Applicable to Fedora Versions
- All Fedora Versions
Requirements
Explanation of requirements.
- Fedora
- wireless card you would like to get working
Troubleshooting
How to test
Explanation troubleshooting basics and expectations.
- uname – tells you the version of the kernel you are running, useful to know when trying to get the wireless card working with Fedora
$ uname -a
Linux localhost.localdomain 2.6.25.10-86.fc9.i686 #1 SMP Mon Jul 7 20:46:03 EDT 2008 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux2.dmesg – displays information that can be used to help troubleshoot faults.
$ dmesg
SNIP
ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready
wlan0: Initial auth_alg=0
wlan0: authenticate with AP 00:0e:2e:c7:e5:7f
wlan0: RX authentication from 00:0e:2e:c7:e5:7f (alg=0 transaction=2 status=0)
wlan0: authenticated
wlan0: associate with AP 00:0e:2e:c7:e5:7f
wlan0: RX AssocResp from 00:0e:2e:c7:e5:7f (capab=0x431 status=0 aid=1)
wlan0: associated
wlan0: switched to long barker preamble (BSSID=00:0e:2e:c7:e5:7f)
ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): wlan0: link becomes ready3.lspci – displays more detailed information about the hardware of your wireless card, the following command will also tell you which kernel module is being used.
$ /sbin/lspci -v
02:00.0 Network controller: RaLink RT2561/RT61 802.11g PCI
Subsystem: RaLink EW-7108PCg
Flags: bus master, slow devsel, latency 64, IRQ 11
Memory at 34000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=32K]
Capabilities:
Kernel driver in use: rt61pci
Kernel modules: rt61pci4.Modinfo – displays information about the version of the kernel module used to make your wireless card work along with the name of the firmware file, replace rt61pci with the results of the previous lspci -v command for you card
$ modinfo rt61pci
filename: /lib/modules/2.6.24.3-34.fc8/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/rt2x00/rt61pci.ko
license: GPL
firmware: rt2661.bin
firmware: rt2561s.bin
firmware: rt2561.bin
description: Ralink RT61 PCI & PCMCIA Wireless LAN driver.
version: 2.1.4
author: http://rt2x00.serialmonkey.com
srcversion: B24486EDEB73036BAEB0438
alias: pci:v00001814d00000401sv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias: pci:v00001814d00000302sv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias: pci:v00001814d00000301sv*sd*bc*sc*i*
depends: rt2x00lib,rt2x00pci,crc-itu-t,eeprom_93cx6
vermagic: 2.6.24.3-34.fc8 SMP mod_unload 686 4KSTACKS5.ifconfig – gives you detailed information about the network interfaces on your machine.
$ ifconfig -a
lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:3153 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:3153 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:2921024 (2.7 MiB) TX bytes:2921024 (2.7 MiB)
wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:0E:2E:C7:FE:49
inet addr:192.168.2.100 Bcast:192.168.2.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::20e:2eff:fec7:fe49/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:56 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:91 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:13650 (13.3 KiB) TX bytes:12859 (12.5 KiB)
wmaster0 Link encap:UNSPEC HWaddr 00-0E-2E-C7-FE-49-78-07-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)6.iwconfig – tells you about your wireless card
$ iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.
wmaster0 no wireless extensions.
wlan0 IEEE 802.11g ESSID:"default"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.462 GHz Access Point: 00:0E:2E:C7:E5:7F
Bit Rate=54 Mb/s Tx-Power=27 dBm
Retry min limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr=2352 B
Link Quality=72/100 Signal level=-48 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:07.iwlist – Get more detailed wireless information from a wireless interface.
$ su -c 'iwlist wlan0 scan'
Password:
wlan0 Scan completed :
Cell 01 - Address: 00:0E:2E:C7:E5:7F
ESSID:"default"
Mode:Master
Channel:11
Frequency:2.462 GHz (Channel 11)
Quality=52/100 Signal level=-46 dBm
Encryption key:on
IE: WPA Version 1
Group Cipher : TKIP
Pairwise Ciphers (1) : TKIP
Authentication Suites (1) : PSK
Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s; 6 Mb/s
9 Mb/s; 12 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s; 24 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s
48 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s
Extra:tsf=000000004284cb93Common problems and fixes
Describe common problems here, include links to known common problems if on another site
| Symptoms | Resolution |
|---|---|
| Wireless stopped working after I updated the kernel | Boot into the previous kernel |
| I need to boot into more than the previous kernel | Increase the number of kernels that Fedora keeps before removing the oldest one by editing /etc/yum.conf and increasing the “installonly_limit=2” line to the number of kernels you wish to keep |
| I need wireless to work after the machine is started and before I login | This feature is on the To Do list, when implemented In NetworkManager, tick the box System Settings |
| I need to setup a Static IP Address | In NetworkManager, Edit the connection and specify a Static IP address |
| NetworkManager fails to see wireless networks with Intel 3945 chipsets | Read the Fedora 8 common bugs wiki article. |
| The wireless device is not working correctly | Check Network Configuration Edit Tick Controlled by NetworkManager, Untick Activate device when Computer Starts |
| LAN connectivity was fine, Speed Browsing from Windos XP was fine, Fedora 8 x86_64 with firefox, slow in opening web pages (download speed 6k ~12k) yum install (any updates ) would fail and start slow with alternative sites and then pickup download speed. | disable ipv6 on firefox (open firefox and on the URL bar type “about:config” search for ipv6, change the value disbale IPV6 to “TRUE”) edit /etc/sysctl.conf and add the following lines #Control TCP Windows Scalling net.ipv4.tcp_window_scaling = 0 |
