Cisco Aironet 350 on Slackware 9

First, thanks to the instructions found HERE. On this page there's some info specific to Redhat and Debian, and some other tidbits.

This is where I got most of the info on how to get this to work. Offered here is a condensed, quick-n-dirty description, with the addition of some notes on setting up QuickSwitch with this, to easily change network profiles.

My Hardware/OS/Network

IBM Thinkpad T22 - 1ghz P3, 512mb ram, also has 3COM 10/100 mini-pci card installed. Setting up the Cisco did not adversely affect the 3COM (eth0).

Slackware Linux 9.0 is the OS.
You'll also need:

This is a home network consisting of a DSL modem/router with a static IP, connected to a small hub, with a few pc's, and a Linksys 802.11b wireless router plugged into it. For several reasons, I'm not using DHCP. The instructions here are to set up the client with a static ip.

Hardware Instructions

  1. untar/zip kernel source under /usr/src, make symbolic link /usr/src/linux -> /usr/src/linux-2.4.24
  2. configure kernel as desired, then make sure the following are set:
  3. compile kernel and modules, put kernel somewhere nice, run lilo, reboot
  4. untar/zip pcmcia-x.x.x in /usr/src and make a symlink if you want - /usr/src/pcmcia -> /usr/src/pcmcia-3.2.4/
    I forget if there was a good reason or not to make the symlink, possibly just for ease of typing later, but it's probably not necessary.
  5. go into that dir and do the following, accepting defaults:
  6. reboot if you want, it may or may not be necessary.

That's It!

For the hardware anyway.

Now you'll need to make sure it works, then set up the Linux network device.

The pcmcia controller thingy is /etc/rc.d/rc.pcmcia in my scenario. So, with the card in, or not (I don't think it matters), you want to make sure pcmcia card services is running, so do:

/etc/rc.d/rc.pcmcia restart
Or just 'start' instead of 'restart'

QuickSwitch config

I have build a subdirectory specifically for switchto under /etc, and put all my switchto stuff there. To get this to work, I then had to make a symlink in /etc pointing to the switchto.conf in that subdir:
/etc/switchto.conf -> /etc/switchto/switchto.conf
In my switchto.conf, I set up a profile for home wireless, called "homew"
In this profile, I'm using the execpre and execpost, which are set up as follows:
execpre=/etc/switchto/pre.script
execpost=/etc/switchto/post.script
The pre.script is this: 
#!/usr/bin/bash
/etc/rc.d/rc.pcmcia restart #restart pcmcia
sleep 3	                    #wait a bit
The post.script is this: 
#!/usr/bin/bash
echo 'sleeping...'   #show something
sleep 3		     #wait a bit, might not really need this though
/sbin/route add default gw 192.168.1.1 netmask 0.0.0.0 dev eth1
echo 'default route added'
sleep 2              #wait a bit, might not really need this though
/sbin/route add -host 192.168.1.1 dev eth1  #finds gateway now
sleep 1	             #wait a bit, might not really need this though
/etc/rc.d/rc.samba restart   #restart samba to see home shares
echo 'ready to go!'   #go gettem, tiger!

The purpose of these two scripts is this: The pre.script makes sure pcmcia is turned on. The post.script adds the necessary ip network info to be able to use the adapter on my home network. In the examples above, note that 192.168.1.1 is the IP address of the Linksys wireless router that the adapter communicates with, and 192.168.1.5 is the IP address of the adapter itself. I put the sleep statements in while figuring out how to get this to work, but they might not really be necessary. Note that on the Linksys router, as well as on the DSL modem/router, DHCP is turned OFF. The switchto.conf contains more IP info under the profile:

[homew]
device=eth1
description=Home Wireless
hostname=bubbles
nisdomain=homenet
address=192.168.1.5
netmask=255.255.255.0
gateway=192.168.0.1
dns1=12.32.34.32
dns2=12.32.34.33
execpre=/etc/switchto/pre.script
execpost=/etc/switchto/post.script

Note here that 192.168.0.1 is the internal IP of my DSL modem/router, and those DNS numbers are my ISP's dns servers. Also note that this profile tells switchto to use eth1. I have other profiles in the switchto.conf which specify eth0, which is my 3COM 10/100 mini-pci (internal) adapter. So I just type switchto work, for example, to fire it up using my work network configuration.

Cisco's ACU Utility

You use this to specify your SSID. You can do other stuff here too (status, security, etc). Oddly enough, after firing this up, ACU says at the bottom that it's associated with IP 00.00.00.00. But, it works, so I don't worry about it.
The executables end up under /opt/cisco/bin
The only one I've found reason to use is acu

If you find this useful...

Feel free to email me... it's keith, at this domain name.

 

 

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