MA311 layer3 connectivity problems

The basic situation is this:

I have a NetGear MA311.

I have tried multiple kernels, several distros (hoping for auto-detect goodness) and both the orinoco/hermes drivers as well as he wlan-ng drivers.

Every single time, I end up with the same situation (regardless of distro, kernel, drivers, etc)


My card is able to get a DHCP lease, however once I get an IP I cannot communicate with anything, nor can anything else communicate with it.

An iwconfig or similar shows signal strength.

Everything works fine, I just merely have NO TCP/IP connectivity. It THINKS everything is okay, but I get no responses...


Even weirder?

If I use another system and send a broadcast ping out, the machine will respond. A direct ping does nothing, however. How weird is THAT?


I can provide however much additional information if you need. I am by no means a newbie: I consider myself well-versed. But I have no idea what to try anymore, and was hoping someone around here might know...

Thanks in advance!

ad-hoc or managed? if managed, what router/access point? is wep on?, if so, what strength? mac filtering on?, if so, is this card in the list?

It would be helpful know the distro/version, so stick with one for at least a few days..., also which module is loaded for this?

Respectively:

managed.

Linksys BEFW11S4

No WEP (I'll worry about that after it works without it )

No MAC filtering

At this exact point in time:

RH9, 2.4.20-6, using the hermes/orinoco/orinoco_pci module set

Other distros tried today:

Gentoo, RH8, Slackware9

On all four distros (so the above three, as well as RH9) I have tried with both the orinoco set of drivers, as well as the wlan-ng drivers. All 8 combinations give me the exact same problem.



I have other linux systems up on the network, just not this one. (The others are laptops with oldskool linksys PCMCIA prism2 cards, and I have no problems with them what so ever)

While I have a few different chipsets working under various distros here, I won't get my hands on an orinoco for a few weeks yet. (a netgear ma401 is on it's way), If I remember right doesn't this driver use a proprietary setup program, ie: not iwconfig? I'm almost positive I've seen Finegan tell someone this, maybe it's buried deep in the source directory in an out of the way readme? Maybe I'm wrong on this one, does the device respond to iwconfig's? is there a rather lengthy list of iwpriv's available (weird ones that might indicate a proprietary setup prog)?

the orinoco set of modules uses iwconfig

the wlan-ng drivers use the wlanctl-ng utility.

Once again, I've gotten it to the point where I can dhclient/dhcpcd my interface, and I get an IP. My card sees the MAC of my AP and everything, so I know it's communicating. My AP DHCP client list shows my machine.

It's just that I have no connectivity afterwords!

Are you kidding? you actually get a dhcp address? does it modify your /etc/resolv.conf also? does route show that it added a gateway?

Yes (the correct IP's)

and

Yes (the correct default gw)



Like I said, everything works, except for TCP/IP traffic itself after getting my lease!



[edit: The problem acts and responds exactly like it would if you had your netmask, broadcast and gw set incorrectly... Except I don't. [It's DHCP anyways] Just thought an analogy may help explain how things are behaving...)

all righty then, the solution is obvious...you must have an exorcism performed on this machine... *theme from the exorcist plays...*

anyway, I'm assuming your logs show nothing weird when you attempt to do things with this card?

You are correct. Nothing wierd. No weird errors.

It's like I was dealing with a normal Cat5/wired connection, booted up my system, got a lease... and then for some reason I unplug my cable, and THEN try to connect to things...

Everything just times out, both in an out bound.

Once again, the WEIRDEST part, though, is that the damn thing responds to broadcast ICMP packets. WHY? That says to me: not hardware problem, something else is broken...

But it ONLY responds to broadcast packets...

if it only was able to *initiate* a connection, we'd think it was some security issue, but the weirdness is it only *responds* to those packets, now *that's* unusual, one last thought, can you try to ad-hoc it to one of those nicely functional other cards?

Lemme do that now.

You use AIM? (you live in MD - assume you do)

If so, hit me up at the same screen name as my account here. Makes it easier.

I live in MD yes, but I *loathe* aim, (makes me think I'm my 19 year old daughter or something, heh), if we go to aim, all the the google.com/linux'ers out there will be deprived of the solution that I'm sure you will eventually come up with (I have faith...)

one other thing, a long shot: may be a buffer issue(happens to me on 2 other cards, both acx100), try fiddling with mtu on the interface, ratcheting down to 576, maybe an explanation for the icmp packets but nothing else. (rh 9 comes with that firewall, it's not lit up right?)

Just assuming! I've noticed Instant Messanging fads are often very local geographically. I lived in NoVa untill about 2 months ago, so...

Anyways...

Ad-Hoc is the exact same problem.

It really is like I'm running a firewall that is blocking EVERYTHING inbound and EVERYTHING outbound

iptables -A INPUT -p tcp -j REJECT
iptables -A OUTPUT -p tcp -j REJECT

Just kidding.


But, yeah. No firewall up. Actually took the firewalls down on EVERYTHING internal right now. (not too worried about hacking myself tonight, I guess...)

Lemme mess with the MTU now... I heard someone mention RTS threshold problems once too, although it was a different issues, I'll fiddle with those now...


PS. Where ya work/live? I was over at the Department of Energy in Germantown up until very recently...

Wait, MTU?

Maybe we've stumbled across something, cause I just now realized I have no idea what you're talking about.

Okay, I'm SOOO sorry about the triple post, but that was purely a brain fart (or a few to many beers). MTU down to recomended level. No change.

Same with putting the RTS threshold down to RIDICULOUS low levels of 200.