Can you explain how to understand what the 'iwconfig' command displays in Ubuntu-9.04?

Posted by Shawn on Super User See other posts from Super User or by Shawn
Published on 2009-09-17T04:03:33Z Indexed on 2012/09/20 9:42 UTC
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I'm having trouble making my wireless connection work, and I realized I don't really know how to use the tools I have, in this case, the iwconfig command in Ubuntu-9.04. Here is what I get:

***iwconfig***

-

lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

wmaster0  no wireless extensions.

wlan0     IEEE 802.11bgn  ESSID:"Network"  
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.412 GHz  Access Point: Not-Associated   
          Tx-Power=20 dBm   
          Retry min limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr=2352 B   
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality:0  Signal level:0  Noise level:0
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

vboxnet0  no wireless extensions.

pan0      no wireless extensions.

"Network" is the name of my wireless network, btw. But what does this all mean? How can this information help me aquire a working wireless connection?

When I try associating a key using

sudo iwconfig wlan0 key s:my_key

I get the following error message:

Error for wireless request "Set Encode" (8B2A) :
    SET failed on device wlan0 ; Invalid argument.

I do have the right key though, so what's the problem?

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