User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.1.3) Gecko/20090909 Fedora/3.5.3-1.fc11 Firefox/3.5.3 GTB6 Oct 21 22:07:53 m5 kernel: wlan0: encryption modes supported: WEP; TKIP with WPA, WPA2, WPA2PSK; AES/CCMP with WPA, WPA2, WPA2PSK _[/root]_(root@m5)_ # iwconfig wlan0 enc on key s:secret Error for wireless request "Set Encode" (8B2A) : SET failed on device wlan0 ; Invalid argument. system-config-network reports: Error for wireless request "Set Encode" (8B2A) : SET failed on device wlan0 ; Invalid argument. Determining IP information for wlan0... failed; no link present. Check cable? This is ndiswrapper, wrapping bcmwl5 for this device: 03:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4328 802.11a/b/g/n (rev 03) ...which is built-in to this HP Pavilion tx 2000 laptop. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1.iwconfig wlan0 enc on key s:secret or 2. try setting key with system-config-network > edit interface > wireless tab Actual Results: Error for wireless request "Set Encode" (8B2A) : SET failed on device wlan0 ; Invalid argument. Expected Results: enabling encryption & setting the key This seems like it could be incompatibilities between the tools & the api implemented by the driver. # iwlist wlan0 scan wlan0 Scan completed : Cell 01 - Address: 00:1E:58:F3:39:93 ESSID:"HeavensHalfAcre" Protocol:IEEE 802.11g Mode:Managed Frequency:2.422 GHz (Channel 3) Quality:56/100 Signal level:-60 dBm Noise level:-96 dBm Encryption key:on Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s; 6 Mb/s 9 Mb/s; 12 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s; 24 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s 48 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s Extra:bcn_int=100 Extra:atim=0 IE: IEEE 802.11i/WPA2 Version 1 Group Cipher : CCMP Pairwise Ciphers (1) : CCMP Authentication Suites (1) : PSK
ndiswrapper is not supported: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ForbiddenItems#Proprietary_Kernel_Drivers you'll need to talk to the ndiswrapper folks to figure out why their driver is not accepting the arguments that iwconfig is passing; sounds like a failure of ndiswrapper to correctly handle valid WEXT parameters. That said, if your WEP password is actually an *ASCII* passphrase (which is pretty rare these days) of 5 or 13 in length, then your usage of iwconfig is correct. But if it's a hexadecimal WEP key (10 or 26 hex characters) then you don't want the 's:' in front. If it's a WPA network, the you cannot use iwconfig, you need to use wpa_supplicant instead, because WPA requires a daemon to manage the connection.