Note to mod: I've posted this in general networking, as it involves both my wlan0 and my eth1. If you feel it would be better off in the wireless sub-forum, feel free to move it. Thanks
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Hi all,

Struggling to get my wireless USB stick working in Debian etch. It's a WUG2400 (rebadged abocom) USB 802.11G stick. There are no working native drivers, so I installed and configured ndiswrapper and the winXP driver. The machine is a headless box, and I'm connecting to it via ssh.

The card initialises ok.
"ndiswrapper -l" gives me "hardware present, driver working" notice.

"iwscan wlan0 scan" gives me a list of all the nearby wifi networks, including my own "USR8054" router. wlan0 is set up with static IP in /etc/networking.interfaces, and appears to associate with the router. Here are the contents of interfaces:
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media:~# cat /etc/network/interfaces
# This file describes the network interfaces available on your system
# and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5).

# The loopback network interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

iface eth1 inet static
address 192.168.xxx.118
netmask 255.255.255.0
# gateway 192.168.xxx.254

auto eth1

iface wlan0 inet static
wireless-essid USR8054
# wireless-key s:xxxxx
address 192.168.xxx.119
netmask 255.255.255.0
gateway 192.168.xxx.254

auto wlan0
allow-hotplug wlan0

iface eth0 inet static
address 192.168.xxx.120
netmask 255.255.255.0
# gateway 192.168.xxx.254

auto eth0

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Note: Wireless encryption is temporarily disabled, until I resolve this issue. I also commented out the gateway for both eth0 and eth1 based on the advice gained from a different forum. The issue I have is this:

I can ping the ip for wlan0 (xxx.119) from my windows box on the same network, but only as long as eth1 is physically connected to the router (of note, I can also ping the IP for eth1 - xxx.118). That is, I think all the traffic for wlan0 is actually being sent through eth1. If I disconnect the RJ45 cable, I lose all connection to the machine. I can't ping either IP address. Plug in the cable again, and it comes back online.

"Route" gives me:

Kernel IP routing table
Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface
192.168.xxx.0 * 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 eth1
192.168.xxx.0 * 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 wlan0
192.168.xxx.0 * 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 eth0
default 192.168.xxx.254 0.0.0.0 UG 0 0 0 wlan0

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Here is what "iwconfig wlan" produces:

media:~# iwconfig wlan0
wlan0 IEEE 802.11g ESSID:"USR8054"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.462 GHz Access Point: 00:C0:49:E0:92:B8
Bit Rate:54 Mb/s Tx-Power:10 dBm Sensitivity=0/3
RTS thr:4096 B Fragment thr:4096 B
Encryption keyff
Power Managementff
Link Quality:100/100 Signal level:-29 dBm Noise level:-96 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

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"ifconfig" gives me:

media:~# ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:0D:87:16:B7:8B
inet addr:192.168.xxx.120 Bcast:192.168.xxx.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
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:177 Base address:0xc800

eth1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:03:6D:12:9F:FE
inet addr:192.168.xxx.118 Bcast:192.168.xxx.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::203:6dff:fe12:9ffe/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:398 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:154 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:115040 (112.3 KiB) TX bytes:20734 (20.2 KiB)
Interrupt:169 Base address:0xc000

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:66 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:66 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:5104 (4.9 KiB) TX bytes:5104 (4.9 KiB)

wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:12:0E:5A:FC:65
inet addr:192.168.xxx.119 Bcast:192.168.xxx.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::212:eff:fe5a:fc65/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:513 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:7 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:127364 (124.3 KiB) TX bytes:510 (510.0 b)

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Sorry for the long email, but I've been asked for all of this data at various points on other forums. I really appreciate any help anyone can offer, and will happily provide additional data if needed. The wifi stick looks like it is working, and it picks up the networks ok. It just won't stick when the cable is pulled!

Thanks in advance,

Lee

Hi,
are the windoze box and your eth1 connected to the same router as wlan0? What is the default gateway (and any static routes) of the router and the windows box? Can you ping the router from your linux box when eth1 is disconnected?
bye,
yai

Hi,

thanks for the response. I managed to solve this, after a fashion. It turns out that the wlan0 traffic was all being sent through eth1 (same machine). "ifdown eth1" forced debian to send the data through the correct route (wlan0's default gateway, which is my router) and presto! A working wireless connection.

It's a bit flaky, but I expected that with ndiswrapper...

Thanks again,

Lee