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Install Aladdin eToken on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS

August 28, 2012 by · 4 Comments

Today I did a new install on my workstation at work going from Ubuntu 10.04 LTS to Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. I am using a Aladdin eToken which comes with proprietary software. Because the previous version of the software was outdated and the documentation stated not to work on newer kernels I needed to install the latest SafeNet Client Authentication package to support this eToken.

Install dependencies:

$ sudo apt-get install pcscd libccid libhal1 opensc

Install the eToken software:

$ sudo dpkg -i SafenetAuthenticationClient-8.1.0-4_i386.deb
Selecting previously unselected package safenetauthenticationclient.
(Reading database ... 143516 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking safenetauthenticationclient (from SafenetAuthenticationClient-8.1.0-4_i386.deb) ...
Setting up safenetauthenticationclient (8.1.0-4) ...
Adding Token security provider....done
Please reboot to run Token PKI service.
SafeNet Authentication Client installation completed.
Processing triggers for libc-bin ...
ldconfig deferred processing now taking place
$

Because ‘/etc/ld.so.conf.d/wwwwetoken-ld.conf’ was empty the PKIMonitor program in the Ubuntu startup applications did not start at boot. I needed to add ‘/usr/lib/eToken’ to it.

The new startup method for pcscd did not work for me. It is described on this page of the author. I commented out the exit 0 in ‘/etc/init.d/pcscd’ on line 43.

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Wireless fix on Amilo running Ubuntu

June 11, 2009 by · 9 Comments

Recently I had to use a laptop for a course I was doing. This Fujisu Siemens Amilo Li 2727 laptop came with Windows Vista pre-installed. Since the installed OS didn’t matter for the course I installed the latest Ubuntu which is 9.04 (Jaunty). All worked well except for the wireless card (Atheros Communications Inc. AR242x 802.11abg Wireless PCI Express Adapter (rev 04)). The network applet says “Wireless is disabled”. The ath5k driver for the wireless card is being correctly initialised, as you can see:

[   12.170260] ath5k_pci 0000:08:00.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 18 (level, low) -> IRQ 18
[   12.170274] ath5k_pci 0000:08:00.0: setting latency timer to 64
[   12.170439] ath5k_pci 0000:08:00.0: registered as 'phy0'
[   12.355693] ath5k phy0: Atheros AR2425 chip found (MAC: 0xe2, PHY: 0x70)
[  264.864848] ath5k phy0: noise floor calibration timeout (2442MHz)

You can also use the following command to see if the device is blocked (not tuned on!):

$ sudo rfkill list
0: acer-wireless: Wireless LAN
	Soft blocked: no
	Hard blocked: no
1: phy0: Wireless LAN
	Soft blocked: no
	Hard blocked: yes

It appears that the wireless card is enabled but not activated, so you’ll need to turn it on. Using Windows you use the Fn-F1 key combination to activate the wireless card, but this doesn’t work with Linux. The easiest way to get wireless going is by activating a kernel module called acer_wmi. As soon as you execute the following line you’ll notice the wireless led will light up. There are other ways, but this is by far the most easy and elegant way to do it.

$ sudo modprobe acer_wmi

The wireless card is now active! Wait a moment and you’ll see wireless networks appear in the NetworkManager if you’re in range. Just for the record I am using Ubuntu kernel 2.6.28-11-generic at the moment of writing.

To make this solution last on a reboot, you’ll have to add the module name ‘acer_wmi’ to ‘/etc/modules’.

$ echo "acer_wmi" | sudo tee /etc/modules

30 Apr 2010: I can confirm this work-around also works for Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (Lucid).

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How to find your Ubuntu release

May 28, 2009 by · 2 Comments

There are several ways to find out which release of Ubuntu you’re using. But the most easy way is to make use of the lsb_release (LSB stands for Linux Standard Base) command which pulls it’s info from ‘/etc/lsb-release’. This is a command line utility, so you’ll need to open a Terminal in which you can enter the commands. You can use the -a switch to see all information, as the example below shows. The -h switch will display a list of all possible options.

$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID:	Ubuntu
Description:	Ubuntu 9.04
Release:	9.04
Codename:	jaunty
$

The lsb_release command does not show what architecture version you’re using. To find this out, you can use the uname command. The next example will show a 64-bit architecture.

$ uname -m
x86_64
$

The find you wich kernel release you’re currently using you can issue a uname -r. Use the -a switch if you want all information from the uname command displayed at once.

$ uname -r
2.6.28-11-generic
$

See ‘man uname’ for more details on using the uname.

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