Fixing WEP

[Dougal]

I noticed quite a few people are having problems getting WEP connections to work.
I have no idea if anybody is actually using WEP successfully, so thought it might be completely broken by some change made a while ago, but not noticed, since everybody was busy checking WPA...

Anyway, first go to the network wizard thread and try the latest version:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=216132
(there's a dotpet at the end of the thread)

If that works, then it's solved.
If not, there's one more thing I can think of now: please go to /etc/network-wizard/wireless/profiles and look at your configuration file (it should be named something like: 00:1B:11:32:71:87.WEP.conf).
There are two fields that interest us:
KEY: should be set to your key
SECURE: should be "restricted"

Make sure those are ok.

(I noticed there's a bit of confusion about the format of the key -- hex vs. ascii text.
I'll probably add a check-box to select the ascii form, but not at the moment.)

[Béèm]

Nice info Dougal.
Altho my (WEP) connection works, I peeped in the config file just out of interest.
Here Secure = "open".

Am I in trouble?

[macrocephalic]

No wireless at work to test it with - but I'll give it a go when I get home. Although it's probably a good thing that I changed over to WPA at home to avoid this issue - I'll no doubt need to be able to use WEP at some stage.

[Libretto100ct]

I will try everything suggested. I have had WEP work fine in 3 & 4 series and it works fine. In the 2 series is where I have had recent problems. WEP is important with dated wireless cards where WPA is not an option. WEP won't stop a "geek", but it stops joe average from hitch hiking your signal. Thanks Dougal.

[Dougal]

Altho my (WEP) connection works, I peeped in the config file just out of interest.
Here Secure = "open".

Am I in trouble?

Maybe, I'm not sure...
The difference seems to be that instead of running

Code: Select all

iwconfig $INTERFACE key restricted $KEY

it probably runs

Code: Select all

iwconfig $INTERFACE key open $KEY

Here's what the iwconfig man page has to say about it:

The security mode may be open or restricted, and its meaning depends on the card used. With most cards, in open mode no authentication is used and the card may also accept non-encrypted sessions, whereas in restricted mode only encrypted sessions are accepted and the card will use authentication if available.

I'm not sure what that means in your case... maybe tempestuous will know? Are you sure it actually connects to your WEP network and not some neighboring open network? It will be good to know.

[Wognath]

I have been trying to get WEP to work for a while. Thanks to all who posted suggestions in this and other threads, but I wasn't able to get any to work. I changed my wireless to WPA2 and it worked perfectly right away. I suggest that for not-very-knowledgeable users such as myself, the best way to fix WEP is to give up on it!

[Béèm]

Altho my (WEP) connection works, I peeped in the config file just out of interest.
Here Secure = "open".

Am I in trouble?

Maybe, I'm not sure...
The difference seems to be that instead of running

Code: Select all

iwconfig $INTERFACE key restricted $KEY

it probably runs

Code: Select all

iwconfig $INTERFACE key open $KEY

Here's what the iwconfig man page has to say about it:

The security mode may be open or restricted, and its meaning depends on the card used. With most cards, in open mode no authentication is used and the card may also accept non-encrypted sessions, whereas in restricted mode only encrypted sessions are accepted and the card will use authentication if available.

I'm not sure what that means in your case... maybe tempestuous will know? Are you sure it actually connects to your WEP network and not some neighboring open network? It will be good to know.

Sorry to reply a little late, but I have been quite busy.
Yes I am sure I connect to my WEP network, as I have to enter the WEP key. Otherwise I have no connection to my WEP network.
On the other hand, yes, there are a couple of open networks in the neighborhood I can connect too, but I always check if I am connected at my own WEP network.

I am not in puppy at the moment, so I can't verify with your commands now.