Last modified: Jul. 26, 2008

Contents
1 - Summary
2 - MadWifi Installation
3 - Wireless Configuration
4 - Connection Check


1 - Summary

This little guide will show you how to install madwifi in Red Hat Enterprise
Linux 5. For this guide to work you will need to have your wireless network
card installed and be running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5. The card I have is
a Cisco Aironet PCI card (PI21AG).


2 - MadWif Installation

Download the newest files from http://www.atrpms.net/dist/el5/madwifi/.

# cd ~/wifi/
# ls -1
madwifi-0.9.4-37_r2431.el5.i386.rpm
madwifi-hal-kmdl-2.6.18-8.1.6.el5-0.9.4-37_r2431.el5.i686.rpm
madwifi-kmdl-2.6.18-8.1.6.el5-0.9.4-37_r2431.el5.i686.rpm
# sudo rpm -iv --nodeps madwifi-hal-kmdl-2.6.18-8.1.6.el5-0.9.4-37_r2431.el5.i686.rpm
# sudo rpm -iv madwifi-kmdl-2.6.18-8.1.6.el5-0.9.4-37_r2431.el5.i686.rpm
# sudo rpm -iv madwifi-0.9.4-37_r2431.el5.i386.rpm
# sudo reboot

Log in as a normal user and run the following commands. Start up the Network
Configuration tool and then close it. Rename the ifcfg-wifi0 file then edit it
to have the following.

  TYPE=Wireless
  DEVICE=ath0

# system-config-network
# cd /etc/sysconfig/networking/devices/
# sudo mv ifcfg-wifi0 ifcfg-ath0
# sudo vi ifcfg-ath0
# cd /etc/sysconfig/networking/profiles/default/
# sudo mv ifcfg-wifi0 ifcfg-ath0
# sudo vi ifcfg-ath0
# cd /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/
# sudo mv ifcfg-wifi0 ifcfg-ath0
# sudo vi ifcfg-ath0


3 - Wireless Configuration

Start up the Network Configuration tool and modify the wireless settings,
then Save and Quit. I will be using WEP for this connection. Select Devices,
then click Edit and go to the Wireless Settings tab. Set the following. Save
it then Quit.

  Mode - Managed
  SSID, Specified - SSIDname
  Key - 0x000...

# system-config-network

Finally, restart the network service.

# sudo service network restart


4 - Connection Check

Your wireless network card should now be connected to the access point with
the SSID that was specified. This network card should now also have an IP
address. That's it, now you have a wireless connection setup on Red Hat
Enterprise Linux 5.

# /sbin/iwconfig ath0
ath0      IEEE 802.11g  ESSID:"SSIDname"  Nickname:"FQDN"
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.432 GHz  Access Point: 00:19:A9:A5:37:C0
          Bit Rate:24 Mb/s   Tx-Power:20 dBm   Sensitivity=1/1
          Retry:off   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=37/70  Signal level=-57 dBm  Noise level=-94 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:16  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

# /sbin/ifconfig ath0
ath0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:40:96:B2:B2:5E
          inet addr:192.168.1.10  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:479 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:380 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:53066 (51.8 KiB)  TX bytes:55139 (53.8 KiB)