Quote from Jean Tourrilhes in /etc/pcmcia/wireless.opts:

#
# Note also that this script will work only with the original Pcmcia scripts,
# and not with the default Red Hat scripts. Send a bug report to Red Hat ;-)
#

RedHat 7.3 : How to set up 802.11b wireless networking

If you are running RedHat 7.3, I would tell you to simply run /usr/bin/redhat-config-network and click "Devices", Click "Add", then select "Wireless Connection". You can find the full instructions in RedHat's Customization Guide for RH7.3 in Chapter 6, Network Configuration: Wireless Connection.


However, according to the Errata:

The version of the Red Hat Network Administration Tool that shipped with Red Hat Linux 7.3 did not include wireless connection in the configuration wizard. An enhancement errata will be released soon with this feature.

You can download the newest version of redhat-config-network from rpmfind.net.

RedHat 7.2 : How to set up 802.11b wireless networking

Before I get into the How-To, I should note what hardware I set this up on.  I have a Dell Latitude with a Dell TrueMobile 1150 Series PC Card.   To find out what kinda card you have (or what RH thinks you have) run the command cardctl ident 0 .   By default my card loaded up with the wvlan_cs driver (based on what it found in /etc/pcmcia/config) , but didn't dhcp an IP.

1- Install the rpm's

You'll need two rpms to get started : 
wireless-tools and kernel-pcmcia-cs.  Either download them from rpmfind.net or get them from the RH7.2 install cd.  To install just, rpm -ivh <package_name>.

2- Fix /etc/sysconfig/pcmcia

The /etc/init.d/pcmcia rc script tries to source in /etc/sysconfig/pcmcia.   The default pcmcia file on RH7.2 has some pretty funky options.  I just backed mine up and changed the options to the following:

PCMCIA=yes
PCIC=i82365
PCIC_OPTS=
CORE_OPTS=
CARDMGR_OPTS=
SCHEME=essidany

Note:  The default pcmcia file had pcmcia turned off, no PCIC setting, and did not include a line for SCHEME.

3- Fix /etc/pcmcia/network

When the /etc/init.d/pcmcia script runs, you'll see in syslog it does a ./network start eth0 .  That's not /etc/init.d/network start , but instead /etc/pcmcia/network start .  The problem is by default /etc/pcmcia/network start does actually nothing.  There's a comment there that reads, "We don't do *anything* here. We get a hotplug event when the ethX device is registered, and we bring the device up there". That has never worked for me, thus I changed it.

To get around this bug in the script I have the /etc/pcmcia/network start actually start the network as one would expect it should.

So I changed the "start" section to read:

'start')
     [ -f /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-${device} ] && \
      /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifup ifcfg-${device}
    ;;

4- Configure the interface eth0

Since the /etc/pcmcia/network start $device script is going to try to up the device (default eth0) we need to make sure we have that interface configured for dhcp.

You can configure eth0 however you want:   netconf, netconfig, linuxconf, or good old vi.   I prefer to just manually vi the file /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0.   Here's what mine looks like:

DEVICE="eth0"
ONBOOT="yes"
BOOTPROTO="dhcp"

5- Restart the pcmcia script

From here the configuration should be set for the wireless card to load the wvlan_cs driver (default setting), and use the "essidany" scheme.
 
To test it /etc/init.d/pcmcia restart .

---

Brad Allison,  1/30/2002