CentOS4 and WPA-PSK

september 17, 2006 : steve kong : 8 comment(s)

I got WPA-PSK working with CentOS4. I want to document this for myself, just in case I have to reinstall. Peruse these instructions if they are helpful to you. I got help from the madwifi wiki for a lot of this. This was the page I used, these instructions of mine are tailored to CentOS4. First, add the atrpms to your yum repos. Create /etc/yum.repos.d/atrpms.repo. Put inside that file:

[atrpms-stable] name=RHEL 4 $releasever - $basearch - ATrpms baseurl=http://dl.atrpms.net/el$releasever-$basearch/atrpms/stable gpgcheck=1 enabled=1 includepkgs=madwifi* madwifi-kmdl* madwifi-hal-kmdl* libpcsclite1 [atrpms-testing] name=RHEL 4 $releasever - $basearch - ATrpms baseurl=http://dl.atrpms.net/el$releasever-$basearch/atrpms/testing gpgcheck=1 enabled=1 includepkgs=wpa_supplicant wpa_supplicant-gui

By using includepkgs in the repo definition, I can make sure that nothing other than the stuff I need from atrpms gets updated when I run yum updates. Import atrpms signing key:

rpm --import http://ATrpms.net/RPM-GPG-KEY.atrpms

Change the "enabled" to 1 so that you can do the next installation (then change back to 0 if you don't want to get updates to your base install):

yum install madwifi-hal-kmdl-`uname -r` madwifi-kmdl-`uname -r` wpa_supplicant wpa_supplicant-gui

You'll have to edit /etc/modprobe.conf and add:

alias ath0 ath_pci options ath_pci autocreate=sta

Reboot. When the system comes up, you'll want to configure wpa_supplicant for your network:

/usr/sbin/wpa_passphrase YOUR_AP_SSID "YOUR_WPA_PSK_PASSPHRASE" >> /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

Edit /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf and add:

key_mgmt=WPA-PSK proto=WPA

Test that your setup is working:

iwconfig ath0 essid "YOUR_AP_SSID" ifconfig ath0 SOME_IP_ADDRESS up /usr/sbin/wpa_supplicant -dd -Dmadwifi -iath0 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

If you see:

CTRL-EVENT-CONNECTED - Connection to AP_ADDRESS completed (auth)

Then you're OK. Now, gettting things automated. First, setup your wireless card like usual in Applications -> System Settings -> Network. Then edit /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifup-wireless Add to the end of that file:

/usr/sbin/wpa_supplicant -w -B -Dmadwifi -iath0 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

Test to see that it works with:

/etc/init.d/network restart

If it does, then you're all done! This wasn't as easy as getting Ubuntu working with a WPA Wifi network, but I am glad that it works now! There wasn't much documentation on the internet for getting WPA working with RHEL and CentOS. I found the madwifi stuff by accident and it wasn't tailored to CentOS (or RHEL). Hopefully this is helpful!

Comments

It seems to me like maybe you spend more time installing Linux than you do actually using it.

Alice

September 17, 2006 @ 05:57 PM

I'm coming to the same conclusion also. Sigh.

mookie

September 17, 2006 @ 08:09 PM

True you do but about the journey not the destination. Isn't it?

Bytes

September 20, 2006 @ 03:07 PM

Thanks man! I had bought a WRT54G and uploaded the DDWRT firmware only to shelve it for a couple months because WPA was a pain in the a#$ and I was too lazy to do the legwork. Now its up and running on my Centos laptop thanks to you

booeeo

September 24, 2006 @ 11:53 AM

Hi dude, Thanks for the brilliand guide, made it easy as pie for me. Jens

Jens Holm

January 11, 2007 @ 01:38 PM

Thx for this topic. merci from belgium

Dedale

March 13, 2007 @ 08:43 AM

Does somebody tried this for CentOS 5.0? I have an error... /etc/init.d/hostapd start Starting Hostapd: Configuration file: /etc/hostapd.conf ioctl[SIOCSIWMODE]: Invalid argument Could not set interface to master mode! madwifi driver initialization failed. rmdir[ctrl_interface]: No such file or directory [FAILED]

October 26, 2007 @ 08:23 AM

YESSS!!! On CentOs 5, running on a DELL INSPIRON 8600 runs ok. The catch I was not aware of is the need to add "by hand" the last line in the script. THANKS ! Guido

Guido

January 1, 2008 @ 03:30 PM

ultramookie