How to install Intel Pro Wireless 3945 on CentOS Linux?

This article will describe you, how to install ipw3945 wireless adapter on a CentOS / RHEL based distribution.

Step 1.
You need to have rpmforge-release package installed. You can download it from DAG (http://dag.wieers.com/rpm/packages/rpmforge-release/).

Step 2.

yum install ipw3945d ipw3945-firmware dkms dkms-ipw3945 wpa_supplicant

Step 3.

vi /etc/sysconfig/wpa_supplicant

It should look like this;

# wlan0 and wifi0
# INTERFACES=”-iwlan0 -iwifi0″
#INTERFACES=”-iwlan0″
INTERFACES=”-ieth1″
# ndiswrapper and prism
# DRIVERS=”-Dndiswrapper -Dprism”
#DRIVERS=”-Dndiswrapper”
DRIVERS=”-Dwext”
~

Step 4.
Edit wpa_supplicant.conf. On this example, there are two network configured and both of them are WPA-1

vi /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant
#ctrl_interface_group=wheel
eapol_version=1
ap_scan=1
fast_reauth=1

#Work WPA-1
network={
ssid=”Fredi”
psk=”mysecretpassword” #Pre-shared key here
priority=1
}

#Home WPA-1
network={
ssid=”StarDust”
psk=”mysecretpassword” #Pre-shared key here
priority=2
}

Step 5.
Create your wireless interface configuration file.

vi /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth1

DEVICE=eth1
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
HWADDR=00:00:00:00:00:00 # Your wireless adapters’s MACid
ONBOOT=no
~

Tip:

To learn your wireless adapter’s MACid:
start ipw3945d service with service ipw3945d start then use ifconfig -a

Step 6.
Start required services on boot;

chkconfig ipw3945d on
chkconfig wpa_supplicant on

Step 7.
You should modify the startup scripts to change the boot order that work with wpa_supplicant

vi /etc/init.d/ipw3945d
# chkconfig: 345 10 90

vi /etc/init.d/network
# chkconfig: 2345 13 87

vi /etc/init.d/wpa_supplicant
# chkconfig: - 14 88

To use the new boot order, first disable services then re-enable

To disable:

chkconfig network off
chkconfig ipw3945d off
chkconfig wpa_supplicant off

To enable the new boot order;

chkconfig network on
chkconfig ipw3945d on
chkconfig wpa_supplicant on

Step 8.
Also, disable NetworkManager and NetworkManagerDispatcher services

chkconfig NetworkManager off
chkconfig NetworkManagerDispatcher off

Step 9.
Install dhclient package.

yum install dhclient

Step 10.
Install wpa_gui package. It is an easy to use network configuration application.

yum install wpa_supplicant-gui

Step 11.
Run wpa_gui application and connect to the network.

wpa_gui &

Step 12.
Try to request an IP address from the network.

dhclient eth1

You should see your IP address on wpa_gui’s main window.

Tip: To scan wireless networks, use;

iwlist eth1 scan

Enjoy!