Cannot ping certain machines when using wireless connection
 

Hello, I have what seems to be a weird problem. Hopefully it is just a result of my networking and linux ignorance. I tried searching through the forums and googling for a while but I couldn't find a solution. If I missed it, please just reply with a link.

I have a laptop that usually uses a wireless USB Linksys network adapter, a wired desktop, and a wired mac mini. The laptop and desktop are running Fedora 8 and the mini is running Leopard. All are connected to the same router. Everyone can ping the router and get online.

The problem is when the laptop is using the wireless connection, it can't ping the desktop (and vice versa). At first I thought it was a firewall issue, but they can ping each other fine when the laptop uses the wired connection. So it seems as if the firewall rules are set up to allow pings properly.

Based on some readings I thought my router might be causing the issue, by not allowing communication between the wireless connections to the wired connection. However, while I was testing things I tried pinging the laptop from the mac mini. I was surprised to find it worked fine, and the laptop could also ping the mac.

So now I know that my router is not prohibiting anything, and the firewall doesn't care if my laptop is using the wireless or wired connection. What am I missing here? Why can't my wireless laptop and the wired desktop see each other?

PS My schedule is such that I will be going to sleep in about 3 hours, so please do not be put off by a lack of response by me during that time. I will be checking back as soon as possible.

ifconfig for each machine?

DHCP clash with static addresses?

OK, here are the ifconfigs for the desktop, the laptop using wireless, and the laptop using wired. I have the router set up to give IP's out to my pc's based on mac addresses, so the laptop always gets 192.168.0.5 assigned by DHCP when using the wireless adapter, and 192.168.0.6 when using the wired connection.

*******************************DESKTOP IFCONFIG*****************************************
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:50:8D:D9:7C:FE
inet addr:192.168.0.3 Bcast:192.168.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::250:8dff:fed9:7cfe/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1492 Metric:1
RX packets:4292577 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:4440757 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:1978603146 (1.8 GiB) TX bytes:2551050582 (2.3 GiB)
Interrupt:23 Base address:0xa000

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:1254 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:1254 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:3350800 (3.1 MiB) TX bytes:3350800 (3.1 MiB)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**********************LAPTOP IFCONFIG (USING WIRELESS)**********************************
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:E0:98:75:F2:70
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:22 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:7992 (7.8 KiB)
Interrupt:3 Base address:0x300

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:4569 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:4569 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:6046240 (5.7 MiB) TX bytes:6046240 (5.7 MiB)

wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:14:BF:BE:50:BA
inet addr:192.168.0.5 Bcast:192.168.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::214:bfff:febe:50ba/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:14 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:41 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:3267 (3.1 KiB) TX bytes:6881 (6.7 KiB)

wmaster0 Link encap:UNSPEC HWaddr 00-14-BF-BE-50-BA-28-CC-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:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


************************LAPTOP IFCONFIG (USING WIRED)***********************************
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:E0:98:75:F2:70
inet addr:192.168.0.6 Bcast:192.168.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::2e0:98ff:fe75:f270/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:604 errors:0 dropped:16 overruns:0 frame:3
TX packets:557 errors:22 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:701357 (684.9 KiB) TX bytes:108267 (105.7 KiB)
Interrupt:3 Base address:0x300

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:4581 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:4581 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:6047896 (5.7 MiB) TX bytes:6047896 (5.7 MiB)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------