Intel® PRO/Wireless 2100 Driver FAQ
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This document describes some technical help frequently asked questions (FAQ) for the ipw2100 driver.

Feel free to send suggestions for additional FAQs or corrections to the ipw2100 mailing list at ipw2100-devel@lists.sourceforge.net.
section updated: June 08 2004 12:09:15

1. Driver Load and Association
1.1. pre-0.47 - I get the unresolved symbol 'hostap_get_crypt_ops' error
1.2. dmesg shows association happens and then is immediately lost.
1.3. I get the unresolved symbol 'pci_name', 'release_firmware_*', and 'request_firmware_*' when I try to load the driver.
1.4. I get the error "ipw2200ipw2200: U ipw2200_load ipw2200_boot.fw load failed" in my dmesg output.
1.5. Where is the ipw2200 firmware?
1.6. When I try and run insmod ipw2200 I get -1 Unknown symbol in module.
1.7. Why am I unable to associate when WEP is enabled?
1.8. I am getting an error that the firmware can't be found when I try to load the driver.
1.9. Why is hotplug stalling on boot after I've installed the driver?
1.10. I get the error 'insmod: error inserting 'ipw2200.ko': -1 Invalid module format' after doing 'insmod ipw2200.ko.'
section updated: July 26 2004 10:43:07
2. Wireless Tools
2.1. IPW2100 - Why won't the wireless tools (iwconfig, iwlist, etc.) work
2.2. IPW2100 - Why won't iwconfig <interface> channel X set
2.3. IPW2200 - I can load the IPW2200 driver, but am unable to use iwconfig to set any values.
2.4. When I run 'iwconfig eth1 power on' I see:
Error for wireless request "Set Power Management" (8B2C) :
SET failed on device eth1 ; Invalid argument.
2.5. When I run 'iwconfig' I see:
iwconfig: relocation error: iwconfig: undefined symbol: iw_channel_to_freq
section updated: October 04 2004 12:31:26
3. Driver Compile
3.1. I see CRC warnings of the format [<file>] has no CRC! when I compile the kernel.
3.2. Compiling the driver complains that I do not have the file 'ieee802_11.h'. Why isn't it provided?
section updated: July 26 2004 11:43:05

1.1. pre-0.47 - I get the unresolved symbol 'hostap_get_crypt_ops' error
This means that the hostap module is not being automatically loaded by your kernel.
Try manually loading with:
% modprobe hostap

This problem has been completely resolved in 0.47 or later versions.

1.2. dmesg shows association happens and then is immediately lost.
This happens because the system requires an RF kill switch. See the project page
http://rfswitch.sourceforge.net for more details.

1.3. I get the unresolved symbol 'pci_name', 'release_firmware_*', and 'request_firmware_*' when I try to load the driver.
This means you need to load the firmware class module:
% modprobe firmware_class

1.4. I get the error "ipw2200ipw2200: U ipw2200_load ipw2200_boot.fw load failed" in my dmesg output.
This also means you need to load the firmware class module:
% modprobe firmware_class

1.5. Where is the ipw2200 firmware?
You can download the ipw2200 firmware from http://ipw2200.sf.net/firmware.php. See README.ipw2200 for more information.

1.6. When I try and run insmod ipw2200 I get -1 Unknown symbol in module.
When using insmod you need to manually load any dependency modules (the alternative is to install the module into the correct location and use modprobe). The specific module you may need to load varies based on how you have configured your kernel, but for most people the missing module is the firmware_class. To load this module, simply run:
% modprobe firmware_class

1.7. Why am I unable to associate when WEP is enabled?
The most common reason for this is that the security mode is set to restricted instead of open, since restricted mode means that the driver will only associate with APs that it can first do shared key authentication with. If the AP is not configured to require shared key authentication, association won't happen.
Ensure that you are associating using the steps:
% modprobe ipw2100
% iwconfig eth1 essid <essid>
% iwconfig eth1 key open <key>
% ifconfig eth1 up

1.8. I am getting an error that the firmware can't be found when I try to load the driver.
Ensure you have downloaded the firmware (link available from http://ipw2100.sf.net).
Also, ensure that the firmware is in the correct place: /usr/lib/hotplug/firmware for hotplug or /etc/firmware for legacy load.
If you would like to use legacy load, configure the kernel to use
CONFIG_IPW2100_LEGACY_LOAD.
If you would like to use hotplug load, enable CONFIG_FW_LOADER in the kernel configuration.
See the INSTALL file for detailed instructions.

1.9. Why is hotplug stalling on boot after I've installed the driver?
If you are using Fedora Core 1 or 2 and hotplug firmware load, the network scripts may cause problems with hotplug.
Workaround is to use legacy firmware load with Fedora Core.
For more information, see: http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.drivers.ipw2100.devel/651/match=fedora and http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.drivers.ipw2100.devel/655/match=fedora+devlopers

1.10. I get the error 'insmod: error inserting 'ipw2200.ko': -1 Invalid module format' after doing 'insmod ipw2200.ko.'
(from Pierre Ossman) "If you are using fedora's kernel-sourcecode package then it fails because of different module versions (the kernel checks that the modules are compiled for the running kernel). Fedora adds the string 'custom' to the version id. You can see this if you do a dmesg.
To fix this you have to change /usr/src/linux-/Makefile. Remove the 'custom'-bit and it should work."
section updated: July 26 2004 10:43:07

2.1. IPW2100 - Why won't the wireless tools (iwconfig, iwlist, etc.) work
If the Wireless tools have not been installed, and the kernel has not been configured to use them, then they will not work.
Ensure that your kernel has been compiled with the CONFIG_NET_RADIO=y parameter. (Can check using:
% grep CONFIG_NET_RADIO /lib/modules/2.4.26/build/include/linux/autoconf.h
and checking that you see:
#define CONFIG_NET_RADIO 1
Also, ensure that the latest wireless tools have been installed from http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/Linux/Tools.html.

2.2. IPW2100 - Why won't iwconfig <interface> channel X set
This command only works within monitor mode. If you would like to use monitor mode, then set:
% iwconfig eth1 mode monitor
% iwconfig eth1 channel X

2.3. IPW2200 - I can load the IPW2200 driver, but am unable to use iwconfig to set any values.
As of 0.2 - this is expected. The IPW2200 project is under very heavy development and has minimal functionality at this time. Continue to check back to http://ipw2200.sf.net for newer versions in the coming weeks that enable more features.
You can find out what each version supports by looking in the file README.ipw2200.

2.4. When I run 'iwconfig eth1 power on' I see:
Error for wireless request "Set Power Management" (8B2C) :
SET failed on device eth1 ; Invalid argument.
You need to upgrade to wireless-tools-0.27-pre23.

2.5. When I run 'iwconfig' I see:
iwconfig: relocation error: iwconfig: undefined symbol: iw_channel_to_freq
You need to upgrade your version of the library used by iwconfig to communicate with the kernel (wireless-tools-0.27-pre23 is known to work.)
section updated: October 04 2004 12:31:26

3.1. I see CRC warnings of the format [<file>] has no CRC! when I compile the kernel.
This is due to a bug in the kernel build process and is benign.

3.2. Compiling the driver complains that I do not have the file 'ieee802_11.h'. Why isn't it provided?
ieee802_11.h is part of the kernel source distribution provided by the vanilla kernel tree. If you don't have the full kernel sources, you can get a copy of the file from http://ipw2100.sf.net/patches/ieee802_11.h and place it in /lib/modules/`uname -r`/build/drivers/net/wireless
section updated: July 26 2004 11:43:05

Copyright (c) 2004 Intel Corporation. All rights reserved.

This material may be distributed only subject to the terms and conditions set forth in the Open Publication License, v1.0 or later (the latest version is presently available at http://www.opencontent.org/openpub/).
section updated: June 08 2004 12:09:15
Last Updated: Apr 14 2005 FAQ by Faq-O-Matic