Ubuntu Dapper Drake and WPA-Encrypted Wireless
I am a Ubuntu Linux user. On my laptop and at work, I was running “Breezy Badger” (Ubuntu Linux 5.10) since last fall.
But one of the worst things about it was its inability to connect to WPA-encrypted Wifi access points. Eventually, I wrote a few shell scripts that made me able to connect to my AP at home, but it was far from being handy.
Now yesterday, I installed the new release, Dapper Drake on my laptop. The installation was straightforward, and by the way I liked it a lot that the installation CD is a live CD at the same time so that new users can “try before they buy”.
When everything was installed, I realized that my wifi card was recognized and activated automatically, yet I was not able to connect to a WPA encrypted network. Instead it tried to connect to one of my neighbors unencrypted access points. Downgrading my connection to the demonstrably weak WEP encryption was not an option earlier, nor was it now.
Already being a little disappointed, I searched the Ubuntu forums and after a while, I came up with a thread about WPA access points with Ubuntu Dapper Drake.
In short: Nine seven steps to WPA encrypted Wifi with Ubuntu Dapper Drake:
sudo apt-get install wpasupplicant(might already be installed)- (You might have to do a
sudo apt-get updatein order to fetch the newest metadata for apt-get) sudo apt-get install network-manager-gnomesudo gedit /etc/network/interfaces— Comment out everything but “lo” entries in that fileCreate a file called/etc/default/wpasupplicant, add entryENABLED=0- Reboot your system
- Left-click the network manager icon in Gnome and select your wireless network
- Follow the prompts for password, type, etc.
- It will ask you to choose a password for your new “keyring”.
- Be happy
Now everytime you boot up and log in, the network manager will connect you to your preferred WPA-encrypted network as desired.
There are only two caveats that I currently know of:
- The connection is only made once you log into Gnome. So if you plan to run this connection on a server or if you need a network connection before you get to the login prompt (i.e. during bootup), this method is not ideal for you.
- A current bug is that you are asked for your keyring password twice (?) everytime you log in. This can be annoying, but rumor has it, it is already fixed and an update will be released soon.
As you see, Dapper Drake made a big step towards the usability of Linux on laptops. Hope you give it a shot. It seems to be worth it.
Update: Removed two unnecessary steps. Thanks, Martin and Zakaria!
October 16th, 2006 at 5:13 pm
Nice guide, thank you! I also needed to add the ndiswrapper to /etc/modules before nm was able to see my wireless card.
October 28th, 2006 at 11:44 am
This got it going for me on Kubuntu also, BUT I have to re-enter the WPA Key every time I boot. Is there any way that I can edit a file somewhere to make it automatic on bootup because I can’t find a way to ’save’ the Key
November 13th, 2006 at 12:06 am
Thanks a lot. That’s I need to do with my Labtop
November 23rd, 2006 at 11:29 pm
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November 30th, 2006 at 12:06 am
[…] I learned about this blogg to help you get WPA working on Obuntu. […]
December 8th, 2006 at 1:45 am
Enabling WPA on Ubuntu Dapper the easy way…
I’ve been strugling with WPA on my Dapper installation for a while now. There are numerous installation guides to get WPA working, but none of them worked for me or they were extremely complex and far beyond my linux knowledge…….
December 15th, 2006 at 10:51 pm
I don’t know where to access the network manager after install – I can’t find it anywhere
December 26th, 2006 at 1:22 am
Holy Crap Sweet!!!
January 7th, 2007 at 4:27 pm
[…] Ubuntu Dapper Drake and WPA-Encrypted Wireless at fredericiana (tags: ubuntu wpa linux wireless wifi) Posted by rabsteen Filed in Daily Links […]
January 8th, 2007 at 4:22 pm
Nice site actually. Gone to my favourites. Thanks for creation.
January 13th, 2007 at 9:16 am
I have the same problem. I can’t find Network Manager anywhere
February 12th, 2007 at 9:21 pm
wow. thanks. i went to the OTHER site to get this done… no luck. Thanks alot. you rock
March 9th, 2007 at 10:13 am
Wow. I must say, I’m really impressed now.
I struggled with that thing for days – needless to say, without luck.
And your suggestion worked right away.
NICE work!
April 1st, 2007 at 3:43 pm
Awesome! That worked for me like butter
thanks.
June 24th, 2007 at 12:57 pm
Unfortunately your howto didnt add WPA to my system. The gnome network manager is nice, but when it prompts me to enter the network credentials, the drop-down only has the following encryption options for me: “WEP 128 Bit Passphrase”, “WEP 64/128 Bit Hex”, and “WEP 64/128 Bit ASCII” .. no options for wpa appear anywhere. When I look at running process list, wpa_supplicant is not running (and im pretty sure this needs to be running). My understanding was that the gnome-network-manager would automatically set up this stuff but maybe I’m wrong about that. Any suggestions?
July 22nd, 2007 at 2:16 pm
I’m glad you posted this and and I’m glad Google took me to it…
October 19th, 2007 at 6:39 am
I was struggling with wpa, but then what i did was make the wireless point dhcp, and make it visible, and then it worked
February 7th, 2008 at 5:19 am
Followed the instructions. It doesn’t seem to work with WPA1 personal. The computer is waiting for a key to be received. However, WPA personal doesn’t get a key you supply it . I never get the second request to enter a key. Anyone know what else I need to do to get this to work or should I simply upgrade to 7.10?
July 13th, 2008 at 1:00 am
Err, I don’t want to be stupid, but I just got Ubuntu and how do you “comment out” something? Like in PHP, just add // ?
July 14th, 2008 at 7:06 am
Bram: That depends on the file you are editing. In config files in /etc, you usually “comment out” stuff by putting a # sign at the beginning of the respective line.
HOWEVER: I believe my instructions up here are slightly outdated, as they refer to a Ubuntu version that’s been updated three times (or so) since I wrote this. In other words: Newer Ubuntu versions should have much better wireless support out of the box and probably do not need these instructions anymore.
Either way, have fun with Ubuntu!