Re: [gentoo-user] Lenovo T400 wifi scan and connect questions

[Michael <confabulate@kintzios.com>]

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On Monday, 29 August 2022 22:23:00 BST Walter Dnes wrote:
> 1) the output of "dmesg | grep iwlwifi" is...
> 
> [    0.640780] iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0: can't disable ASPM; OS doesn't have
> ASPM control [    0.641112] Loading firmware: iwlwifi-5000-5.ucode
> [    0.641332] iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0: loaded firmware version 8.83.5.1 build
> 33692 5000-5.ucode op_mode iwldvm [    0.641360] iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0:
> CONFIG_IWLWIFI_DEBUG disabled [    0.641364] iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0:
> CONFIG_IWLWIFI_DEBUGFS disabled [    0.641367] iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0:
> CONFIG_IWLWIFI_DEVICE_TRACING disabled [    0.641370] iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0:
> Detected Intel(R) WiFi Link 5100 AGN, REV=0x54 [   17.311014] iwlwifi
> 0000:03:00.0: Radio type=0x1-0x2-0x0
> [   17.424989] iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0: Radio type=0x1-0x2-0x0
> 
>   Nice to see that it detects the 5100 AGN just like lspci.  As the old
> saying goes, "use it or lose it";  I used to be able to run wifi on this
> machine manually (command line) in the past, but now I've completely
> forgotten how.  I've emerged "iw" and "wpa_supplicant".  "iw dev" shows
> 
> phy#0
>         Interface wlan0
>                 ifindex 3
>                 wdev 0x1
>                 addr 00:26:c6:4a:b4:92
>                 type managed
>                 txpower 15.00 dBm
> 
>   Questions...
>   1) what do I do to scan and get a list of available networks?

If you have emerged wpa_supplicant with USE="qt5" you will have a GUI to 
launch its client and click on Scan to find and select a desired AP.

If not, you can run wpa_cli in a terminal.  Something like 'wpa_cli scan' and 
'wpa_cli scan_results' should show you what's available.   If you run just 
'wpa_cli' it will launch an interactive shell from which you can run:

> scan
> scan_results

'wpa_cli --help' for more subcommands and options.


>   2) how do I connect to one of the listed networks (assuming either
> it's public, or I have the password) ?

With wpa_supplicant's GUI, or with wpa_cli, but the latter is more tedious.

Run wpa_cli to get an interactive shell.  Then,

> scan
> scan_results

> add_network
0   (if there is no other network yet configured)
> set_network 0 ssid "My_blah_AP"  <== From the results
> set_network 0 psk "My_secret_passphrase"
> enable_network 0
0K

If you managed to authenticate and get an IP address you may want to save your 
settings - assuming you have enabled 'update_config=1' in your 
wpa_supplicant.conf:

> save config
OK

For permanent associations you can add BSSID and authentication credentials 
into /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf.  Have a look at '/usr/share/doc/
wpa_supplicant-*/wpa_supplicant.conf.bz2' for examples.


>   3) minor detail... The Google hits I've found all show both DVM and
> MVM support enabled.  Given that dmesg output shows "op_mode iwldvm",
> can I safely get rid of MVM support ?

I don't know what works with your wireless adaptor, but I tend to experiment 
initially by building such options as modules and see what is loaded or not 
and any warnings in dmesg.

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