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Old 13th March 2010
tetrodozombie tetrodozombie is offline
Real Name: bill slusser
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Default need help with urtw USB device

I shelled out another $50 to get a wireless usb that I had hoped would allow me to use OpenBSD wirelessly. With my luck, I got another urtw0. I've spent more than 500 man hours trying to get this working. I know there's some little flag or something ridiculously simple to make it happen. Why people in this forum, not all the people, but some of them are so secretive befuddles me.

It's a forum after all.
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Old 14th March 2010
ocicat ocicat is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tetrodozombie View Post
I know there's some little flag or something ridiculously simple to make it happen.
Maybe, maybe not. Wireless support is finicky at best. The technology & industry surrounding it is not yet mature -- especially when compared to Ethernet.
Quote:
Why people in this forum, not all the people, but some of them are so secretive befuddles me.
No one has all the answers. I also suspect that no one has a utrw(4) device, so no one can speak from direct experience. That leaves us to reading the manpages & searching the misc@ mailing list just like you should be doing yourself. Even the utrw(4) manpage states the following:
Code:
HARDWARE
     The following adapters should work:

           Alfa AWUS036H
           ASUS P5B Deluxe
           Belkin F5D7050E
           Linksys WUSB54GC v2
           Netgear WG111v2
           Netgear WG111v3
           Shuttle XPC Accessory PN20
           Sitecom WL-168
           Sitecom WL-168 v4
           Surecom EP-9001-g rev 2A
           TRENDnet TEW-424UB V3.xR
Yet, to help you resolve this matter one way or another (which may or may not lead to a fruitful conclusion...), begin productive & tangible discussion by:
  • stating what device you have -- manufacturer, model, etc.
  • providing complete dmesg(8) output with the device attached.
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Old 16th March 2010
tetrodozombie tetrodozombie is offline
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Here's what I've learned for all those who might get something from it:

Code:
ifconfig urtw0 inet 10.0.0.1 netmask 0xffffff00 wid "Borders" wepmode on wepkey 0xab875ab875
that should configure your wireless if. let me explain. urtw0 is your wireless usb, 10.0.0.1 -- just memorize it b/c as far as i know you use it all the time. netmask is the same memorize it b/c you use it all the time. wid is equivalent to ssid on an ethernet it's the name or id in our case a Borders coffee shop. wepmode, i still have work this out but it's for protecting your connection it's the encryption method. and wepkey is the password for that wireless network you're trying to get into.

then do:

Code:
sudo dhclient urtw0
you should get a connection ... if not look into your dhclient.conf in /etc and fiddle with it like so:

dhcp

that line above works best for me

dhcp NONE NONE NONE

that line has three NONE's after dhcp

and there are more, but this should get anyone started who's in the same boat as me.

Last edited by J65nko; 16th March 2010 at 11:29 PM. Reason: [code] and [/code] taggification
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Old 16th March 2010
shep shep is offline
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I'm very happy with the RAlink 2501 usb wireless which uses the rum driver.
The one odd thing I have noticed is I either have to use 'sh /etc/netstart rum0' or have the device plugged in at boot. Using ifconfig to bring up the network followed by dhclient rum0 does not work.

I see several problems with what your doing:
1) It looks like your are using the FreeBSD instructions.
This is what you want for openbsd http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq6.html

2) You have the subnet mask in hex - see openbsd faq above

I would suggest adding the file
/etc/hostname.urtw0

which contains the following syntax
Quote:
inet 10.0.0.1 255.255.255.0 none nwid Borders nwkey 0xab875ab875
Plug the adapter in and either reboot or use the netstart script.
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Old 16th March 2010
ocicat ocicat is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by shep View Post
You have the subnet mask in hex - see openbsd faq above
Specifying the subnet mask as a hexidecimal value is fine. Examples in the urtw(4) manpage do the same.

A more fundamental problem tetrodozombie will have in the future is assuming that an address of 10.0.0.1 will always work in all situations. From the limited information provided, it appears he is using his laptop in a Border's cafe which is exposing a 10.0.0.0/24 private subnet. While the addressing used may work in this specific Border's, it is not guaranteed to work in all coffee shops. I would recommend reading RFC1918 as well as Wikipedia's beginning article on private networks to provide introductory background on such addressing. The larger issue which needs to be explored & studied is general IP addressing including subnetting. Wikipedia has an article on this as well. Note that this is simply introductory information for the uninitiated. More in depth tutorials & books need to be read in order to thoroughly master the subject. Understanding this topic is highly recommended if you continue to use OpenBSD in networked situations.

Two very good online tutorials can be found at the following:Note that 10.0.0.0/8 (classful) is typically referred in in private addressing discussions. Apparently, this particular Border's is further subnetting this down to a /24 private network which isn't altogether surprising, but getting this information would require talking to the in-house staff. Perhaps all Border's expose this specific private subnet, but the point to be taken away from this message is that such a decision is not dictated by IP addressing; rather if such an exposure is widely used, it is as a arbitrary corporate convention.

It is good tetrodozombie figured out his own configuration issues. OpenBSD is a small project, & much of the support infrastructure found in larger, more established comunities such as Windows & Linux will likely never be as pervasive or complete for the OpenBSD community. Learning to critically read & understand what information is available (manpages + FAQ + mailing lists) is necessary to use the operating system effectively.
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Old 16th March 2010
J65nko J65nko is offline
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tetrodozombie,
  1. What is the brand/model number?
  2. Could you post a dmesg ?
  3. dhcp NONE NONE NONE is the format/syntax used in a hostname.if(5) file and not the format of a dhclient.conf(5)
__________________
You don't need to be a genius to debug a pf.conf firewall ruleset, you just need the guts to run tcpdump
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Old 28th March 2010
tetrodozombie tetrodozombie is offline
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I'm such an idiot. I've spent the last two weeks playing with ifconfig and found the problem was my lack of understanding with ifconfig.

I'm currently logged in to this forum with my OpenBSD box. My HP amd64 with an Intel CoreDuo.

Here's what I did to make it possible.

1 -- at the command line to use the urtw0 usb network adapter. type:

sudo ifconfig urtw0 nwid "nameLikeStarbucks" nwkey 0xaf987af987 255.255.255.0 NONE mode g

2 -- explaination: nwid -> is the network id or network alias name of burger king or mcdonald's the place that's giving you free wifi. nwkey is the hexadecimal key which always begins with 0x and is followed by six digits or letters from a - f. Here at this hotel it's the pass key. the 255.255.255.0 is your netmask if you're using DHCP and you prolly are if you're using free wifi. you can put NONE after the netmask and ifconfig if give you what that NONE paramter is automatically. I forgot what it's for, but since I found the work around I'm not buggin.

3 -- wait and watch your light start to blink on your usb network adapter. when it stops blinking and stays on, you've got an active connection to the network you're trying to reach or the nwid. (( this is the part that got me. i didn't know you had to wait for like 30 seconds to have the network connection become solid. it's not an instantaneous thing. ))

4 (for i just use this one simple line in my /etc/hostname.urtw0 :

dhcp

( that's it )

now, at the command prompt type:

sudo dhclient urtw0

it will look for a lease from the network nwid for about 1 - 20 seconds and tell you it recieved an offer. if you do a 'ifconfig urtw0' you should see "active" somewhere in all that.

start up X windows using your favorite wm and you're surfing the web like i am right now with your openbsd box.


Here's something cool to remember and think about. After you do this and get comfortable with ifconfig, there are some cool things you can do with it like TUNNELING. And, I think my friends the internet just opens up a little bit more than
it did the day before yesterday.

Hooo yaaahhhh!!!
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Old 28th March 2010
tetrodozombie tetrodozombie is offline
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Let me say I don't think anyone should ever use a tool like "ifconfig" and not be intimately familar with it and all it can do. For anyone who wants to get on the fast track to learning internet fundamentals and the ins and outs of Unix, you gotta know ifconfig like it's the back of your hand. This is the one tool I see that will enable you to be a proficient hacker or awsome sys admin if that's what you want to be. Plan on reading the terrific OpenBSD man page on ifconfig for about a month while you're debugging your usb network adapter. Expect to spend about a month learning how to use ifconfig and dhclient to get on the web. The experience will be worth the wait because you will start to understand how that Unix box works. You'll start to become familar with the capabilities of network command line tools.

You could cheet and use a GUI. But, you'll always be dependent on someone else's knowledge, expertise, yada, yada, yada. To be really good, you have to work at it.
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Old 28th March 2010
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jggimi jggimi is offline
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One of the cute things to use is nwid any. You'll connect to the nearest/strongest access point.
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