WET54G Wireless Bridge and Suse 10.2

usaf_sp · 01-25-2007, 11:49 PM

I have a Linksys WET54G wireless bridge, a Linksys WRT54G wireless router. The bridge is supposed to be able to connect any TCP/IP enabled device to the the wireless router. The router and bridge are connected, as I can ping the bridge from another computer but SuSE 10.2 will not allow me to connect to anything (including the bridge). I can connect my Playstation 2 as well as Windows XP computers using DHCP to the bridge.

I am at a loss as to why every other device except Linux will function correctly. I have tried Linspire, Kubuntu, FC6 and finally SuSE 10.2. What possible DHCP setting could linux distributions have in common that WinXP and Playstation 2 does not?

It might help you to know that the bridge does not have any kind of driver (as it is intended to be generic). I know it is some linux setting that is causing my problem.

And by the way the firewall is disabled.

Thanks for any suggestions you may have.

Quigi · 01-26-2007, 02:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by usaf_sp

What possible DHCP setting could linux distributions have in common that WinXP and Playstation 2 does not?

I don't know anything specific about your Linksys hardware. One difference I noticed is that Windows client always send their hostname to the DHCP server, while Linux by default doesn't. IIRC, specifying your name is optional, but maybe your bridge requires it in spite of the standard? You can supply from Linux it if you like. I thought it would be nice to see the my linux box "lithium" in the router's client list, so I added the line

Code:

DHCP_HOSTNAME=lithium-wired

to /etc/sysconfig/networking/devices/ifcfg-eth0. (I chose the name to distinguish from the wireless interface eth1.)

usaf_sp · 01-26-2007, 03:37 PM

I found the solution:

The routing needs to be set to the default gateway. In my case I needed to go to routing in yast, network services menu to set it to the gateway.

Thanks for the idea you put forward it led to my discovery.

Quigi · 01-26-2007, 03:46 PM

Doh, I should have thought of that! Because here, I have to manually change the routing every time I re-plug the patch cable (my network software prefers ethernet over wireless, but the ethernet only connects me to my printer.) My solution is crude:

Code:

route del default
route add default gw 192.168.2.1
echo nameserver 192.168.2.1 > /etc/resolv.conf

I'm glad you figured it out.

usaf_sp · 01-26-2007, 04:04 PM

I still have not figured out why my solution works. In theory the following should be the way it works:

1. The ethernet card connects to the wireless bridge via a cat5 cable.

2. The bridge forwards the cat5 signal and ethernet mac address via wireless to the router. The bridge should only be a pass through.

3. The wireless router exchanges WPA keys with the bridge and assigns the ethernet mac an IP via DHCP. The bridge should auto connect with the gateway.

I do not understand why I have to assign a gateway when PS2 and WinXP do not assign then but rather looks for a DHCP server. (Could it have to do with network broadcasting?)

I would like to get this figured out because I would like to be able to use the bridge when usb drivers via ndiswrapper fail.