How to connect WEP WiFi network?

[Bosse_B]

I have a small Realtec WiFi dongle that I want to test with my new Pi B+.
I followed this guide regarding the general handling.
The adapter shows up when I do the dmesg command as follows:

Code: Select all

[106831.059863] usb 1-1.5: new high-speed USB device number 4 using dwc_otg
[106831.161539] usb 1-1.5: New USB device found, idVendor=0bda, idProduct=8176
[106831.161574] usb 1-1.5: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[106831.161590] usb 1-1.5: Product: 802.11n WLAN Adapter
[106831.161604] usb 1-1.5: Manufacturer: Realtek
[106831.161617] usb 1-1.5: SerialNumber: 00e04c000001
[106831.464817] usbcore: registered new interface driver rtl8192cu

So I went ahead and edited the /etc/network/interfaces as described.
But I got stuck there on the data to enter for the network logon.
The tutorial presupposes that WPA is used but the network I need to connect to runs only WEP.

So exactly how should the data be entered into the file?
This is what I have now (after finding another post here):

Code: Select all

auto lo

iface lo inet loopback
iface eth0 inet dhcp

allow-hotplug wlan0
auto wlan0
iface wlan0 inet dhcp
   wireless-essid "myssid"
   wireless-key FF23ED193A

But when I restart networking it runs a while and then outputs:

Code: Select all

Listening on LPF/wlan0/00:e0:4c:0b:8a:47
Sending on   LPF/wlan0/00:e0:4c:0b:8a:47
Sending on   Socket/fallback
DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 7
DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 8
DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 18
DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 21
DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 7
No DHCPOFFERS received.
No working leases in persistent database - sleeping.
done.

[kusti8]

I use wpa-gui to do the job when connecting to a WEP wifi network. It is user friendly and supports WEP

[sportingchiefs]

Give this guide a try. It's what I used for my pi set up and worked first try:

https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruits-ra ... cidentalis

[Bosse_B]

The tutorial seems to suppose WPA as was the one I linked to.
WEP is not mentioned.

[Bosse_B]

I may have stumbled across the solution!
I removed the quotes around the ssid so the lines now reads:

Code: Select all

iface wlan0 inet dhcp
   wireless-essid myssidname
   wireless-key FF23ED193A

And now it managed to connect!

[DougieLawson]

Did you get any messages in dmesg about WEP authentication failures? Or was it just that your WiFi network isn't playing nicely with DHCP?

[Bosse_B]

This is the WiFi part of the network restart messages:

Code: Select all

Listening on LPF/wlan0/00:e0:4c:0b:8a:47
Sending on   LPF/wlan0/00:e0:4c:0b:8a:47
Sending on   Socket/fallback
DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 3
DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 4
DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 9
DHCPREQUEST on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67
DHCPOFFER from 192.168.0.129
DHCPACK from 192.168.0.129
bound to 192.168.0.141 -- renewal in 35226 seconds.
done.

So it seems like after I removed the quotes (which another tutorial stated were important) and then restarted networking it started working...
I see no messages from dmesg relating to WEP at all and DHCP works just fine (I got address 141).
So far I have tested by restarting a number of times and only once was there an error and it aborted the startup of networking.
So I located the test points for the supply lines (thanks to this thread) and measured 4.86V with drops down to 4.80V apparently when there was some communications going on.
But on a B+ that should be good to go thanks to the built-in supply converters.

EDIT:
I think I have to clarify that this Pi is headless, so there is no screen to use for a GUI.
I use PuTTY from my Win7 PC to connect to and manage my Pi.