dude67

I had a look at my settings in WinXP (PC #1) and the only thing different seems to be that the wireless connection seem to be set to "obtain an IP address automatically" and the DNS the same.

In ipconfig I seem to get the same results as I have made static in Linux and that is the following:

PC #1 IP: 192.168.254.2

GW, DHCP & DNS IPs are the same: 192.168.254.254

DHCP enabled

Autoconfiguration enabled

Then there were these; does anyone know what they are:

"DNS suffix search list" and "Connection-specific DNS suffix": domain.invalid

A picture is worth a thousand words... :)

Both PCs have Planet WL-8310 PCI cards and under Linux it operates with latest Win drivers enabled with ndiswrapper.

Try pinging your Linux machine from one of your Windows machines to see if it replies. First try a wired PC to ping the Linux machine and access point. Then try a wireless windows to ping the linux machine as well as a wired machine and access point.

 

Report back with findings.

When PC no. 1 (dual boot w/ WinXP and Mandriva) is booted as WinXP I can ping from PC no. 2 all three possibilities in my homenetwork: PC no. 2 itself, the gateway and PC no. 1

When PC no. 1 is operating under Linux I cannot ping PC no. 1 from PC no. 2. I shut down the shorewall - no help.

I had no wired connections; all efforts done over wlan.

It's (still) beyond me.

:o

I'll report perhaps tomorrow; it's my son's third birthday today, so I'm not going to be spend this evening with my PCs. :D

I've got a very simple network:

PC #1 is newer and has Planet WL-8310 WLAN PCI card in it. It uses that to connect to the AP. It also has a Realtek LAN PCI card, which is NOT connected to anything (except for 10 minutes yesterday, when I did some testing).

It is a dual boot with winxp and Madriva Free 2006.

PC #2 is a single boot machine with winxp. It has Planet WL-8310 WLAN PCI card to connect to the AP. No other connections (except USB to my PVR).

AP/DSLmodem/router is Siemens Speedstream 6515 which has an ADSL modem connected to a phoneline connector on the wall. It has 4 ETH ports for ethernet lines but it also is a WLAN Access Point. I use the WLAN AP.

All these are situated in different rooms, but the signal level is always between excellent and good (I don't live in a mansion or a castle :P ).

That's it. The only wired connection is from the ADSL modem to the wall. All other links (PC - AP - PC; no ad-hoc) are wireless.

No connection. I can get the eth0 (or eth1 - don't remember now) to connect to the AP/modem/router (whatever you may call it), but cannot ping!!! What is going on... anyone?

I set the LAN card's IP as 192.168.245.1 and the wlan is 192.168.245.2. I can ping both these IPs but nothing else.

I see from ifconfig -a that both eth0 and ath0 seemed to be connected OK and had the right IP addresses.

I tried also disabling ath0 from the desktop to see if that caused the problem, but no.

There is something really wrong with this scenario... I have no idea what that is.

My winxp works like it should: I've both connections active at the moment (the Realtek LAN card and Planet WLAN card).

I suggest disabling the security on the access point so that WEP is not required. Set it to basic, let it allow everything to connect. You don't need to reset the ap, just need to get no security, so that you can test it actually does work.

 

I have a feeling WEP is not configured in the Linux configuration for your wireless card which is why you can't ping anything.

No dice.

I disabled the all the security options (had ESSID brodcasted openly, no MAC restrictions, no keys). The firewall was totally set to OFF. No help.

I will try to configure the network once again by connecting to it through eth cable. And perhaps if I can make the AP/modem talk to my Linux first through a cable, I can then make it to connect via air as well. I do not want to make the ethernet my permanent connection, as I hate unnecessary cables.

I'll post back...

In /etc/sysconfig/network add these lines (or edit them to read):

 

GATEWAY=192.168.245.245

GATEWAYDEV=ath0

Thanks Steve, but that was already there.

Nope, I configured the AP in winxp. What do you suggest; resetting the AP and trying to connect to it in Linux?

• WEP 128 bit key (reported OK by the signal I get)
  
• Allowed MAC nos (all used and unused HW MACs allowed)
  

The AP is Siemens Speedstream 6515 wireless ADSL modem. It has some sort of firewall in it, but as far as I can tell, it should be cofigured OK. It should at least let me in with my user ID and password to let me configure it, but I cannot find it with my Firefox.

There is some type of DMZ configurable (for gaming purposes I suppose), but I haven't touched it at all.

I could "let the guard down" and disable the firewall, but then my wlan and my ADSL would be wide open. Hmmm... or I could unplug the phonecord to disable my DSL... I'll have a look at that when I get home tonight.

The problem is still there: I cannot ping anything other than the PC itself. Naturally, Firefox cannot connect to anything (not even the AP).

I have had the signal all along (sorry, if I've been less than clear on that... :unsure: ). I had problems with madwifi before, but now with ndiswrapper I get the signal every time right away at boot (with madwifi I had all sorts of problems including manually needing to fire up wlan connection - to the point where I do get the signal, but can't connect to it).

Current situation is this: I cannot ping my Access Point (even though I receive signal from it), I cannot ping my other PC (running winxp), nor can I ping anything on the internet.

Signal is there, even though it shows only one small bar as an icon. In my winxp the signal is either very good or excellent (all bars or all except one).

I do not understand what's keeping the AP from pinging...

Nope, couldn't get it to work...

I found out that I didn't even have my firewall on. I then turned it on (even had to install a package for that), tried again: no ping, turned it off: no ping.

I then added the following line to /etc/modprobe.conf:

alias net-pf-10 off

No dice.

Rebooted.

No help either.

I didn't remove the ifcfg-sit0 as Ian instructed, but I disabled it .

I then tested this: The network was up and running (according to drakroam), turned the AP off and the network was gone. Turned the power back on and the wlan was up and running again. Just to make sure it really was the wlan drakroam reported.

Any other suggestions...

Here's what my modprobe.conf consists of. Can you see anything wrong with it?

alias eth0 r8169
alias sound-slot-0 snd-intel8x0
alias eth2 eth1394
install scsi_hostadapter /sbin/modprobe ahci; /sbin/modprobe ata_piix; /sbin/modprobe sbp2; /bin/true
remove snd-intel8x0 /sbin/modprobe -r snd-pcm-oss; /sbin/modprobe --first-time -r --ignore-remove snd-intel8x0
install snd-intel8x0 /sbin/modprobe --first-time --ignore-install snd-intel8x0 && { /sbin/modprobe snd-pcm-oss; /bin/true; }
install usb-interface /sbin/modprobe uhci-hcd; /sbin/modprobe ehci-hcd; /bin/true
alias eth1 pcnet32
alias ieee1394-controller ohci1394
alias ath0 ndiswrapper
alias net-pf-10 off

I can post the ifconfig -a right away:

ath0	  Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr [MAC no of my wlan card OK]
	  inet addr:192.168.245.1  Bcast:192.168.245.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
	  inet6 addr: fe80::230:4fff:fe39:2441/64 Scope:Link
	  UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
	  RX packets:1 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
	  TX packets:747 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
	  collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
	  RX bytes:23 (23.0 b)  TX bytes:31708 (30.9 KiB)
	  Interrupt:21 Memory:d3000000-d3010000

It seems OK to me. I might check if this PC was set to be no. 1 (...245.1) or no. 2 (...245.2) in my winxp where I set the network first up and defined the network to the AP.

I'll try your suggestions tonight, thanks both! I'll keep you posted.

BTW: what is that Brodcast addr? My AP's (gateway) IP is 192.168.245.245.

Thanks Ian, I believe I've done that already. At first I had it say wlan0, but I managed to change it to ath0 (as per my post a couple of days ago). But I'll double-check when I get home tonight.

If the problem has to do with what you suggested, Qchem, how do I go about finding out?

I may have an idea how to shut down firewall (I remember reading about it somewhere), but what about all the rest you suggested...?

Tell me this though: If I get to see the wireless network on my KDE (lower right hand corner) and I can even see the MAC no of the AP through the wireless network (drakroam), how come I'm unable to contact it (ping it)... This is all beyond my comprehension... :o

It's most likely something very simple and I'm going to be kicking myself for a week for not figuring it out, but that's the case now.

Nothing wrong with it as far as I can tell:

ath0	  IEEE 802.11g  ESSID:"hidden"  Nickname:"Esa"
	  Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.462 GHz  Access Point: [MAC no of AP]
	  Bit Rate=54 Mb/s
	  Encryption key:[key is OK]   Security mode:open
	  Power Management:off
	  Link Quality:0/100  Signal level:-68 dBm  Noise level:-256 dBm
	  Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
	  Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

Here's what ifconfig -a gave me:

ath0	  Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr [MAC no of my wlan card OK]
	  inet addr:192.168.245.1  Bcast:192.168.245.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
	  inet6 addr: fe80::230:4fff:fe39:2441/64 Scope:Link
	  UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
	  RX packets:1 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
	  TX packets:747 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
	  collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
	  RX bytes:23 (23.0 b)  TX bytes:31708 (30.9 KiB)
	  Interrupt:21 Memory:d3000000-d3010000

I cannot tell if there's anything wrong by this info...

One more development:

I've managed to get ath0 to show up and no wlan0 - even when booting up.

A question relaiting to the eth's: can one disable a PCI card totally without physically removing it? I have a situation where whenever I'm starting up Mandriva it takes a long while as it's trying to activate a few PCI-cards I have but don't use at the moment. If I could disable them or in other words if I could tell Mandriva not to fire them up while booting, it would be much quicker when loading up. And probably a lot less hassle with the PCI-cards at some point.

Anyway the original problem is still a problem: I cannot connect to my network (no other HW returns my pings). Any advice anyone could provide is greatly appreciated!

I managed to install ndiswrapper finally. Now modprobe worked fine. I'm gradually getting closer... B)

But I still cannot ping anything other than the PC sending the ping... No gateway, no internet domains.

I can see wlan0, but no ath0. I can see the wireless networks and I've managed to configure the right WEP key in order to connect to that network (and see the hidden ESSID). I seem to be connected to the network but it's still not working. Why, what's wrong?

When I rebooted the PC, the connection wasn't ready, I had to manually connect wlan0 before it was up again.

I cannot understand why I cannot see my AP modem when wlan0 is up... Does it matter if it is wlan0 instead of ath0? Have I missed something here and it doesn't work with wlan0?

Suggestions, anyone? :unsure:

I did it anew this morning. I double-checked and re-downloaded the latest drivers from Planet's homepage (card manuf.). I unzipped the file already in winxp.

I un-installed the ndiswrapper drivers first with

ndiswrapper -e net5211

and checked that no drivers were installed with ndiswrapper. Then I did everthing by the book. Still no luck with it. Here's what I did in the console:

[root@localhost 2251]# ndiswrapper -i net5211.inf
Installing net5211
[root@localhost 2251]# ndiswrapper -l
Installed ndis drivers:
net5211 driver present, hardware present
[root@localhost 2251]# ndiswrapper -m
Adding "alias wlan0 ndiswrapper" to /etc/modprobe.conf
[root@localhost 2251]# vi /etc/modprobe.conf				-----> changed wlan0 to ath0
[root@localhost 2251]# vi /etc/modprobe.preload
[root@localhost 2251]# depmod -a
[root@localhost 2251]# modprobe ndiswrapper
FATAL: Error inserting ndiswrapper (/lib/modules/2.6.12-12mdksmp/misc/ndiswrapper.ko): Invalid argument
[root@localhost 2251]#

So it seems to stop at modprobe. I've been playing this game for some time now :P so I'd like to get to the second base already.

Any ideas what might be causing this?

... OK, I don't know what to do... Does anyone know if the Planet card WL-8310 even work on Mandriva?

I tried uninstalling Madwifi and it said there was no madwifi installed... I then booted to winxp and totally cleared the Linux bit of my HD and installed Madriva clean again! To make sure that I didn't have madwifi installed.

I did NOT install ndiswrapper that came with the 2006 free Madriva download package (DVD) since I was not confident it was the latest version.

I installed the latest (1.10) ndiswrapper according to the sourceforge instructions. I did try your suggestion but [urpmi ndiswrapper] only tried to install the Mandriva package version of the ndiswrapper.

I then used the latest drivers I picked up from Planet's homepage and zipped them in Mandriva.

I then

ndiswrapper -i ar5211.inf

(or something like that - I don't recall the actual filename)

It did something to install the driver. But then it stated that it is an invalid driver. I loaded the module with [ndiswrapper -m] and changed the /etc/modprobe.conf line that said

alias wlan0 ndiswrapper

to

alias ath0 ndiswrapper

but no use. I couldn't get the bloody thing to work...

And there we are at the moment.

I tried to load the drivers that there is a link to at ndiswrapper link-list for the WL-8310 card, but the link was broken. If anyone has another set of drivers for the WL-8310 card, please post a link here or PM me.

OK. Then a true newbie question: How do I go about uninstalling Madwifi (-ng)?

Do I need to get rid of Madwifi first - before trying with the ndiswrapper?

:o

Thanks a million, Ian! I'll give it a go tonight. This solution seems promising!

OK, thanks Qchem. Seems like a logical enough reason. I'll have a look tonight and post the results here.

- EDIT -

Now that you mention it, I seem to remember seeing ath0 failing in the boot sequence (in "verbose" mode) whenever I'm starting Mandriva (pressing esc when it boots).

If that's the case, what can I do to fix it?

I'm having trouble building a wireless network. In my Win XP -world (this PC is a dual boot with Win XP and mandriva 2006) the network is up and running. The network consists of two PCs with Planet WL-8310 PCI cards in both of them. Then there is Siemens Speedstream 6515 wireless ADSL modem that acts as an AP for the network.

The network's IPs are configured static: AP is 192.168.245.245 and the PCs are 192.168.245.1 and .2. I've given the AP all the MAC numbers in my network and the network is protected with open 128 bit WEP key.

I have installed Mandriva 2006 in my "main" PC as a dual boot (LILO) with XP on the "other side". And in my Mandriva I have installed madwifi as the Planet PCI card requires it.

I can see the AP over the network even though the ESSID is hidden and I need to give the WEP key to connect. I would think that I've configured the network OK, but no... I cannot ping any other IP than the host PCs IP (not even the gateway IP). And of course no access to the internet. What am I missing here? :unsure:

I'm not sure this has anything to do with my connection problem, but it's an annoyance. At the start-up I always need to key this in as a root before I can get the ath0 (my wifi) to get connected:

wlanconfig ath0 create wlandev wifi0 wlanmode sta

This even though, I have added this line in to the /etc/modprobe.conf (as per madwifi instructions).

I've followed Streeters instructions (in the pinned post) but to no avail.

It's a real pain switching between Win and Linux in order to connect to the internet just to find solution to my problems...

Oh, one thing: I tried to connect to wireless network (drakroam) which it doesn't seem to find most of the time (and sometimes it does...) and when I do it directly as a root from the console, it shows the following info

[root@Joni ~]# drakroam
SIOCETHTOOL: Operation not supported
SIOCETHTOOL: Operation not supported
Warning: Driver for device sl0 has been compiled with an ancient version
of Wireless Extension, while this program support version 11 and later.
Some things may be broken...

sl0	   Interface doesn't support scanning.

[root@Joni ~]#

What is this mysterious sl0? I've tried to kill it through MCC, but it still seems to hang in there. This following is something I grabbed while in MCC.

18:45:22 net_applet[7273]: running: /sbin/iwgetid -r sl0 
18:45:22 net_applet[7273]: running: /sbin/iwgetid -r -a sl0 
18:45:22 net_applet[7273]: running: /sbin/iwlist sl0 scanning 
18:45:26 net_applet[7273]: launched command: /usr/sbin/usernetctl sl0 report 
18:45:26 net_applet[7273]: running: kdesu --ignorebutton -c /sbin/ifdown sl0 
18:45:31 net_applet[7273]: running: /sbin/iwgetid -r sl0 
18:45:31 net_applet[7273]: running: /sbin/iwgetid -r -a sl0 
18:45:31 net_applet[7273]: running: /sbin/iwlist sl0 scanning

Any help to a newby is appreciated!

-edit-

typo

-- Deleted --

-- Solved --