You are not logged in.
Pages: 1
The computer I'm typing from is an HP Media Centre Edition notebook, and the router I'm using is a Linksys Compact Wireless G router.
The computer that I desperately am trying to connect to the router with is the Eeepc 2GB 512MB white ****.
I've already spent multiple hours a day for over a week trying to fix this, and finally gave up on configuring wext to a WEP encrypted connection. I am now using WPA-PSK (aka WPA Personal on the router), and don't appear to have an option of just plain WPA without PSK.
There `has` to be a way I can connect with this thing to that particular router.
My settings for WPA-PSK:
ssid: <removed, but changed from the default, no spaces>
psk: <alphanumeric, removed, over 8 but less than 63 units, no spaces>
channel: 9
mode: mixed (b/g)
ssid broadcast: disabled
Is there anything else I need to add here? Help!
Offline
wpa is either psk or aes. aes is optional in wpa but mandatory in wpa2, there is no wpa plain its either psk or aes. I believe that router supports wpa2 mixed mode, which should allow you to use wpa or wpa2, psk+aes to connect. Try this as its the most flexible. if it still doesn't connect try with ssid broadcasting on and see how it works. Often areas with a lot of overlapping networks can make nonbrodcasting networks hard to join.
Offline
Here is another thing to try: will it connect with the encryption off? If it does that means its probably a wep/wpa encryption key setting problem, if it doesn't then there is something more fundamentally wrong. Either way if you could give it a try and report the results (provided the wpa mixed mode didsn't work). I'll try to help you get it working as best as I can.
Offline
The router only talks back to my HP with the encryption turned off and the SSID broadcast turned on.
In the HP's wireless settings, I determined that there are some considerable ranges to the WPA encryption possibility.
You can have WPA with no PSK, using either TKIP or AES. Apparently, you cannot have this on the router I have connecting to the HP, as there was nowhere to enter the PSK key, and the computer was never prompted for one, so it wound up going into pending even though the connection settings are more sophisticated.
You can also have WPA-PSK with either TKIP or AES. This is what the HP laptop has to use to connect to the router, and this does include an area in which to enter the PSK key. The connection (if detected as a piece of hardware at all, this is giving me considerable trouble lately) goes right on with these settings applied.
Apparently also there is WPA2 with TKIP or AES, and WPA2-PSK with TKIP or AES. The laptop didn't seem to agree with WPA2 but this was during the episode where I thought PSK was something I hadn't set up yet.
I'd like to know if anyone knows if WPA is achievable on this router... that I simply don't enter a PSK, and that makes it non-PSK WPA? This is not my preference, as I don't live that far from someone who was found last year to have mega tons of child porn on their computer, and I'm not interested in being prosecuted on the basis that I knew how to secure my connection but just didn't, thereby allowing someone to set something illegal up on my network.
I'm also not interested in having my personal information hacked, or even worse, deleted. I've dated someone who was more than capable of deleting entire directories and leaving a .txt behind that read "learn how to secure your network".
Am I stuck using a cable connection on my eeepc at home, even though I can use a wireless connection anywhere else at all, including piggy-backing on my neighbors' connections?
Offline
If you're really concerned about security, I'd just use a network cable.
WPA needs keys, either generated using PSK from a passphrase or from an authentication server. I've never tried WPA2 so I can't comment on that but WPA is buggy in practice (as you will see from all the difficulties of connecting via wireless on these forums). I'm pretty sure WPA sometimes has a key changing problem as is it changes keys on the fly. WPA on Vista appears to be broken (it certainly is on my wife's laptop) - it can't swap keys and times out. Even XP can have problems with WPA and I'm sure Xandros is similar as it probably uses a similar code base for the drivers. I just use WEP myself and it is a lot less trouble prone I find. Of course it isn't half as secure as it only swaps keys initially and the encryption isn't near as good but I doubt very much if my neighbours could hack WEP but it is possible. I guess you could always connect using a VPN and so make it more secure that way if you were really worried but maybe WPA2 is better solution? The weak point with WPA is the passphrase on PSK systems
Remember, you can also protect yourself by only sharing one public folder on your PC and locking down the firewall on the router, so even if somebody manages to log into your network, they can do little damage. You also need to password protect your router of course. And you can also make your network harder to hack by specifying on the router the MAC addresses of network cards on your PCs that are allowed to connect.
Offline
I've actually disabled all network sharing on both computers and disabled remote assistance requests from coming in, installed a firewall on the HP laptop, am reduced to only using a cable at home on the Asus, and have specified only the MAC address of each computer on the router, which is not broadcasting its SSID, has ping from random IPs disabled, a PSK in WPA that isn't just a passphrase, and all the user IDs and passwords in a foreign language including numbers and/or foreign characters.
I'm changing the number of DHCP users back from 10 to 2 today, as this clearly will never be resolved with this router. The default setting is FIFTY! That's 49 hackers sitting silently in your router!
**edit: Changing DHCP users to 1 would lock me out even on cable. Moop.
Last edited by laichzeit (2008-03-16 1:38:57 pm)
Offline
Cheeesy wrote:
... but WPA is buggy in practice...
This is semi-off topic, and part rant and part suggestion, which I'm not sure I'd do myself, but...
First, as pointed out above, there are two kinds of WPA -- "personal," where the key is preshared (using TKIP or AES), and the network typically has a single key that admits any computer, and "enterprise," where an authentication server exists on the network, and the network typically has usernames and individual passwords for users. Auto picking of TKIP vs. AES should pretty much always work correctly.
Anyway, though...
I don't believe the problem is WPA. I think the problem is Linksys. WPA is a very solid, reliable standard. I've been using it at home flawlessly and continuously for more than four years now -- WPA1 in late 2003 and 2004, and then WPA2 as soon as Apple released the update to their wifi that enabled WPA2, which I think was in 2005. Never any problems connecting Macs, Linux computers, or Windows Mobile devices to it (I don't own anything that runs XP or Vista, though).
Anyway, on Mac forums, there are frequent, frequent complaints about linksys routers, particularly using WPA. Apparently they once upon a time used very stable firmware (my past experience with them was always good) and then changed to something no one likes. The suggestion is usually to re-flash the router with open source linux software. I believe the software does everything the original router software does and more. I've never done this, though, and it wouldn't be my great desire to do so....
But anyways, WPA is not the be-all, end-all, but it's a solid, secure, and reliable system. Both WPA 1 and 2 are still considered secure, as long as you use a strong password. There're none of the issues that plagued WEP with computers not being sure of passkey formats and so on. But you do have to have properly compatible hardware.
This is an example of the Linux OS's for Linksys routers...
http://openwrt.org/
You can look up your Linksys router on the compatibility list to see if it's supported....
Offline
Well whatever the case, the router won't send a package back to the computer without a cable, so I give up. Cable at home or new router. I already have a cable, so my choice is fairly clear already.
Offline
Apologies for not getting back to you earlier. No wep or wpa is never totally secure, but cable is. Limiting DHCP to 2 users is not going to increase security, you can set it back to 50 safely. The wep/WPA would encrypt the dhcp packets preventing the hackers from getting an dhcp ip or making a request for one. Without the key they can't interact with dhcp or the router at all. At any rate you don't need an IP issued by dhcp to listen to the network, just the encryption key. Eavesdropping wifi, like in real life conversations, only requires that you can understand whats being said, not the ability to participate in the conversation. Additionally dhcp can be bypassed by just settings a static ip in the same range you see eavesdropped traffic in. In my expereinece the MAC restrictions are useless. It doesn't prevent eavesdropping and any hacker can change the mac address to match the mac in the evesdropped traffic. This allows limited interaction with the network even with the mac filter in place. In my experience: wep is like a sign that says keep out, wpa is like a fence with barbed wire, but neither is totally secure. If you were really concerned and need wireless don't rely on wep/wpa encryption between the AP and the station, you need an ipsec or ssl tunnel end to end. Without the key the connection will show as connected but the router and all the clients will only appear to recieve and send garbage. For most people that is good enough protection, beyond that you need to use a physical cable.
My advise is start trying to get the hp working with the wifi. It sounds like you are unsure if some of the tests you ran may have been bad configurations on your part. You should probbaly systemattically start again and try to vary only one setting per attempt. You should leave ssid broadcasting enabled, remove the mac filter, set dchp back to 50, and start with encryption off. That way everything is open and easy to start with. You said you already had the HP working this way. Then try slowly changing the encryption with both machines until one stops working. Start with no encryption, then use 64 bit wep, then 128 wep, then wpa-psk then wpa psk+aes. Each time you want to disable then enable the adapter in the networking connections control panel or type "ipconfig /release && ipconfig /renew" in the run box. This will make sure the old IP settings are disregarded and you are getting tru results. I haven't seen a card that didn't support wep, even back in the 802.11b days, so if you can not get your hp to use wep you've got to have something else wrong either in the router config or the way your inputing the wep key settings. If your wifi doesn't work with your windows machine it probably won't work with the eeepc either, so test that one first then repeat with the eeepc. When you get to the fail point go back one level of encryption and use that.
As an aside: I have used my eeepc successfully with linksys wrt54g runnning the dd-wrt (a cousin to the openwrt firmware above) using both both wap (psk+aes) and wep seem to work fine consistantly. Unfortunantly the wrt54gc only has 1mb of flash and isn't supported by any of the custom firmwares I'm aware of. You might want to double check there isn't a newer linksys release, but with that small flash size you would probably have to switch routers to use open or dd wrt.
Offline
I have just heard the following from Asus:
"Dear Customer,
It is true Linux Xandros is not compatibile with WPA-PSK security. Our engineersare working on it, so
soon the newest updates should be available.
Kind regards,
asus support team"
Offline
WPA-PSK working: the solution
Open shell (CTRL+ALT+T)and type
sudo su
wpa_passphrase "networkname" "my secret key" >out.conf
wpa_supplicant -i ath0 -c ./out.conf &
dhclient ath0
ifconfig down eth0
You might want to wait a little (10 sec) after the wpa_supplicant part
Also watch whether you need to type ath0 or eth0
That's it. Your WPA-PSK network should be accesible now
(in fact I am using mine right now)
Regards Zico
Offline
Maybe this last advice could help me connect to my wpa-psk secured network...but I don't know anything about linux/eee pc yet and I'm a little bit afraid of doing something which might cause trouble. Anyone else tried this? And is it ok to just go ahead and do it?..
Offline
Can't be of any help I'm afraid but just like to add I'm having the same problem connecting to a WPA/TKIP protected network. I note the various ways of getting around the problem but shouldn't the Eee pc just work!
Pleased to see the acceptance of a problem by Asus but surprised they allow it to persist.
Offline
I managed to connect to my wpa protected network once after upgrading the router firmware to the latest version, I thought that had done the trick but then suddenly next day it didn't work anymore... Now I'm on holiday with my eee, it connects nicely to open wifi hotspots and to wep protected ones - but of course not to wpa. So Asus - please help us..?
Offline
wth? I had no problems connecting an eee 900 (linux version of course) to a WPA2 psk (AES) network. It worked with both an Apple router and a Linksys router, but I doubt that makes any difference.
Last edited by MamiyaOtaru (2008-08-09 10:21:49 pm)
Offline
I had exactly the same problem that laichzeit described except that I wasn't using a Linksys. Happily, Zico's magic incantation did the trick, thanks Zico!!!
panta rhei
Offline
This has been in Synaptic Manager for some time -- I am using it and it works fine and may even be the aforementioned code.
xandros-wpa-supplicant
0.5.7.x.2.17-1 installed with an update available to 0.5.7.x.3.1-1
WPA Wireless G authentication application
Offline
Pages: 1