Easy WPA support under Kubuntu

[Prospero424]

I got WPA to work somewhat easily on my Kubuntu PIII 450 (with a wireless card supported by the included Atheros driver) machine like this:

1. Temporarily downgraded to WEP on my access point (or, if you don't have another machine that you can use to access the router's configuration, just reset it to manufacturer's defaults with it's reset button)

2. Used the default Kubuntu wireless app (Wireless Assistant) to connect to my access point and therefore the internet

3. Used the Adept (or Synaptic, if preferred) package manager to download and install KNetworkManager (which relies upon wpasupplicant, which is automatically installed with KNetworkManager)

4. Switched the access point back to wpa

5. Rebooted (making sure to close the Wireless Assistant before shutting down)

6. used KNetworkManager to configure my adapter and connect to my WPA wifi network seamlessly

The only downside with this approach is that you HAVE to use DHCP.

To get it to connect automatically at startup - with no password prompt or anything - create a new wallet with a blank password and just be sure to leave KNetworkManager running when you next restart or shut down. It should then store your WPA passphrase in this automatically-accessible wallet.

Hope this helps some people.

[ianbennett]

Re: Easy WPA support under Kubuntu

I have a Dell Inspiron 9300 with an Intel 2915 (I think) internal wireless adptor. I did the Knetworkmanager thing so I could use WPA but when I connect to my network, the "connecting to ..." dialog box comes up and seems to freeze at 28%. After a few minutes, Knetworkmanager disconnects and closes down.
Anyone know why??

[odysseus]

Re: Easy WPA support under Kubuntu

Hmmm, I've seen this under Suse with Ndiswrapper, but hadn't heard of Kubuntu problems with it (mine works...). Far as I know no-one has found a solution yet, other than it works fine under Gnome so it must be a KNetworkManager specific issue. The alternative I'm afraid is to go back to the old way.

John.

[James1]

Re: Easy WPA support under Kubuntu

I had the problem of knetworkmanager freezing at 28%. I had to make sure that the wifi card was configured properly, and that as I was using ndiswrapper I had to blacklist the broadcom driver that is shipped with Kubuntu.

[jbahr]

Re: Easy WPA support under Kubuntu

I all of a sudden one night lost my wireless connection in the middle of using it. When I tried to reconnect, I had the same thing happen where it got to 28% and just stopped. After messing around with it for hours, I finally got it to work again only to have it disconnect on me again a while later.

To make long story short, what was happening is whenever my neighbors booted up there wireless network and my card found it, I would get booted out. It turns out that some how in my /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf file there was a line that read something like "scan_id=1" or something like that. Apparently, that means to use the first connection in the list, so when my neighbor came online, his connection would show up before mine in the list and it would kick me out, because it was trying to connect to his. As soon as he got off, I was able to reconnect to mine. Simply deleting that line in the wpa_supplicant.conf file has fixed the problem for me. I hope this helps someone.

[Aessa]

Re: Easy WPA support under Kubuntu

WPA2 with ipw2200 has lots of wpa_supplicant tutorials out there and detaisl on installing ipw2200 and then... it doesn't work becuase of an ioctl command problem (not supported or something). So:
http://hostap.epitest.fi/bugz/show_bug.cgi?id=141

Its not supposed to because ipw2200 driver is useless for WPA. This really gets me because KNetworkManager also drops my connection (sometimes connects then drops after 2 seconds). So do as in the link above, wpa_supplicant (set up the conf file as well) but don't bother with ipw as driver. Use -D wext - I am using this and it works perfectly. However, it associated for about 30 seconds on a bad day and 10 on a good day. So DHCP times out and gets unhappy. So, once you are sure it associated (wpa_supplicant.... , then sudo wpa_gui) and it is IDLE, issue:
sudo ifdown eth1
sudo ifup eth1


If anyone can critisize me and give me a better way to get WPA working with normal pretty KNetworkManager (and I mean actually working) please do so.
Sorry for the not so optimistic post, but I spent weeks on this until I found someone saying DONT use ipw...