Wireless WPA HOWTO (At least for a Cisco WUSB v2)

So I finally got around to getting WPA2 wireless working and this is Alpha v1 of Wireless HOWTO on Arch. I'll add/make changes as necessary. I do not have information regarding open wireless, and I WILL NOT support wep :-/ (personal issues as a security guy...).

#1) Ensuring your usb WiFi Card is connected/recognized
=============================================
A) run: lsusb

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lsusb
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0424:9512 Standard Microsystems Corp.
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0424:ec00 Standard Microsystems Corp.
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 1737:0078 Linksys WUSB100 v2 RangePlus Wireless Network Adapter [Ralink RT3070]
Bus 001 Device 005: ID 03f0:0f0c Hewlett-Packard Wireless Keyboard and Optical Mouse receiver


B)Note that Arch saw the WUSB100 card. But to confirm that the drivers were loaded lets look at dmesg and specifically look for the ID 1734:

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dmesg | grep 1737
usb 1-1.2: New USB device found, idVendor=1737, idProduct=0078


Now Let's look for intel on the usb device 1-1.2

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dmesg | grep 1-1.2
usb 1-1.2: new high speed USB device number 4 using dwc_otg
usb 1-1.2: New USB device found, idVendor=1737, idProduct=0078
usb 1-1.2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
usb 1-1.2: Product: Linksys RangePlus Wireless Network USB Adapter
usb 1-1.2: Manufacturer: Cisco-Linksys LLC
usb 1-1.2: reset high speed USB device number 4 using dwc_otg


Now we know that the drivers were installed
Caveat: Mine worked OOB, so I do not have instructions for installing drivers from scratch. (I can add them if someone goes through that pain)

#2) Acquire Wireless Tools
======================
This one is crazy simple:

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pacman -S wireless_tools iwconfig

Note from the Arch wiki:

Note: wireless_tools may not be required depending on the age of your hardware and whether your hardware/drivers support wpa_supplicant. If your configuration is supported well enough to work using only wpa_supplicant, then it is recommended to stick with wpa_supplicant only.

#3) Check if iwconfig can see your card
==============================

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iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

wlan0     IEEE 802.11bgn  ESSID:off/any
          Mode:Managed  Access Point: Not-Associated   Tx-Power=0 dBm
          Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Power Management:on


#4)Configure Wpa via wpa_passphrase:
===============================
First the Man Page:

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WPA_PASSPHRASE(8)                                                                                                                                                                                                     WPA_PASSPHRASE(8)

NAME
       wpa_passphrase - Generate a WPA PSK from an ASCII passphrase for a SSID

SYNOPSIS
       wpa_passphrase [ ssid ] [ passphrase ]

OVERVIEW
       wpa_passphrase pre-computes PSK entries for network configuration blocks of a wpa_supplicant.conf file. An ASCII passphrase and SSID are used to generate a 256-bit PSK.

OPTIONS
       ssid   The SSID whose passphrase should be derived.

       passphrase
              The passphrase to use. If not included on the command line, passphrase will be read from standard input.

SEE ALSO
       wpa_supplicant.conf(5) wpa_supplicant(8)

LEGAL
       wpa_supplicant is copyright (c) 2003-2007, Jouni Malinen <j@w1.fi> and contributors.  All Rights Reserved.

       This program is dual-licensed under both the GPL version 2 and BSD license. Either license may be used at your option.


Now run it:

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wpa_passphrase <SSID> <Passphrase> >> wpa_supplicant.conf
#and cat the file:
cat wpa_supplicant.conf
network={
        ssid="SSID"
        #psk="PASSPHRASE"
        psk=38497220976092fc2707a838e4d4385019256149f99f935be22c90159d3b8373
}


#5)Now Connect:
=============

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sudo wpa_supplicant -Dwext -iwlan0 -c /home/pi/wpa_supplicant.conf &


#6)Now renew dhcp:
================

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dhcpcd wlan0

That *should* do it. I have to run away, but I'll update/fix when I can look at this later.
Peace!

Hi,

many thanks for your guide!
Actually I'm trying to make the Cisco WUSB v2 on the Raspbian: everything you wrote makes sense but on Raspbian, doing lsmod, I cannot see the driver used by the WUSB: even on the iwconfig step I cannot see the iwlan interface.

Can you help me? I know Raspbian is not Arch but I'm sure I can translate from distro to distro pretty easily.

Thanks
Bye
Piero

Hi,

I made the Linksys WUSB100 working on Raspbian: you can find more info on http://www.brucalipto.org/linux/the-raspberry-diary-wusb100-wireless-n/.

Bye
Piero

Thanks for the info. I'm with you up to step 3, but apparently iwconfig doesn't see the adapter:

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ifb0    no wireless extensions.
lo      no wireless extensions.
eth0    no wireless extensions.
ifb1    no wireless extensions.


Not sure if this is related, just curious: should the light on my adapter be lit?