Aironet PCM 352 installation on RedHat 9.0

[frankyylam]

Hi All,

I tried to install Aironet PCM352 for Toshiba Portege 7200 Laptop computer which is running RedHat 9.0. According to the Cisco Release Notes for ACU 2.1 (dated May-2004), driver bundled with ACU2.1 for Linux is able to support latest PCM firmware (Page 9).

- the firmware for my PCM352 card is 5.30.17

- linux kernel is 2.4.20-8

- I only installed the PCM 352 driver but not Client Utility (command > sh install -id)

Following are steps I went throught to install the driver:

1. install the kernel source (> rpm -vih kernel-source-2.4.20-8.i386.rpm)

###Installation success

2. install the PCM driver (> sh install -id)

###Installation success

3. insert the PCM352 card into PCMCIA slot

Hear two beap sound and the LEDs start blinking and "ifconfig" shows the new Wireless Ethernet card just installed. IP address has been assigned from Wireless AP to the PCM352 and I am able to ping from my laptop to Access Point. Everthing looks fine until I want to use "iwconfig" to view/change the wireless configuration. The output of "iwconfig" shows "no wireless extensions".

"lsmod" command show:

Module Size Used by Trainted: P

airo_cs 4580 0 (unused)

airo 98876 1 [airo_cs]

parport_pc 19076 1 (autoclean)

lp 8996 0 (autoclean)

parport 37056 1 (autoclean) [parport_pc lp]

autofs 13268 0 (autoclean) (unused)

ds 8680 2 [airo_cs]

yenta_socket 13472 2

pcmcia_core 57216 0 [airo_cs ds yenta_socket]

... ...

I run ">redhat-config-network" and able to see the Aironet 350 card in the hardware list and it is ACTIVE. However, the type of the device was "Ethernet" instead of "wireless". I removed the device and add a new one, also eth0 but change to type to "wireless". In that case, I get the Wireless Configuration Tag under device configuration when I laungh "redhat-config-network", but I can change nothing in the Wireless Configuration Tag, even worse, if I try to change to Mode of Operation (Auto, Managed, Ad-Hoc), the OS will hang completely (not just the application but whole OS).

It is appreciated that anybody can point out the mistake I made during the driver Installation & Configuration.

Thanks in advanced!

Frank

[frankyylam]

Changing the wireless setting in "redhat-config-network" will NOT hang the OS now. But "iwconfig" still shows "no wireless extensions".

Checked the file /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/eth0.cfg and I saw some garbage in it. The correct file should be something like following:

------------

USERCTL=no

PEERDNS=yes

GATEWAY=

TYPE=Wireless

DEVICE=eth0

HWADDR=xx.xx.xx.xx.xx.xx

BOOTPROTO=dhcp

NETMASK=

ONBOOT=no

DHCP_HOSTNAME=

IPADDR=

NAME=

DOMAIN=

ESSID=

CHANNEL=1

MODE=Auto

KEY=s:

RATE=auto

------------

In my case, there were some garbage in MODE and RATE field. I changed them to above value and able to use "redhat-config-network" to change the wireless setting e.g. SSID, WEP. But still can not make iwconfig work.

Any idea?

Thanks!

Frank

[frankyylam]

I installed ACU 2.1 for Linux and it works just fine. I am able to configure the wireless settings such as SSID, WEP Key and so on. However, iwconfig still shows "no wireless extensions" for the PCM 352. Any idea?

The default value for ONBOOT is "ONBOOT=NO", if I change it to "ONBOOT=yes", Redhat will try to initilize the wireless PC card when boot up, but it will fail with error message like "Bring up interface eth0: airo device eth0 does not seem to be present, delaying initialization".

I hear two beap sound once the PCMCIA service is started and PCM352 start blinking.

Any suggestion on above symptom?

Thanks!

Frank

[thisisshanky]

Frank,

When the linux machine boots, it tries to check for a dhcp address (if ONBOOT=YES and u have dhcp on the wireless card). This causes those errors that u see while bootup. Its good that you have it as NO and you can enable it later once it boots up.

What does iwconfig look like ? Is the card associating with an AP ? I have had issues with Redhat and Cisco client cards. Recently i have tried installing SUSE linux and it detected by cisco client adapter (PCMCIA) plug and play...didnt even have to download or compile any drivers.