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RedHatWL200AP

Red Hat 7.3 as a full wireless AP + wireless WAN interface

Introduction

This setup is to have a Red Hat 7.3 linux box configured with a Compaq WL200 PCI Wireless card as a full AP Interface in master mode using the Hostap Driver, Also having a Enterasys RoamAbout wireless PC card as a a WAN point to point interface in ad-hoc mode using the Orinoco driver.

1. Requirements

1.1 Hardware

External linkCompaq WL200 wireless PCI card.
External linkEnterasys RoamAbout wireless PC card.
Ricoh RL5c475 PCI cradle.

1.2 Software

External linkRedhat Linux 7.3
External linkPcmcia-cs version External link3.2.0 (Jun 2004: current version is External link3.2.7)
External linkHost AP driver version External link2002-05-19 (Jun 2004: current version is External linkhostap-driver-0.1.3)
External linkOrinoco driver version External link0.12b (Jun 2004: current version External linkorinoco-0.13e)
External linkWireless tools version External link24 (Jun 2004: current version External linkwireless_tools.26)

1.3 Firmware

External linkPrism firmware version External link0.8.3 for WL200.
External linkOrinoco firmware version External link8.10 for RoamAbout.

2. Compile New Kernel With No PCMCIA/CardBus Support

Change to kernel source directory (eg. cd /usr/src/linux-2.4.18-3).
(Jun 2004: The newer pcmcia-cs package will look for the kernel at /usr/src/linux. This link should be present in most newer distributions. If not create a symlink to the versioned kernel. This is now the preferred method of linking to the kernel source tree.)

Edit the Makefile (eg. Vi Makefile), and change the EXTRAVERSION = -3custom statement in the (approx) 4th line down.

Remove the word custom so that it's EXTRAVERSION = -3 and Save this change.

Run make menuconfig (or you can use make xconfig).

In the Main menu
Return to Main menu.

Run make clean
Run make dep and when finished make the image,
Run make bzImage-2002-08-09 (or what ever name you want to call it)

Time to test the new kernel.

2.1 Boot New Kernel Using GRUB

If you are using grub as the boot manager, then edit /boot/grub/grub.conf

Enter the following at the bottom of the grub.conf file.
Title Red Hat Linux (2.4.18-3 mykernel)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /bzImage-2002-08-09 ro root=/dev/hda3

Save the changes and test boot.

2.2 Boot New Kernel Using LILO

If you are using LILO as the boot manager, then edit /etc/lilo.conf

Enter the following at the bottom of lilo.conf file
image = /bzImage-2202-08-09 
label = Red Hat Linux (2.4.18-3 mykernel)

Save the changes and run lilo -v, so that it writes out lilo.conf and makes system bootable, then test boot.

2.3 Compile and Install Modules

Once you have test booted ok. Return to the kernel source directory and do the following...
Run make modules
Run make modules_install

Reboot again to test.

3. Complile and Install PCMCIA and Wireless Card Drivers

3.1 PCMCIA-CS Driver

Download the External linklatest pcmcia-cs package. Change to the directory, where you want the files to unpacked(eg. cd /usr/src) and Unpack it using tar -zxf <path where downloaded file was saved to>/file.tar.gz

3.2 Hostap Driver

Download the External linklatest hostap-driver package and change to the directory, where you want the files to be unpacked and unpack it.

Eg. Copy all the files and sub-directories in /Prism2-2002-05-19/driver (or /hostap-driver-0.1.x/driver) to root of pcmcia-cs source directory


3.3 Orinoco Driver

If you want to compile Orinoco driver for Enterasys PCMCIA card.

Download the External linklatest Orinoco package, and unpack it.

Eg. Copy all .c and .h files to pcmcia-cs wireless sub-directory (pcmcia-cs-3.2.x/wireless), and hermes.conf to etc sub-directory (pcmcia-cs-3.2.x/etc).

3.4 Compile and Install

Change to pcmcia-cs source directory (eg. cd /usr/src/pcmcia-cs-3.2.0).

Run make config (ensure the default kernel source directory is correct).

Use default for other options.
Run make all then
Run make install

Additional External linkPCMCIA-HOWTO: Compilation and installation information is available.

(Jun 2004: For the newer pcmcia-cs-3.2.7 version make config has been replaced with Configure. Run this command, point it to the /usr/src/linux tree and accept the remaining defaults. It will output the configuration to the screen, check it and fix if necessary)

3.5 IRQ Routing

Because the default setting is to use ISA, We need to tell the system to use PCI for this card.

Edit /etc/sysconfig/pcmcia and Add this line to it (WL200 need this to work).
PCIC_OPTS='irq_mode=1'

If you want to have a ricoh chipset pci cradle and enterasys card, to coexist with WL200, then add this.

PCIC_OPTS='irq_mode=1 irq_list=0'

If the above doen't work for your system try adding extra_sockets=1.

3.6 Network Parameters

To set the IP address, subnet mask, etc, for wireless interfaces

Edit this file /etc/pcmcia/network.opts

More info is available, External linkLinux PCMCIA HOWTO: Usage and features.

3.7 Wireless Parameters

To set any wireless interfaces to a specific settings (eg. channel, essid, etc).

Edit this file /etc/pcmcia/wireless.opts

Visit External linkPCMCIA Wireless Configuration for more information.

Todo list


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Version 5 (current) modified Mon, 26 Jul 2021 12:49:29 +0000 by tyson
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