Setting essid without AP

Hello.
I can't make my wireless card work properly.
I have been trying to set up a wlan without an access point. I have a
desktop pc cable-connected to the internet, and I would like to connect
it to a laptop pc via wireless card.
(desktop=debian, laptop=windows)
I couldn't get the card to work with ndiswrapper or madwifi, so (as
advised on ndiswrapper website) I used the RaLink linux driver (since my
card has such a chipset). Now the card should be up and running.
But I'm not sure I understand what an essid is. I thought it could be
just any string, but it doesn't work. I mean:
debian:~# iwconfig ra0 mode ad-hoc essid "GuldoNet01"
debian:~# iwconfig ra0
ra0 RT61 Wireless ESSID:""
Mode:Ad-Hoc Frequency:1 MHz Cell: 2E:82:AF:62:7B:C6
Bit Rate=11 Mb/s
RTS thrff Fragment thrff
Encryption keyff
Link Quality=0/100 Signal level:-121 dBm Noise level:-107 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

debian:~#

Could you tell what's wrong?

Thank you

--
Guldo
www.giapponegiappone.it
Powered by debian etch

Guldo K wrote:

> I can't make my wireless card work properly.
> I have been trying to set up a wlan without an access point. I have a
> desktop pc cable-connected to the internet, and I would like to connect
> it to a laptop pc via wireless card.
> (desktop=debian, laptop=windows)
> I couldn't get the card to work with ndiswrapper or madwifi, so (as
> advised on ndiswrapper website) I used the RaLink linux driver (since my
> card has such a chipset). Now the card should be up and running.
> But I'm not sure I understand what an essid is. I thought it could be
> just any string, but it doesn't work. I mean:
> debian:~# iwconfig ra0 mode ad-hoc essid "GuldoNet01"
> debian:~# iwconfig ra0
> ra0 RT61 Wireless ESSID:""
> Mode:Ad-Hoc Frequency:1 MHz Cell: 2E:82:AF:62:7B:C6
> Bit Rate=11 Mb/s
> RTS thrff Fragment thrff
> Encryption keyff
> Link Quality=0/100 Signal level:-121 dBm Noise level:-107 dBm
> Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
> Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0
>
> debian:~#
>
> Could you tell what's wrong?

There is nothing wrong with that essid ;
I can change mine to that:
===================================
[tim@martha ~]$ sudo iwconfig eth0 mode ad-hoc essid "GuldoNet01"
[tim@martha ~]$ iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 IEEE 802.11b ESSID:"GuldoNet01" Nickname:"martha"
Mode:Ad-Hoc Frequency:2.462 GHz Cell: Not-Associated
Bit Rate:2 Mb/s Sensitivity:1/3
Retry limit:4 RTS thrff Fragment thrff
Power Managementff
Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:10
Tx excessive retries:4 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0
===================================

I don't know why you can't change the essid.
I get a warning from iwconfig if I try to change something I cannot change.

You could try saying "essid any", and also you could try "mode managed".
But I'm not an expert!

You could try putting ESSID=... in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-ra0
and restarting networking (or re-booting).


--
Timothy Murphy
e-mail (<80k only): tim /at/ birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie
tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland

Guldo K wrote:

> debian:~# iwconfig ra0
> ra0 RT61 Wireless ESSID:""
> Mode:Ad-Hoc Frequency:1 MHz Cell: 2E:82:AF:62:7B:C6
> Bit Rate=11 Mb/s
> RTS thrff Fragment thrff
> Encryption keyff
> Link Quality=0/100 Signal level:-121 dBm Noise level:-107 dBm
> Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
> Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

Something is wrong also with the frequency.
> Mode:Ad-Hoc Frequency:1 MHz Cell: 2E:82:AF:62:7B:C6
1MHz is not a valid value. Should be in range 2.412-2.484 GHz.
For an ad-hoc connection you may need to set the channel to be used (or
the frequency). See iwconfig man pages.

Ciao
Giovanni
--
A computer is like an air conditioner,
it stops working when you open Windows.
Registered Linux user #337974 < http://giovanni.homelinux.net/ >

Thank you both, Giovanni and Timothy; but...

Giovanni ha scritto:
> Something is wrong also with the frequency.
> > Mode:Ad-Hoc Frequency:1 MHz Cell: 2E:82:AF:62:7B:C6
> 1MHz is not a valid value. Should be in range 2.412-2.484 GHz.
> For an ad-hoc connection you may need to set the channel to be used (or
> the frequency). See iwconfig man pages.

Ok, I set the channel, too (to 10, as in windows).
I still cannot set an essid.
(@Timothy: it has to be "ad-hoc", since I don't have an access point)
Could my ralink driver be broken?
I can't understand what's wrong with my card... é.è

bye

--
Guldo
www.giapponegiappone.it
Powered by debian etch

Guldo K wrote:

> (@Timothy: it has to be "ad-hoc", since I don't have an access point)

I know that's logical.
But in fact I find that "mode managed" works for me without an access point,
while "mode ad-hoc" does not.
My desktop is running in ad-hoc mode.
I've never understood this,
and have asked about it several times,
but never got an intelligible answer.

> Could my ralink driver be broken?

It sounds to me as though it definitely is.
I find my card - an Orinoco PCMCIA classic 11b card -
is more or less guaranteed to work (with the standard kernel module)
if anything will.

Here's my /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 for what it's worth:
------------------------------------
# Lucent Technologies WaveLAN/IEEE Version 01.01
DEVICE=eth0
HWADDR=00:02:2d:1d:43:b7
IPV6INIT=no
#IPADDR=192.168.3.11
ONBOOT=yes
USERCTL=no
PEERDNS=yes
TYPE=wireless
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
#DHCP_HOSTNAME=martha
ESSID=maths.tcd.ie
MODE=managed
#MODE=ad-hoc
NETWORK=192.168.3.0
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
BROADCAST=192.168.3.255
KEY=1234-ABCD-EF
------------------------------------

--
Timothy Murphy
e-mail (<80k only): tim /at/ birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie
tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland