom-wl and brcmsmac (previously brcm80211)
See the Broadcom wireless page.
zd1211rw
zd1211rw
is a driver for the ZyDAS ZD1211 802.11b/g USB WLAN chipset, and it is included in recent versions of the Linux kernel. See [2] for a list of supported devices. You only need to install the firmware for the device, provided by the zd1211-firmware package.
carl9170
carl9170
is the 802.11n USB driver with GPLv2 firmware for Atheros USB AR9170 devices. It supports these devices. The firmware is not yet part of the linux-firmware package; it is available in the AUR (carl9170-fwAUR). The driver is a part of the Linux kernel v2.6.37 and higher.
In order to use this driver, the following older driver modules must be blacklisted:
arusb_lnx
ar9170usb
hostap_cs
Host AP is the Linux driver for Prism2/2.5/3 like WCP11. hostap_cs
should be a part of the linux
package and should be installed already.
orinico_cs
can cause problems, so it must be blacklisted. After blacklisting, the driver should work.
More information:Home page
compat-drivers-patched
Patched compat wireless drivers correct the "fixed-channel -1" issue, whilst providing better injection. Please install the compat-drivers-patchedAUR package from the AUR.
compat-drivers-patchedAUR does not conflict with any other package and the modules built reside in /usr/lib/modules/your_kernel_version/updates
.
These patched drivers come from the Linux Wireless project and support many of the above mentioned chips such as:
ath5k ath9k_htc carl9170 b43 zd1211rw rt2x00 wl1251 wl12xx ath6kl brcm80211
Supported groups:
atheros ath iwlagn rtl818x rtlwifi wl12xx atlxx bt
It is also possible to build a specific module/driver or a group of drivers by editing the PKGBUILD, particularly uncommenting the line #46. Here is an example of building the atheros group:
scripts/driver-select atheros
Please read the package's PKGBUILD for any other possible modifications prior to compilation and installation.
Test installation
After loading your driver, run ip link
to ensure a wireless interface (e.g. wlanX, ethX, athX) is created.
If no such interface is visible, modprobing it might work. To start your driver, use the rmmod
and modprobe
commands. If rmmod
fails, continue with modprobe
. See Kernel modules for more info.
Example: If your driver is called "driverXXX", you would run the following commands:
# rmmod driverXXX # modprobe driverXXX
Bring the interface up with ip link set <interface> up
. For example, assuming the interface is wlan0:
# ip link set wlan0 up
If you get this error message: SIOCSIFFLAGS: No such file or directory
, it most certainly means your wireless chipset requires a firmware to function, which you need to install as explained above.
Part II: Wireless management
Assuming that your drivers are installed and working properly, you will need to choose a method for managing your wireless connections. The following subsections will help you decide the best way to do just that.
Procedure and tools required will depend on several factors:
- The desired nature of configuration management; from a completely manual command line setup procedure to a software-managed, automated solution.
- The encryption type (or lack thereof) which protects the wireless network.
- The need for network profiles, if the computer will frequently change networks (such as a laptop).
The manual method requires more work from you, but gives you much more control over your configuration. Usually you will have to enter a set of commands which have no persistant effect, i.e. they won't apply after a reboot. Either you enter those commands on every boot which may be quite cumbersome, or you put all these commands in a shell script to automate the process. This script can even be executed automatically at boot time. See Arch Boot Process.
Management methods
The following table shows the different methods that can be used to activate and manage a wireless network connection, depending on the encryption and management types, and the various tools that are required. Although there may be other possibilities, these are the most frequently used:
Management | No encryption/WEP | WPA/WPA2 PSK |
---|---|---|
Manual | iproute2 + iwconfig + dhcpcd /iproute2 |
iproute2 + iwconfig + wpa_supplicant + dhcpcd /iproute2
|
Automatically managed, with network profiles support | netctl, Wicd, NetworkManager, etc. |
More choice guide:
Management | Auto connect at boot | Auto connect if dropped or changed location |
support 3G Modem | GUI | Console tools |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Netctl | Yes | Yes | - | Yes | netctl
|
Wicd | Yes | Yes | - | Yes | wicd-curses
|
NetworkManager + network-manager-applet |
Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | nmcli
|
Please note that the Linux wireless extensions and corresponding commands like iwconfig
or iwlist
have become deprecated and are replaced by iw
, which has to be installed seperately from the core-repository. This is not fully reflected in this wiki yet and both still work. A comparison of common commands is found on Linuxwireless.
- Whatever your choice, you should try to connect using the manual method first. This will help you understand the different steps that are required and debug them in case a problem arose.
- If possible (e.g. if you manage your Wi-Fi access point), try connecting with no encryption, to check everything works. Then try using encryption, either WEP (simpler to configure -- but crackable in a matter of seconds, so it is hardly more secure than an unencrypted connection), WPA, or WPA2.
When it comes to ease of use, NetworkManager (with GNOME's network-manager-applet) and wicd
have good GUI's and can provide a list of available networks to connect, and they prompt for passwords, which is straightforward and highly recommended. WPA Supplicant has also a GUI configuration tool, wpa_supplicant_gui.
Manual setup
The programs provided by the package wireless_tools are the basic set of tools to set up a wireless network. Additionally the iw package provides the new tool. Moreover, if you use WPA/WPA2 encryption, you will need the package wpa_supplicant. These powerful user-space console tools work extremely well and allow complete, manual control from the shell.
These examples assume your wireless device is wlan0. Replace wlan0 with the appropriate device name.
Operating mode
(Optional, may be required) At this step you may need to set the proper operating mode of the wireless card. More specifically, if you are going to connect an ad-hoc network, you might need to set the operating mode to ad-hoc:
# iw wlan0 set type ibss
ip link set wlan0 down
).Interface activation
(Also optional, may be required) Some cards require that the kernel interface be activated before you can use the wireless_tools
:
# ip link set wlan0 up
Access point discovery
See what access points are available:
# iw dev wlan0 scan | less
or
$ iwlist wlan0 scanning | less
rfkill list all
to check.The important points to check:
- ESSID: the "name" of the access point.
- Quality: in general try something above 40/70.
- Encryption key: if it is "on", check if you can see any line regarding
- WEP, WPA, or RSN. Note that RSN and WPA2 are different names for the protocol.
- Group cipher: value in TKIP, CCMP, both, others.
- Pairwise ciphers: value in TKIP, CCMP, both, others. Not necessarily the same value than Group cipher.
- Authentication Suites: value in PSK, 802.1x, others. For home router, you'll usually find PSK (i.e. passphrase). In universities, you are more likely to find 802.1x suite which requires login and password. Then you will need to know which key management is in use (e.g. EAP), and what encapsulation it uses (e.g. PEAP). Find more details at Wikipedia:List_of_authentication_protocols and the sub-articles.
Association
Depending on the encryption, you need to associate your wireless device with the access point to use and pass the encryption key.
Assuming you want to use the ESSID MyEssid
:
- No encryption
# iwconfig wlan0 essid "MyEssid"
Or, alternatively, for the new netlink interface
# iw wlan0 connect MyEssid
- WEP
using a hexadecimal key:
# iwconfig wlan0 essid "MyEssid" key 1234567890
using an ASCII key:
# iwconfig wlan0 essid "MyEssid" key s:asciikey
- WPA/WPA2
You need to edit the /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
file as described in WPA_Supplicant and according to what you got from #Access point discovery. Then, issue this command:
# wpa_supplicant -i wlan0 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
This is assuming your device uses the wext
driver. If this does not work, you may need to adjust these options.
If connected successfully, continue in a new terminal (or quit wpa_supplicant
with Template:Keypress and add the -B
switch to the above command to run it in the background). WPA_Supplicant contains more information and troubleshooting.
Regardless of the method used, you can check if you have associated successfully as follows:
# iwconfig wlan0
Or, alternatively, for the new netlink interface
# iw dev wlan0 link
Getting an IP address
Finally, provide an IP address to the network interface. Simple examples are:
# dhcpcd wlan0
for DHCP, or
# ip addr add 192.168.0.2/24 dev wlan0 # ip route add default via 192.168.0.1
for static IP addressing.
auto
for the specific device.# iwconfig wlan0 channel auto
Before changing the channel to auto, make sure your wireless interface (in this case, 'wlan0') is down. After it has successfully changed it, you can again bring the interface up and continue from there.
Manual wireless connection at boot using systemd and dhcpcd
To have systemd connect to a manually configured wireless network at boot:
Create /etc/conf.d/network
to store your interface or static IP settings in:
/etc/conf.d/network
interface=wlan0 address=192.168.0.10 netmask=24 broadcast=192.168.0.255 gateway=192.168.0.1
Create a systemctl unit e.g: /etc/systemd/system/network.service
. This example uses dhcpcd and WPA supplicant.
/etc/systemd/system/network.service
[Unit] Description=Network Connectivity Wants=network.target Before=network.target BindsTo=sys-subsystem-net-devices-${interface}.device After=sys-subsystem-net-devices-${interface}.device [Service] Type=oneshot RemainAfterExit=yes EnvironmentFile=/etc/conf.d/network ExecStart=/usr/bin/ip link set dev ${interface} up ExecStart=/usr/bin/wpa_supplicant -B -i ${interface} -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf ExecStart=/usr/bin/dhcpcd ${interface} [Install] WantedBy=multi-user.target
Or without /etc/conf.d/network
:
/etc/systemd/system/network.service
[Unit] Description=Network Connectivity Wants=network.target Before=network.target BindsTo=sys-subsystem-net-devices-wlan0.device After=sys-subsystem-net-devices-wlan0.device [Service] Type=oneshot RemainAfterExit=yes ExecStart=/usr/bin/ip link set dev wlan0 up ExecStart=/usr/bin/wpa_supplicant -B -i wlan0 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf ExecStart=/usr/bin/dhcpcd wlan0 [Install] WantedBy=multi-user.target
Do not forget to enable it!
# systemctl enable network
To test, reboot or make sure all other network daemons are stopped and then issue as superuser
# systemctl start network
Systemd with wpa_supplicant and static IP
This example configuration uses the new systemd-197 interface naming scheme.
See http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/PredictableNetworkInterfaceNames
https://mailman.archlinux.org/pipermail/arch-dev-public/2013-January/024231.html
Run this script as non-root to find your interface names:
for i in /sys/class/net/*; do echo "==$i" udevadm test-builtin net_id "$i"; echo done 2>/dev/null
Create /etc/conf.d/network
/etc/conf.d/network
address=192.168.0.10 netmask=24 broadcast=192.168.0.255 gateway=192.168.0.1
Install wpa_supplicant
and create /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
. See WPA supplicant
/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=network update_config=1 network={ ssid="My-Wireless" psk=b705a6bfcd5639d5c40cd972cd4048cfb94572987f30d324c82036317b91a138 }
Create a systemd unit file containing the name of the interface: /etc/systemd/system/network@wlp0s26f7u3.service
/etc/systemd/system/network@wlp0s26f7u3.service
[Unit] Description=Network Connectivity (%i) Wants=network.target Before=network.target BindsTo=sys-subsystem-net-devices-%i.device After=sys-subsystem-net-devices-%i.device [Service] Type=oneshot RemainAfterExit=yes EnvironmentFile=/etc/conf.d/network ExecStart=/usr/bin/ip link set dev %i up ExecStart=/usr/bin/wpa_supplicant -B -i %i -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf ExecStart=/usr/bin/ip addr add ${address}/${netmask} broadcast ${broadcast} dev %i ExecStart=/usr/bin/ip route add default via ${gateway} ExecStop=/usr/bin/ip addr flush dev %i ExecStop=/usr/bin/ip link set dev %i down [Install] WantedBy=multi-user.target
Enable the unit and start it.
# systemctl enable network@wlp0s26f7u3.service # systemctl start network@wlp0s26f7u3.service
Automatic setup
There are many solutions to choose from, but remember that all of them are mutually exclusive; you should not run two daemons simultaneously.
Netctl
netctl
is a replacement for netcfg
designed to work with systemd. It uses a profile based setup and is capable of detection and connection to a wide range of network types. This is no harder than using graphical tools.
See: Netctl
Wicd
Wicd is a network manager that can handle both wireless and wired connections. It is written in Python and Gtk with fewer dependencies than NetworkManager, making it an ideal solution for lightweight desktop users. Wicd is available in the official repositories.
See: Wicd
NetworkManager
NetworkManager is an advanced network management tool that is enabled by default in most popular GNU/Linux distributions. In addition to managing wired connections, NetworkManager provides worry-free wireless roaming with an easy-to-use GUI program for selecting your desired network.
If you do not use GNOME but use a window manager like Openbox or xmonad, do not forget to install polkit-gnome, gnome-keyring, libgnome-keyring, and pyxdg to manage WEP, WPA, and WPA2 connections.
See: NetworkManager
WiFi Radar
WiFi Radar is a Python/PyGTK2 utility for managing wireless profiles (and only wireless). It enables you to scan for available networks and create profiles for your preferred networks.
See: Wifi Radar
wlassistant
wlassistant is a very intuitive and straight-forward GUI application for managing your wireless connections.
Install the wlassistantAUR package from the AUR.
wlassistant must be run with root privileges:
# wlassistant
One method of using wlassistant is to configure your wireless card within /etc/rc.conf
, specifying the access point you use most often. On start-up, your card will automatically be configured for this ESSID, but if other wireless networks are needed/available, wlassistant
can then be invoked to access them. Background the network
daemon in /etc/rc.conf
, by prefixing it with a @
to avoid boot-up delays.
Power saving
See Power_saving#Wireless_power_saving.
See also
External links
- NetworkManager -- The official website for NetworkManager
- WICD -- The official website for WICD
- WiFi Radar -- WiFi Radar information page
- The MadWifi project's method of installing -- Recommended if you are having trouble after reading this article