Hi,

I investigate a little bit further. As mention in the tread "problems
with iwl3945 wireless connection properties". It seems that the update
of NetworkManager break things. I downgraded NetworkManager to version
0.6.4-8.el5 and now madwifi works again. I guess that not the madwifi
driver is broken, but the new NetworkManager 0.7.0-4.el5_3 does not work
together with madwifi (and maybe also not with iwl3945).

Urs



Troy Dawson wrote:
> Urs Beyerle wrote:
>> Akemi Yagi wrote:
>>> 2009/4/8 Urs Beyerle <[log in to unmask]>:
>>>  
>>>> Hi,
>>>>
>>>> I can just confirm that atheros wifi and WPA is broken on
>>>> 2.6.18-128.1.1.el5
>>>> kernel or later at least on one of my systems.
>>>>
>>>> The "problem" seems to be that Redhat has added ath5k.ko in
>>>> 2.6.18-128.1.1.el5 kernel. ath5k.ko was not yet there in
>>>> 2.6.18-128.el5 and
>>>> older kernels.
>>>>
>>>> At the moment I don't know why it's not working. As far as I see,
>>>> wpa_supplicant is not working with ath5k driver. And per default
>>>> ath5k is
>>>> loaded even if madwifi is installed. Or you get even a mix of
>>>> loaded ath
>>>> modules. See
>>>>
>>>> /sbin/lsmod | grep ath
>>>>
>>>> However, if I disable/remove ath5k.ko, madwifi is still not working???
>>>>     
>>> There is a CentOS wiki article on the Atheros AR5007EG card.  I don't
>>> know if this is related, but there is some chance that the info on
>>> that page might help.
>>>
>>> http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/Laptops/WirelessAR5007EG
>>>
>>> It basically tells you to replace the current madwifi with the newer
>>> version (from source), and blacklist ath5k.
>>>
>>> Akemi
>>>   
>>
>> Thanks for the link.
>>
>> I just tried the latest madwifi snapshot and blacklist ath5k. But I
>> had no success :-(
>>
>> So I started from scratch.
>>
>> Since ath5k driver should make madwifi obsolete and it's now in the
>> RHEL kernel, I removed all madwifi related RPMs from my SL53 system.
>>
>> Disabled wpa_supplicant with "chkconfig wpa_supplicant off" -
>> NetworkManager will start wpa_supplicant.
>>
>> Afterwards I configure the wireless network adapter with
>> "system-config-network" by removing the old wireless adapter entry
>> and I add a new wireless device (wlan0). This should create a file
>> /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-wlan0
>> TYPE=Wireless
>> DEVICE=wlan0
>> HWADDR=
>> BOOTPROTO=dhcp
>> NETMASK=
>> DHCP_HOSTNAME=
>> IPADDR=
>> ....
>>
>> And I had to manually correct /etc/modprobe.conf by adding the line
>>
>> alias wlan0 ath5k
>>
>> remove "alias wlan0 ath_pci"
>>
>> Reboot and now I can connect to my WPA WLAN access point again! :-)
>>
>> There is one drawback, if I shutdown/stop NetworkManager I get a
>> kernel panic :-(
>>
>> Nevertheless I hope in case ath5k works nicely, madwifi on SL5 will
>> be obsolete.
>>
>>     Urs
>
> Hi All,
> Sorry for joining the thread late, but I had to double check that my
> home computer was on the latest kernel.
> For me, the madwifi is working better with the update.  But I am not
> using NetworkManager, since this is a home computer and not a laptop.
>
> # lspci
> ...
> 01:06.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR2413
> 802.11bg NIC (rev 01)
>
> # cat /etc/modprobe.conf
> ...
> alias wifi0 ath_pci
> ...
> alias eth1 ath_pci
>
> # lsmod | grep ath
> ...
> ath_pci                88740  0
> wlan                  181776  1 ath_pci
> ath_hal               195408  1 ath_pci
> ath5k                  97001  0
> mac80211              137801  1 ath5k
> cfg80211               30793  2 ath5k,mac80211
> ...
>
> # cat ifcfg-wifi0
> # Atheros Communications Inc. AR2413 802.11bg NIC
> DEVICE=wifi0
> ONBOOT=yes
> BOOTPROTO=dhcp
> HWADDR=????
> TYPE=Wireless
> ESSID=????
> DHCP_HOSTNAME=dragon
> MODE=Managed
> USERCTL=yes
> IPV6INIT=no
> PEERDNS=yes
>
> # rpm -q madwifi kernel-module-madwifi-`uname -r`
> madwifi-0.9.4-15.i686
> kernel-module-madwifi-2.6.18-128.1.6.el5-0.9.4-15.sl5.i686
> kernel-module-madwifi-hal-2.6.18-128.1.6.el5-0.9.4-15.sl5.i686
>
> So, in the end, I *think* I'm using the madwifi kernel module, but I
> also have the ath5k loaded as well.  But all my configuration files
> are pointing at the madwifi stuff.
>
> Don't know if this helps the discussion or not.  But that is how I've
> got things setup.  At some point I'll have to install SL 5.3 without
> the madwifi and see what happens.
> Troy