Hi All,

I have just bought and installed a safecom PCI 54mb wireless card that is supposed to support linux.
This is true to an extent in that (for my install of Suse 10) it does get so far, but not all the way.

This is the message I get

natoma:~ # ifup wlan1
wlan1 device: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.: Unknown device 8185 (rev 20)
wlan1 configuration: wlan-id-00:12:0e:2c:58:c0
ifup-wireless: command 'iwconfig wlan1 nick natoma' returned
ifup-wireless: Error for wireless request "Set Nickname" (8B1C) :
ifup-wireless: SET failed on device wlan1 ; Operation not permitted.
SuSEfirewall2: Warning: ip6tables does not support state matching. Extended IPv6 support disabled.
SuSEfirewall2: Setting up rules from /etc/sysconfig/SuSEfirewall2 ...
SuSEfirewall2: batch committing...
SuSEfirewall2: Firewall rules successfully set

It seems to hang on dhcp but even if I specify a static IP address in YAST (the suse config tool) it still fails on the IP part. It seems to fail to get the configuration?

If I use the command 'iwlist scanning' then I get this

natoma:~ # iwlist scanning
lo Interface doesn't support scanning.

eth0 Interface doesn't support scanning.

wlan1 Scan completed :
Cell 01 - Address: 00:09:5BFE:54
ESSID:"PLOVERNET"
Mode:Master
Frequency:2.462 GHz (Channel 11)
Bit Rate:1 Mb/s
Bit Rate:2 Mb/s
Bit Rate:5.5 Mb/s
Bit Rate:11 Mb/s
Bit Rate:22 Mb/s
Quality=7/100 Signal level=-175 dBm Noise level=-256 dBm
Encryption keyn

sit0 Interface doesn't support scanning.

which in my limited view suggested the wireless element is working.

I have fiddled with the encryption but this has not shown any problems up. Does anyone have any ideas?

Thanks
Joe

When you run iwconfig, can you see that your card is properly configured? If you've just been using Yast, it is possible that the configuration info you've entered there isn't getting used properly.

Hi,

It seems that the card and the IP layer do not quite match up.
All the lights appear to be on but no-one is at home.
If I configure the card with a static IP, it can ping itself but nothing else.
If I ifup the wireless card (which for no good reason announces itself as wlan1) - it kills the current good connection I have through my old 10mb hard wired link too.
The safecom card just sits there saying it is waiting on dhcpd (if set to dhcp) and does not get to the ip network (apart from itself) if I set it static.
The card comes with a CD containing bits and bobs including scripts (which wont run for reason my noob braind cannot fathom) but the scripts all point to wlan0 and not wlan1.
I tried to use ndiswrapper but the system just locks, regardless of the method I try with modprobe to remove the safecom drivers (s8180 I think) or delete and re-configure the YAST network connections myself.
natoma:~ # ifstatus wlan1
wlan1 device: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.: Unknown device 8185 (rev 20)
wlan1 DHCP client NOT running
wlan1 is down

and then to bring it up......

natoma:~ # ifup wlan1
wlan1 device: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.: Unknown device 8185 (rev 20)
ifup-wireless: command 'iwconfig wlan1 nick natoma' returned
ifup-wireless: Error for wireless request "Set Nickname" (8B1C) :
ifup-wireless: SET failed on device wlan1 ; Operation not permitted.
Starting DHCP Client Daemon on wlan1... . . . . . no IP address yet... backgrounding.?!

A couple of ideas......

I'm not convinced that the card is configured correctly. Does looking at the output of iwconfig show you that it is configured correctly? If you run ifup before you have the card configured, it isn't going to work.

Also, if you set a static IP address, you also need to set the gateway with the route command (route add default gw xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx where xxx is the IP of your router) and you also need to include at least one DNS server in your /etc/resolv.conf file. You can get the IP addresses of those from your ISP and for each one you have a line:

nameserver xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

Hi

I have issued the route command and it shows the default gateway as my router already. For wlan1. At least that is what I think!

natoma:~ # route
Kernel IP routing table
Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface
192.168.0.0 * 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 wlan1
link-local * 255.255.0.0 U 0 0 0 wlan1
loopback * 255.0.0.0 U 0 0 0 lo
default 192.168.0.254 0.0.0.0 UG 0 0 0 wlan1

If I set the Sataic IP address for wlan1 as 192.168.0.10 then I can ping this ip address, but nothing else.

I doubt DNS is an issue at this stage...?

I have got to be missing something basic here.

What part of the IP stack is it falling down on.....

Regards
Joe

Depending on what you are tyring to ping, it may not be a reliable test. The quick way to figure out if it is a DNS issue is to try to get to LQO both by name (www.linuxquestions.org) and by IP address (64.179.4.149). If the IP address works but the name doesn't then it is definitely a DNS issue.

I am back looking at this after many distractions with other things.

I am still at the same place -

i.e. The card seems to be alive and can see the wireless LAN
But all I can do is ping the cards own IP address.

As for DNS, if I fire up the Ethernet cat5 10/100 card and plug it into the router - I can see the whole wide world no trouble at all.

So I think it is the IP configuration of the wireless card and not DNS or other LAN services.

So what am I doing wrong? Can I manually configure the WLAN1 interface? If so where do I look?!

Please any suggestions - assume a noob of great noobness will be working on this!

If you want to manually configure it, you need to do three things:

1) Give the card an IP address:

ifconfig wlan1 192.168.x.x (use an IP valid for your LAN)

2) Set the route as we talked about before:

route add default gw xxx.xxxx.xxx.xxx (where xxx is the IP address of your router)

3) Add at least one of your ISP DNS to your /etc/resolv.conf file. For each DNS add:

nameserver yyy.yyy.yyy.yyy (where yyy is the IP address of you ISP's nameserver).

If you are still having trouble, post the outputs of iwconfig and ifconfig.

Hi,

I have done all the things you suggest previously.
As I can get to the internet on the same pc but using a different (wired) card - I don't think this is where the problem lies.



I have another PC with a Belkin wireless card using ndiswrapper and the same at settings and it works great.

I think the card thinks it is WLAN1 and Linux (Suse) is configuring it for WLAN0 - or maybe the other way around.
There is a disconnect somewhere.

I am going to disable encryption (don't think this is anything to do with it) but lets keep it simple to start with..

I am typing this reponse on the same machine with the problem but using the wired port.

I think SUSE is missing the config - where would the config be that linux uses to drive the card? I know linux runs many scripts that tell it what to do with each device?

Until you actually post the outputs of iwconfig and ifconfig, we aren't going to be able to do much more.

Hi,

The outputs are as follows...........

ifconfig

wlan1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:12:0E:2C:54:A4
inet addr:192.168.0.10 Bcast:192.168.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::212:eff:fe2c:54a4/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:229 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:580 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:6889 (6.7 Kb) TX bytes:22454 (21.9 Kb)
Interrupt:5 Memory:e167ee00-e167ef00

and iwconfig

wlan1 IEEE 802.11b ESSID:"PLOVERNET"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.462 GHz Access Point: 00:00:00:00:00:00
Bit Rate=11 Mb/s
Retryn Fragment thrff
Encryption key:3E79-42AC-8C Security mode:restricted
Link Quality=5/100 Signal level=-199 dBm Noise level=-161 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

The problem is that your wireless card has not associated with the access point. When it does associate, you should see a MAC address in the Acces Point field, not a string of zeros.

I would have a look in your log file (/var/log/syslog, /var/log/messages and dmesg) and see if you can find any clues as to why there is no association. Assuming that the WEP key and SSID are correct, the rest of the configuration looks to be OK. I'm also assuming that the IP address in the ifconfig output is from you entering a static IP.

Thanks,

Yes you are absolutely right about the IP address being static.
So although the card sees the Wireless lan it is not associating with it.
I think I will pursue the removal of the encryption then and try simplify things.
I will post my results! Many thanks!

Joe