Fedora Linux Core 3 VIA Networking VT6656-802.

11 a/b/g USB Wireless LAN Driver Installation Guide

Version 0.8, May 11, 2006 Copyright 2005, 2006 VIA Technologies, INC.

1. Summary
This installation guide describes the procedures to install the VIA Networking VT6656 Wireless LAN USB Driver and how to enable it on Linux distributions Fedora Linux Core 3. The information in this document is provided AS IS, without guarantee of any kind.

2. File description
This package requires 2 file as described below.
05/11/2006 07:12pm 11,764,855 vt6656-bin_05112006.tgz Readme VIA Gigabit LAN Driver Binary this file

Users are advised to download the VIA pre-compiled VT6656 Wireless LAN USB Driver from VIA arena website http://www.viaarena.com/default.aspx?PageID=2&Type=3

3. Install VIA pre-compiled VT6656 Wireless LAN USB Driver binary

To install VIA's pre-compiled VT6656 Wireless LAN USB driver binary, follow the steps below:
#tar xvzf vt6656-bin_05112006.tgz #cd vt6656-bin_05112006 #./vinstall

Users may manually load the VT6656 network adapter module by the following command.
#modprobe vntwusb

If users want to activate the VT6656 network adapter at boot up time, add one line, alias eth# vntwusb (# is interface number of network adapter) in the file /etc/modprobe.conf for 2.6.x kernel.

Note: If users are uncertain the interface number of VT6656 network adapter, users can check the interface number with file /proc/net/wireless.
#cat /proc/net/wireless Inter-| sta-| Quality | Discarded packets nwid 0 crypt 0 0 frag retry 0 0 | Missed | WE misc | beacon | 16 0

face | tus | link level noise | eth1: 0000 104. 50 0

4. Verify success of driver installation

Two methods can be used to verify success of driver installation. (1) Inspect boot up messages Read the boot up message in the /var/log/messages file to verify success of driver installation. The messages should look like below:
VIA Networking Wireless LAN USB Driver Ver. 1.03 Copyright (c) 2004 VIA Networking Technologies, Inc. divert: allocating divert_blk for eth1 usbcore: registered new driver vntwusb Check the current loaded driver module

(2) Check currently loaded driver module Run lsmod in the command line to check the currently loaded Wireless LAN driver module: vntwusb for VT6656 Wireless LAN USB Driver.

5. Start Using Wireless LAN with VT6656

Users can use the Wireless LAN USB device network setup script sta.wlan to enable wireless. Revise the wireless setting in file sta.wlan. For Example: Interface Number of VT6656 is eth1 AP ESSID is BLW-04GM Set WEP Function ON with 40bit and use KEY0
# Assigned available device interface such as eth0 or eth1. DEVICE=eth1 # wireless settings DESIRED_SSID="BLW-04GM" BSSTYPE=infra CHANNEL=6 PSMODE=no AUTHTYPE=open # ["xxx"] Service Set ID for used(Max 32) # [adhoc|infra] adhoc or infrastructure mode # [1..14] default startup channel # [yes|no] to enable power saving # [open|share] authentication mode

# WEP function enable/disable WEP_ENABLE=yes WEP_DEFKEY=0 # [yes|no] to enable WEP # [0..3] Key Index for use

# WEP HEX key settings, only WEP_ENABLE=yes, key will take effect. # [no|"xx:xx:xx:xx:xx"]: no key or 40bit(10-hex)/104(26-hex)wep hex key WEP_KEY0="01:23:45:67:89" WEP_KEY2=no WEP_KEY3=no # 40 bit wep key # 104 bit wep key WEP_KEY1="11:22:33:44:55:66:77:88:99:aa:bb:cc:dd"

Setting of file ifcfg-eth1 in path /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts

# VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6656 Wireless LAN USB Driver DEVICE=eth1 ONBOOT=yes BOOTPROTO=dhcp

After revising the wireless setting completely and saving it, users can run the shell under terminal to get ip from DHCP.
#cd vt6656-bin_05112006 #sh sta.wlan #iwconfig eth1 IEEE 802.11a/b/g ESSID:"BLW-04GM" Mode:Managed Frequency:2.462GHz Bit Rate=11Mb/s Retry min limit:8 Access Point: 00:90:CC:84:61:90

Sensitivity=211/255 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off

Encryption key:****-****-** Power Management:off Link Quality=90/255

Security mode:open

Signal level:45/136

Noise level:0/0

Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0 Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

Users can use wireless extension tool iwconfig to check the wireless LAN whether enable successfully. For more details of iwconfig, please refer the Linux user Manual, or type command #man iwconfig. To verify the network status, run ifconfig. Messages related to the network interface including the IP address will be displayed. Next, run the ping <Network host address> command to send ICMP packets over the networks. Note1: After running shell sta.wlan to enable wireless, but the wireless adapter cant get ip from dhcp. Please unload the wireless LAN module and load it again then run sta.wlan again.
#modprobe vntwusb -r #modprobe vntwusb #sh sta.wlan

Note2: Users may meet following message when load wireless LAN driver. Please Move to tool iwconfig in path /sbin to another directory can avoid the issue.
Unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at virtual address 00000020 printing eip: 0fd1f0f5 *pde = 00000000 ....................... ....................... Process iwconfig (pid: 2968, threadinfo=04501000 task=05708cb0) Stack: 00010001 00000000 00000001 0ccc8400 045e0000 04501f44 0fd0881a 00000000 00000001 045016cf 005e0000 0fd07033 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 045e11f2 045e0000 Call Trace: [<0fd0881a>] MACvDisableKeyEntry+0x1a/0x1e [vntwusb] [<0fd07033>] device_ioctl+0xc34/0x15a3 [vntwusb]

6. Test configuration
The following tables summarize the system configurations used for test.
Motherboard CPU RAM Wireless LAN Card VT8400B (PT880 Pro+VT8251) Intel P4 3.0GHz EM64T 512MB DDR2 RAM VT8410D (K8T890+VT8237A) AMD Athlon 64 2200+ 128MB*2 DDR266 RAM

VIA VT6656 USB Wireless LAN Controller

Motherboard CPU RAM Wireless LAN Card

EPIA-CN (CN700+VT8237R Plus) VIA C7 Esther 1.3GHz 512MB DDR2 RAM

EPIA-ML8000 (CLE266+VT8235) VIA C3 Nehemiah 800MHz 256MB DDR266 RAM

VIA VT6656 USB Wireless LAN Controller