ipw2200 and dhcp
 

Hi folks,
I finally managed to get wireless working on my laptop with the ipw2200 driver, however it seems it can't get a network address via dhcp, so I have to set up the network manually... This works fine at home, where I know the addresses, but I also plan to use my laptop at other places, so it would be really nice to be able to dhcp... Anyone got an idea what I should do to fix this?
Thanks in advance!

Cheers,
Boyan

How are you trying to use it and what errors are you seeing? We're going to need more details than what you've posted so far.

Sorry, should have posted this in my previous post...
I'm just using the "dhcpcd -t 30 eth1" command. eth1 is my wireless interface. When I issue the command, however, nothing happens... It just waits for the 30 seconds or as long as I have set for timeout and gives up nothing. /var/log/dhcpcd.log shows nothing but a timeout error:

Oct 4 19:42:29 omega dhcpcd[3195]: timed out waiting for a valid DHCP server response

My mashine is a Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo M1425 Laptop, running Slackware 10.2 with 2.6.13 kernel

Please tell me if I need to post anything else.

Cheers,
Boyan

You're certainly using the right command to get an address. Just to rule out the brutally obvious, is your card configured correctly? The main reason I'm asking is that you're using a 2.6.13 kernel and that has a new version of wireless extensions that the wireless tools in Slackware 10.2 don't support.

If everything in iwconfig is good (and your being able to configure by hand suggests it probably is), then I'd try issuing the dhcpcd command a couple of times in a row. I know when I'm roaming sometimes it takes a couple of shots for the dhcp server to respond. I'd also throw in the -d flag as it causes dhcpcd to log stuff instead of being so quiet.

I'm having a similar issue on a dell latitude d610 as well. slackware 10.2 with 2.6.13.2 kernel. using the ipw2200 drivers. I can use iwlist scan to see my ap, and I *think* I'm using iwconfig correctly to connect, but then I can't get an ip.

Is there a gui frontend to iwconfig that would simplify knowing if it's just me ?

Well, I'm pretty sure my card is working correctly, I'm writing this connected to the internet with it :). I tried using dhcpc multiple times, still no result, however the signal in my room is not that good, cause I'm living in a sort of a basement (prety geeky, huh:)?) and i'm only getting something like 40-50% signal quality... Nevertheless, I have no trouble connecting to the internet via dhcp in windoze, or with manual configuration, so I don't think link quality is the issue here... I saw something on the net about ipw2200 not working with dhcpc, and some patch for fixing it was mentioned, however I wasn't able to find it... Well, I guess I'll keep trying/searching... Thanx anyway for the suggestions, if someone finds the solution I hope he'll be kind enough to share it:)

Cheers!

I suppose instead of dhcpcd you could try dhclient. I think is is part of a standard Slack install and in theory it does the same thing. I've never used it, but maybe it doesn't have the same issues as dhcpcd.

There is kwifimanager, but my opinion is that pretty much all the front ends do is make life more difficult by masking error messages. If you're not sure about how your using iwconfig, post what you're doing and I'm sure you'll get commentary :D

ipw2200 does not have an issue with dhcpcd. I run an Acer laptop with the 2200 builtin and use dhcpcd to get IP addresses.

Just use ifconfig to up it before dhcpcd'ing

Thanx for the tip, but I've already tried it and it has no effect... I'll have some more time these days, so I'll go somewhere else on another wireless network to try it there to make sure that the problem is not ap-related in any way...

yeah kwifimanager just confused me more, but here is what I'm using:

iwconfig eth1 ssid <ssid> txpower on
iwconfig key <key>
ifconfig eth1 up
dhcpcd -t 30 eth1

Even when I turn encryption off on the ap, it doesn't work. I can reboot into windows and connect just fine.

I also noticed that eth1 doesn't stay in ifconfig, it goes away sometime after the iwconfig or dhcpcd is used.

two other things I noticed:

when I do ifconfig the Link encap: Ethernet is just like the nic.

when I do iwconfig, the first thing says unassociated like:

#iwconfig

eth1 unassociated ESSID= Nickname =

That sequence looks fine, however on my rig I don't need to use txpower on and I run ifconfig up AFTER I've run dhcpcd. You also might add the -d flag to your dhcpcd command as it is supposed to log more information then. It might help.

I guess my first guess would be to ask if you check the wireless config after you've run the iwconfig commands to make sure the configuration took. If either the ssid or WEP key is borked, that could keep you from getting an IP address.

I've also noticed that if something goes really wrong, ifconfig seems to lose track of my wireless card. In every case though, ifconfig up brings it back.

using the -d option on dhcpcd and monitoring the log, the only thing I see is

broadcasting DHCP_DISCOVER
timed out waiting for a valid DHCP server response


I'm thinking it has to be something with the iwconfig but I can't figure out what. everything looks good, I can see the essid and key in hex.

The problem is that this could be a number of things. Since you can get an IP from Windows, for the moment I'm going to assume that your router is configured correctly and isn't doing anything to block the card, like filtering on MAC addresses.

- Is there a firewall set up that could be blocking the packets? You could set up ethereal or tcpdump and see if you can follow what the packets are doing when you run dhcpcd

-You say that iwconfig shows both the ssid and WEP key. Does it also show a MAC address?

-Just to see if there is a fundamental problem, you could set a static IP address. Configure the card with iwconfig as you normally would. Then assign an IP address with ifconfig:

ifconfig wlan0 IPAddressHere

Then set the gateway to point to your router:

route add default gw RouterIPAddress

Finally, edit /etc/resolv.conf and add your ISP's name servers. For each name server add the line:

namserver NamserverIPAddress


Oh, and one last thing, you might try turning on the SSID broadcast on your router if you have turned it off. That does make a difference sometimes.

no firewalls that are blocking

yes iwconfig shows the correct MAC address

I set the static and added the default gw and everything connected and I now have net access via wireless.

It does appear to be something with the dhcp, but I'm not sure what.