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Hello,

I'm having big problems while configuring new router/firewall box. There's old box which is working fine, but it's 10 years old (P1, 133Mhz, 16MB Flash Disk, 64MB RAM) :$

I Have:
WiFi Orinoco 5v 16bit PCMCIA adapter.
Old rusty external WiFi antenna.
Brand new router/firewall box (an old PC :D P4 1.8GHz, 80GB, 256MB RAM) - should do just fine, i think :-/

I Need:
To replace old box with new one :)
Connect to Ad-Hoc network.
Give internet access to computers on local network.

So, as i mentioned above, everything is working right now, but when i try to connect to Ad-Hoc, nothing is working (except local network). Biggest problem here, i think, is me, and lack of networking skills. (I think i have none :D)

Besides of getting headache, i've emailed ISP, in response got few console commands and that's about it :/

iwpriv eth0 set_port3 1
iwconfig eth0 mode ad-hoc
iwconfig eth0 channel 13 rate 11M rts 2340
ifconfig eth0 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx netmask 255.255.255.0

p.s I know all ip's/gateway's/dns's i don't think you need them to solve this. If you do tell me :)

Tried few popular firewall/router Unix distributions like (IPcop, m0n0wall, pfSense, zeroShell) and of course Debian 5.1, openSuse 11.1, Ubuntu 9.10 - nothing helped.

SOS?
HALP :D

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Dani AI

Generated

Quick diagnosis and what usually breaks: Lucent/Agere “Orinoco” PC Card devices rely on the orinoco driver family and the PCMCIA/card-services stack; some cards also need firmware to be downloaded at init. Ad‑hoc (IBSS) is supported by these drivers, but WPA in IBSS and channel/regulatory mismatches are common failure points on older hardware. If the kernel module, firmware, or regulatory settings are wrong, the card will appear up for local traffic but won’t join the remote ad‑hoc peers properly. (wireless.docs.kernel.org)

Quick checks to run on the new box (don’t repeat the iwconfig commands you already tried — start by verifying detection and firmware):

dmesg | tail -n 100
lsmod | egrep 'orinoco|hermes|pcmcia'
ip link show
iw dev         # or `iwconfig` on very old systems

Look for kernel messages about missing firmware or “WPA-PSK supported” lines; if the module is not present try modprobe orinoco_cs (or install your distro’s pcmcia/firmware packages). These steps will show whether the driver or firmware is the blocker. (wiki.debian.org)

If the card is recognized, bring up an IBSS with modern tools and then enable routing/NAT so the LAN gets Internet through the box. Example workflow (adapt interface names and IPs):

ip link set dev wlan0 down
iw wlan0 set type ibss
ip link set dev wlan0 up
iw wlan0 ibss join mynet 2412
ip addr add 192.168.10.1/24 dev wlan0

sysctl -w net.ipv4.ip_forward=1
iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o wlan0 -j MASQUERADE
iptables -A FORWARD -i wlan0 -o eth0 -m state --state RELATED,ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT
iptables -A FORWARD -i eth0 -o wlan0 -j ACCEPT

Use the iw ibss join form on recent kernels; then enable IP forwarding and MASQUERADE for Internet sharing. (wireless.docs.kernel.org)

Extra gotchas: channel 13 can be blocked or limited by regional rules (US vs EU), so pick a channel allowed in your regulatory domain or set the domain correctly; older Orinoco firmware may not support WPA in IBSS, so test with an open ad‑hoc first or use wpa_supplicant only after confirming firmware capability. If a FreeBSD‑based appliance image (pfSense/m0n0wall) was used, try a small Linux test image with pcmciautils — Linux tends to have broader Orinoco support. (en.wikipedia.org)

If these checks still fail, paste the relevant lines from dmesg and iw dev (remove any secrets) so the exact driver/firmware messages can be diagnosed.

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bump? :(

Member Avatar for x0RiAm

Why oh why? :(

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