troubleshooting my wifi card

slinky2004 · 09-21-2005, 03:57 PM

i just configured the wifi card(eth2) on my laptop and i think it's working so far. when i connect to a wap iwconfig shows this:

Code:

eth2      IEEE 802.11g  ESSID:"linksys"  Nickname:"notebook9"
          Mode:Managed  Channel:1  Access Point: 00:0F:66: D7:49:A8  
          Bit Rate=54Mb/s   Tx-Power=20 dBm   
          Retry limit:7   RTS thr: off   Fragment thr: off
          Encryption key: off
          Power Management: off
          Link Quality:48/100  Signal level:-72 dBm  Noise level:-87 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:11

is that good? the thing is, i'm not being assigned an ip address when i look at ifconfig:

Code:

eth2      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:0E:35: D4:62:28  
          inet6 addr: fe80::20e:35ff:fed4:6228/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:22 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:1 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:1
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:16809 (16.4 Kb)  TX bytes:264 (264.0 b)
          Interrupt:9 Base address:0x2000 Memory:e0206000-e0206fff

i guess the ultimate test would be getting internet access through the wireless card, but i'm also connected to another lan via my ethernet card and i dont know how to tell which card is doing what. for example, if i do a

Code:

ping 192.168.0.1

is it pinging my wap router or is it pinging my regular router? if i pull down a web page in firefox, is it coming thru the wifi card or the ethernet card? also, when i try to scan for waps with

Code:

iwlist eth2 scan

it says that eth2 doesnt support scanning. anybody know whats up with that?

maroonbaboon · 09-21-2005, 05:12 PM

How the card gets configured depends on the distro you are using. On Debian the IP numbers and/or other config info are in file /etc/network/interfaces.

If eth2 does not show an IP number I think you can be pretty sure no packets are travelling that way.

To really check if wireless is working just turn off the wired interface ('ifdown eth0' if that's the interface) or just disconnect the cable if you want to be sure

If both interfaces are present the actual one used is decided by the routing tables (shown by command 'route -n'). If one is not working I'm not sure what happens.

You should probably also post the card (exact model/version) and driver you are using.

slinky2004 · 09-21-2005, 06:15 PM

the card is an intel 2200bg wifi card. i had to install some firmware and the ipw2200 driver from ipw2200.sourceforge.net. after trying both turning eth0 down and unplugging the ethernet cable it seems like the card is connecting to the wap, but something else is going wrong and i'm not getting an ip from the wap and can't, which is wierd cuz it works fine in windows.

maroonbaboon · 09-21-2005, 06:38 PM

My understanding is that the IP number gets assigned by the ifconfig command (e.g. ifconfig eth0 192.168.1.100). On Debian it is also set automatically according to lines in /etc/network/interfaces:

iface wlan0 inet dhcp

for dynamic and

iface wlan0 inet static
address 192.168.1.100
netmask 255.255.255.0

for static. When I tried out a wireless card I had to add one of these manually to that config file.

Agentvenom · 09-23-2005, 09:50 AM

You might have to make sure you have the dhcp packets installed unless you are sure your lan card is obtaining an ip via dhcp, then it's probably installed. When I set up my lan and wan, I told my wlan0 and eth0 both to obtain an ip through dhcp. Then, I told the eth0 to only come on if the cord was plugged in. Last, I told my wireless card to come up on boot. So this way, you'll be using your wireless card all the time unless you plug in a cord for the eth0. Then, with the ping issue, if you know you are using the wireless card, you obviously are pinging the wireless access point. Also, sometimes if you don't tell the eth0 to only come on when a cord is plugged in, you can cause ip conflicts between the eth0 and wlan0. Your system has a hard time deciding which card you're wanting to use and what ip to use. This is where your routing table sorts things out. But it sounds like you've already received some good advice above though, so good luck.

slinky2004 · 09-23-2005, 02:07 PM

well, eth0 definitely gets a dhcp ip from the router when i startup, but if i ever turn eth0 off and on, it wont work again until i restart, so maybe i have to run some kind of network routine that grabs the ip from the router? i like how you've set things up so that eth0 only comes up if it's plugged in, how did you do that? what distro are you using?

Agentvenom · 09-23-2005, 02:38 PM

I'm running Suse 9.3 Pro. Just go into YaST and edit your network cards. Under Network Card Configurations, I simply looked at each card, went to edit, went into the "detailed settings" section, clicked "advanced" and then "detailed settings" again and changed the "device activation." Easy as click...click...click...click...well, you get the idea.

slinky2004 · 09-23-2005, 04:11 PM

i'm running Slackware 10.1, i dunno what yast is.

Agentvenom · 09-23-2005, 06:09 PM

Yeah, I don't know much about Slackware, but in Suse it's the major configuration utility and rpm installer. It's pretty slick. Did you get your wireless card issue figured out yet?

slinky2004 · 09-23-2005, 11:05 PM