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Peleus · 12-06-2012, 07:08 AM

Hi everyone.

Please hear me out first, it could definitely be a problem with my inexperience but I'm finding one aspect of linux rather frustrating.

This is the apparent lack of diagnosis with regards to the command line network management. I was connecting to my network which has a default gateway of 192.168.0.1, and WEP encryption. Mucking around with cracking WEP so I set and easy password of A1B2C3D4E5. Wicd seemed to have an issue with connecting however, often kicking up 'bad password' or not taking advantage of the DHCP server and not assigning an IP. Anyway, I digress, not complaining about Wicd but explaining why I'm mucking around with command line.

Anyway, I enter the following commands.

ifconfig wlan0 192.168.0.100 netmask 255.255.255.0 up
route add default gateway 192.168.0.1
iwconfig wlan0 essid network key A1B2C3D4E5
iwconfig wlan0 mode managed

Point being, that should connect to the network. ping's however went unresolved and it seems for whatever reason it could no connect (in windows it was fine). The most frustrating part was the inability to examine the reason for what was going wrong. Was it getting an authentication rejection? Some reason the IP wasn't being assigned? It also seemed a bit frustrating that there was no apparent way to "force" an association attempt and get feedback, i.e saying iwconfig wlan0 connect or something while outputting feedback.

Does this stuff simply not exist? Or am I being an idiot and I'm just not aware of it?

Cheers.

malekmustaq · 12-07-2012, 06:31 AM

Quote:

It also seemed a bit frustrating that there was no apparent way to "force" an association attempt and get feedback, i.e saying iwconfig wlan0 connect or something while outputting feedback.

Simply find what's happening behind all those configurations and pinging you made, see them at /var/log/*

Try what happened of the packets if they were sent or not:

Code:

~$ tail /var/log/syslog

or you can even cat them all to see if wlan0 was noted by the kernel--

Code:

~$ cat /var/log/syslog | grep wlan

also

Code:

~$ cat /var/log/messages
~$ dmesg | tail
~$ netstat -s <to examine what you have for network>
~# cat /proc/net/wireless

Just read the manuals for many networking utilities for configuration and debugging net problems:

Code:

~$ man netstat [ man ifconfig, man route, man iwconfig ]

There are more ways than that. Just "PLAY" with your gnu/linux, but don't take it too seriously as to obfuscate the mind with emotions

.

HOpe that helps.

Good luck.