[PLUG] turn off a wireless card

Galen Seitz galens at seitzassoc.com
Thu Apr 6 16:08:25 UTC 2006


Russell Senior <seniorr at aracnet.com> wrote:

> >>>>> "Galen" == Galen Seitz <galens at seitzassoc.com> writes:
> 
> Galen> The Intel 2200BG shows up as eth1, not wlan0, on my system.
> Galen> "ifdown eth1" stops any packets from being routed over the
> Galen> wireless link, but the LED wireless indicator still goes on and
> Galen> off as if the radio is still active.  iwconfig gives no
> Galen> indication that the radio is off.
> 
> Did you try:
> 
>   iwconfig eth1 power off

I think that controls how often the radio sleeps.  It may be possible to
turn off the radio that way, but the command would have to be 
iwconfig eth1 power on
I tried it anyway, but it didn't seem to have any effect.

The rfswitch web site looked promising, but the X40 is shown as 'None'
in the laptop support table.

I found what I was looking for in the readme for the ipw2200 driver.


1.4.2 Device Level Sysfs Helper Files
-----------------------------------------------

For the device level files, look in
	
	/sys/bus/pci/drivers/ipw2200/{PCI-ID}/

For example:
	/sys/bus/pci/drivers/ipw2200/0000:02:01.0

For the device level files, see /sys/bus/pci/drivers/ipw2200:

  rf_kill
	read - 
	0 = RF kill not enabled (radio on)
	1 = SW based RF kill active (radio off)
	2 = HW based RF kill active (radio off)
	3 = Both HW and SW RF kill active (radio off)
	write -
	0 = If SW based RF kill active, turn the radio back on
	1 = If radio is on, activate SW based RF kill

	NOTE: If you enable the SW based RF kill and then toggle the HW
  	based RF kill from ON -> OFF -> ON, the radio will NOT come back on


On my X40 the following command turns off the rf, or at least I think it
does, as the LED never changes state after the command is issued.
  echo 1 > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/ipw2200/0000\:02\:02.0/rf_kill


galen



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