Ubuntu networking question

Khannie

So I have a laptop running 11.04. It has a built in wired lan and wireless b/g card. I saw a linux compatible wireless n card on dealextreme for like a fiver and decided to treat myself. Seems to be working grand, but here's the thing:

I'd like to disable the inbuilt wifi card. I tried doing this in the bios and the USB one wont work (network manager says wifi is hardware disabled). I went looking in /etc/networking and there's no mention of anything. I tried to ifdown the interface and got:

me@laptop:/etc/network$ sudo ifdown eth1
ifdown: interface eth1 not configured

If I leave things the way they are, the default is for the system to use the b/g card which I don't want.

Any suggestions welcome.

PrzemoF

You don't have to turn it off. It's enought to switch of automatic connection in Network Manager.

I have lan + wifi-g + wifi-N
lan is set to auto
wifi-g - auto is off, static IP + set mac addres
wifi-n (dongle) - auto is on, static IP + mac address

let me know if it works for you

Hotblack Desiato

All that shows is that your built-in card isn't eth1, eth is for ethernet after all.
Get the correct name for the interface with ifconfig -a

Khannie

Thanks PrzemoF. I'll give that a lash.

Ninja900: The inbuilt wifi card does in fact show up as eth1, with eth0 being the wired nic and the dongle shows up as wlan0.

Khannie

That worked thanks PrzemoF. I just edited the connection and stuck the mac of the dongle in. Didn't need to add a disabled one for the mac of the inbuilt wifi card.

Only thing now is that the wireless LED is flashing because it's on but not connected to anything. Any attempt to turn it off disables the dongle too. I may just tip-ex it out.

Khannie

Ok....the flashing light is doing my noodle in. I would like to software disable the wifi card. Any googling just tells me to use network manager to disable wifi. I also tried:

sudo iwconfig eth1 txpower off

This disabled wifi completely (both the dongle and the inbuilt card).

ifdown on the card fails as in the first post.

croo

*** Sorry... I posted after reading your first post but not your last!


Usually there is either a specific switch or a fn+key combi to disable wifi.

But failing that there is the iwconfig - which is like ifconfig only specific for wireless networking.

If the built in wifi is eth1 (which is unusual in itself as the eth naming is normally reserved for cable) ... anyway try

iwconfig eth1 power off

full details here
http://linuxcommand.org/man_pages/iwconfig8.html

Khannie

Thanks croo. Tried that but got the same rubbish (it disabled the dongle too).

I eventually managed it by blacklisting the kernel module for the onboard wifi.

sudo vi /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-custom

added this line:

blacklist ipw2200

Everything is working as expected now.

croo

Hmmm... I can see how blacklisting the driver would work in this case but if it were me, I'd be interested that he device is actually powered down so I'm not wasting battery!

PrzemoF

You might try to remove it from the blacklist and do:

modprobe ipw2200 led=0

If it works you may add that parameter to your modules list (let me know if you're not sure how to do it)

syklops

why dont you just do ifconfig wlan# down.

Then it will be 'down' and not blinking or consuming power.

Khannie

syklops wrote: »

why dont you just do ifconfig wlan# down.

Then it will be 'down' and not blinking or consuming power.

wlan0 is the new dongle. eth1 is the old wifi card. I tried ifdowning it (as you'll see in the OP) but it wouldn't go down.

croo wrote: »

Hmmm... I can see how blacklisting the driver would work in this case but if it were me, I'd be interested that he device is actually powered down so I'm not wasting battery!

Laptop ancient. Battery bollixed. Only really run it off the mains these days tbh.

PrzemoF wrote: »

You might try to remove it from the blacklist

Ah I'm happy to have it fully disabled as long as the dongle is there. Thanks though.

syklops

Apologies.

If you run it off the mains, I would just rmmod the driver and leave it at that.

croo

Khannie wrote: »

Laptop ancient. Battery bollixed. Only really run it off the mains these days tbh.

Ah well, you're sorted so.