More Wireless Problems [Solved]

[Fink]

Hi, i've just set up Mandriva 2006 on my laptop. All is going well except that my wireless connection refuses t work. I can set up a wireless interface, and mandriva seems to accept my wireless card (ipw2200). I follow all the steps through the configuration and then finish.

 

I then click on the 'Wireless Connection' tab, here it seems to show my wireless network. I click on it, then click connect, but nothing happens. The little tab in the bottom right of the screen says 'Connection down on interface eth2. Click 'Configure Network''. I can also get the little tab in the corner to show the signal strength of my wireless network, but again when i roll over it it says 'Connection down on interface eth2. Click 'Configure Network''. When i try to configure the Network it changes nothing.

 

Any advice would be much appreciated

 

Niall

Edited June 17, 2006 by Fink

[Qchem]

Could you provide the output of /sbin/ifconfig and /sbin/iwconfig ??

[Fink]

Hi, thanks for the reply. heres what i got:

 

/sbin/ifconfig/

eth0	  Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:12:3F:EB:64:B8
	  inet6 addr: fe80::212:3fff:feeb:64b8/64 Scope:Link
	  UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
	  RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
	  TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
	  collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
	  RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)
	  Interrupt:18

eth1	  Link encap:UNSPEC  HWaddr 35-4F-C0-00-03-8C-EC-30-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00
	  UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
	  RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
	  TX packets:0 errors:5 dropped:5 overruns:0 carrier:0
	  collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
	  RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)

eth2	  Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:13:CE:7A:CC:4C
	  inet6 addr: fe80::213:ceff:fe7a:cc4c/64 Scope:Link
	  UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
	  RX packets:100 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
	  TX packets:154 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:1
	  collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
	  RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)
	  Interrupt:17 Base address:0x2000 Memory:dfdfd000-dfdfdfff

lo		Link encap:Local Loopback
	  inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
	  inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
	  UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
	  RX packets:120 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
	  TX packets:120 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
	  collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
	  RX bytes:9920 (9.6 KiB)  TX bytes:9920 (9.6 KiB)

 

/sbin/iwconfig/

lo		no wireless extensions.

eth1	  no wireless extensions.

eth0	  no wireless extensions.

eth2	  unassociated  ESSID:off/any
	  Mode:Managed  Channel=0  Access Point: 00:00:00:00:00:00
	  Bit Rate=0 kb/s   Tx-Power=20 dBm
	  Retry limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
	  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

sit0	  no wireless extensions.

[Qchem]

OK, it seems that eth2 is your wireless card, it might be best to try and configure it manually rather than using mcc.

 

To configure it manually:

 

iwconfig eth2 mode Managed
iwconfig eth2 key restricted "YOUR_KEY"
iwconfig eth2 essid "YOUR_ESSID"
dhcpcd eth2

 

where "YOUR_KEY" and "YOUR_ESSID" should be replaced with the correct values. If there's any problems then please post back.

 

If it now works, we can make these changes permenant by adjusting the startup script. The file you should be looking at is: /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth2 or something very similar. Open this file as root in a text editor (try kwrite if you don't have any other preference), and ensure it looks something like the following:

 

DEVICE=eth2
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
ONBOOT=yes
ESSID="YOUR_ESSID"
MODE=Managed
KEY="YOUR_KEY"

 

Where obviously YOUR_ESSID and YOUR_KEY are set to the correct values. Note, this key refers to the WEP key, not WPA. It may be an idea to turn the encryption off for a short while whilst you're testing.

 

Hope this helps.

[Fink]

thanks, i'll give it a try. the network i'm trying to connect to doesn't have a key so should i leave that line out?

[Qchem]

Yes.

[Fink]

thanks again for the reply, everything seemed to be going well until i typed the final line (dhcpcd eth2), when i got an error

bash: dhcpcd: command not found

any thoughts on why this is happening?

[ianw1974]

You might not have dhcp installed. Try:

 

rpm -qa | grep dhcp

 

this will list any packages with dhcp in their name. If nothing appears, do this:

 

urpmf --name dhcp

 

and it will list a package. I think the package is called dhcpcd, but not sure. If so, then do this to install:

 

urpmi dhcpcd

 

and that will install it. If it's not called dhcpcd then install the relevant one. If unsure, post the list of what packages are listed with the urpmf command and we can help you.

[Fink]

thanks alot for the reply, i've done that and i'm not getting that error anymore. however, I'm now getting a completely different error:

/etc/dhcpcd/dhcpcd.exe : line 27: . : filename argument required . : usage : . filename [arguments]

This happens after i put in the 'dhcpcd eth2' line. any ideas?

[Qchem]

I've never really seen that before, I suppose you could try using dhclient instead.

[Fink]

thanks again for the reply. the dhclient itself seems to work, but it still doesn't get my connection working. I've also tried some other dhcp client things such as pump etc but they did not get my connection working either. Anymore ideas? maybe another approach or am I fighting a losing battle?

[Qchem]

Do you think your wireless access point/router should be giving you an IP address, or do you usually have to set one statically?

 

Make sure the network isn't filtering out your packets by MAC address.

 

Try turning firewalls off to see if that makes any difference.

 

Sorry if some of that seems a bit obvious - just trying to brainstorm.

[Fink]

there is a setting on my router that only allows certain MAC addresses to connect, however my current MAC address has been set to be allowed. could this have anything to do with the problem? I shall try disabling all firewall settings etc when I get home on Sunday as I am away at the moment.

 

thanks

Fink

[Qchem]

It could be worth turning off all protection on the wireless network and making sure that you can then connect. Then gradually add the various security settings back in to see where things stop working.

[Fink]

It could be worth turning off all protection on the wireless network and making sure that you can then connect. Then gradually add the various security settings back in to see where things stop working.

 

OK thanks, sorry I've taken so long but your original method has now worked, I stopped the MAC address filtering thing, then I could connect easily. Once I restarted the MAC filtering the connection continued to work, so I don't have a clue what that was about but it worked. Thanks Qchem.