Connected to WLAN... but no real connectivity.

chadderton · 08-11-2014, 04:28 AM

Hi guys,

I've been fiddling around with this for two days, I could really need some help now. I bet it's something trivial. As I haven't used Linux in almost ten years, I might just be a little rusty. Please note that I'm on Bodhi Linux 3.0.0 RC1 (Ubuntu 14.04), but I don't think it's a distribution-specific or hardware-specific issue. WLAN is working fine on Windows, and it was working fine on Debian before I opted to go with Bodhi.

I can successfully connect to my router using the "wicd" connection manager. Although the WLAN is hidden and WPA2-protected, I can connect without trouble. I get assigned an IP through DHCP, and my router also tells me that the Bodhi machine has connected. However, I cannot ping anything else in the network for the life of me!

I've already disabled the 'n' wireless mode on the router as I heard about problems with that, but I haven't figured out a way to disable that mode in the driver (rtl8291ce). The wpa_supplicant is driven with 'wext' if that is relevant at all.

BTW: I'm not on the machine in question right now, but if you need some detailed system information, I'll be happy to provide it. Just let me know.

Any feedback is appreciated!

Thanks.

tronayne · 08-11-2014, 06:56 AM

From what you're saying it looks like you're connected and that the network is available. That about right?

Sounds like you don't have a DNS server. Quick and dirty, open a terminal and, as root

Code:

vi /etc/resolv.conf
<insert>
search com
nameserver 8.8.8.8
nameserver 8.8.4.4
<save and exit>
ping -c 5 news.google.com

Those are Google Free DNS Servers, you may opt to use the DNS server addresses provided by your ISP instead.

wicd will overwrite /etc/resolv.conf (and I've never been able to figure out how to prevent that!). I keep a reslov.bak file in /etc and, after connecting with wicd, copy that into /etc/resolv.conf when I'm using my laptop remotely. Otherwise all my systems are fixed-IP and are connected to a router or switch with Ethernet cables (and thus I don't use wicd so no problem with DNS servers).

Hope this helps some.

chadderton · 08-11-2014, 07:22 AM

Yes, the connection is there. Like I said: Both the "wcid" frontend and the router say the machine is connected.

I've been playing around with the resolv.conf for quite some time already... manually adding DNS servers didn't help.

Anyway, thanks for your reply.

If this is something I can't figure out by tonight, then I'll be back to Debian for the meantime.

Unfortunately I'm too old to be "playing" around with an installation for weeks/months.

jefro · 08-12-2014, 02:35 PM

Let's assume you don't have any restrictions on your lan or wan.

So, post some info like ifconfig, nslookup www.google.com and maybe dig www.google.com to start.

It may turn out to be an ipv6 issue or other.

chadderton · 08-12-2014, 04:34 PM

I've switched back to Debian yesterday hoping to circumvent this problem. But since I desperately need a Blender version with Cycles support, I went with "jessie" instead of "wheezy". I don't really like the idea of backporting.

Needless to say... WLAN refuses to work on Debian as well now.

I've crawled through google search results as if I had discovered the internet just yesterday, and it seems like a lot of people have problems with RTL8192ce wireless devices. Some people even report that the only option to get this driver (or similar ones) going is to first boot into Windows and then into Linux. Sounds crazy... and I doesn't work for me of course... but it stresses what the situation is like.

Anyway, here's some info which might be useful:

cat /etc/network/interfaces

Code:

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

cat /etc/resolv.conf

Code:

nameserver 192.168.0.1

lsmod | grep rtl

Code:

rtl8192ce              52215  0
rtl_pci                25898  1 rtl8192ce
rtlwifi                50458  2 rtl_pci,rtl8192ce
rtl8192c_common        40162  1 rtl8192ce
mac80211              464019  3 rtl_pci,rtlwifi,rtl8192ce
cfg80211              412187  2 mac80211,rtlwifi

lspci | grep -i wireless

Code:

07:00.0 Network controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8192CE PCIe Wireless Network Adapter (rev 01)

ifconfig

Code:

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 10:c3:7b:9c:9d:ba
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:291 errors:0 dropped:3 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:27852 (27.1 KiB)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
          Interrupt:18 Memory:fb700000-fb720000

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:65536  Metric:1
          RX packets:374 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:374 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:34529 (33.7 KiB)  TX bytes:34529 (33.7 KiB)

wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 10:c3:7b:c6:ce:d2
          inet addr:192.168.0.3  Bcast:192.168.0.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::12c3:7bff:fec6:ced2/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:49 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:615 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:6099 (5.9 KiB)  TX bytes:98570 (96.2 KiB)

nslookup www.google.com

Code:

;; connection timed out; no servers could be reached

dig www.google.com

Code:

; <<>> DiG 9.9.5-4-Debian <<>> www.google.com
;; global options: +cmd
;; connection timed out; no servers could be reached

Please let me know if you need additional information.

Oh... and could you please elaborate on the "ipv6 issue or other" comment?

Thanks!

tronayne · 08-12-2014, 09:37 PM

One problem you may have is that your DNS is the router: many routers, e.g., Linksys, provide DNS services briefly then stop. You, most likely, need external DNS servers specified in /etc/resolv.conf. That "no servers can be reached" is a hint about DNS services (the DNS nameserver address given above is the router gateway).

One thing you may try is to set your system to fixed-IP addressing (this is not as "bad" as you may think).

Your gateway address is 192.168.0.1, your system address can be, say, 192.168.0.10 (or 2, 3, 15, 20 doesn't mater, anything but 192.168.0.1 or greater than 100 -- that's where DHCP usually starts).

As I mentioned, WICD wipes out /etc/resolv.conf and you may need to keep an /etc/resolv.bak file (as I do) when using WICD to connect to a wireless device. Note that, if you have an Ethernet cable attached to your router you will not be required to screw with this stuff with a fixed-IP address as above. It's dirt simple to connect to WICD then copy /etc/resolv.bak to /etc/resolv.conf which will give you DNS services and you will be able to connect to web pages with, for example, "www.google.com" once /etc/resolv.conf is in place.

My laptop has WICD installed. On boot the Ethernet cable is recognized and the connection is made (and /etc/resolv.conf does not get wiped out -- it's only when connecting wi-fi with WICD that it does (and I just do the copy and all is well).

You can't count on a router to provide DNS services; sometime it does, sometimes it does not, better to specify specific addresses for DNS servers.

Hope this help some.

chadderton · 08-13-2014, 06:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tronayne

One problem you may have is that your DNS is the router: many routers, e.g., Linksys, provide DNS services briefly then stop. You, most likely, need external DNS servers specified in /etc/resolv.conf. That "no servers can be reached" is a hint about DNS services (the DNS nameserver address given above is the router gateway).

One thing you may try is to set your system to fixed-IP addressing (this is not as "bad" as you may think).

Your gateway address is 192.168.0.1, your system address can be, say, 192.168.0.10 (or 2, 3, 15, 20 doesn't mater, anything but 192.168.0.1 or greater than 100 -- that's where DHCP usually starts).

As I mentioned, WICD wipes out /etc/resolv.conf and you may need to keep an /etc/resolv.bak file (as I do) when using WICD to connect to a wireless device. Note that, if you have an Ethernet cable attached to your router you will not be required to screw with this stuff with a fixed-IP address as above. It's dirt simple to connect to WICD then copy /etc/resolv.bak to /etc/resolv.conf which will give you DNS services and you will be able to connect to web pages with, for example, "www.google.com" once /etc/resolv.conf is in place.

My laptop has WICD installed. On boot the Ethernet cable is recognized and the connection is made (and /etc/resolv.conf does not get wiped out -- it's only when connecting wi-fi with WICD that it does (and I just do the copy and all is well).

You can't count on a router to provide DNS services; sometime it does, sometimes it does not, better to specify specific addresses for DNS servers.

Hope this help some.

Thanks a lot, I'll try that out tonight when I get on my Linux machine.

What you're saying makes sense and all, however, without testing anything yet, how do you explain that I can't even ping the router?

Shouldn't that be possible regardless of my DNS settings?

No matter what I do, I get 100% packet loss. It's funny that it worked briefly on my old Debian "wheezy" installation. Unfortunately I can't think of anything I configured differently on the new "jessie" installation. Back in the days (2004ish) I set up my Debian WLAN with an NDISWRAPPER, but according to other forums and blogs, this doesn't really help in my situation today. I may look into that again though.

It's not a laptop, so I could somehow cope with not having WLAN, but having a 30 feet cable through my living room sucks balls.

tronayne · 08-13-2014, 08:19 AM

I hauled out the laptop, did not connect the Ethernet cable, and told WICD to automatically connect to the Netgear 11ng (which is connected to my router via Ethernet; essentially the router looks like the satellite modem to the Netgear). I'm connected with DHCP at 192.168.1.100 which is the router, not the Netgear (don't want to start yanking cables to connect the Netgear directly to the satellite but that really doesn't matter: I'm connected).

So, the content of /etc/resolv.conf is

Code:

cat /etc/resolv.conf
# Generated by dhcpcd from wlan0
# /etc/resolv.conf.head can replace this line
nameserver 192.168.0.1
# /etc/resolv.conf.tail can replace this line

192.168.0.1 is the Netgear (the router is 192.168.1.1).

I can ping:

Code:

ping -c 5 192.168.1.1
PING 192.168.1.1 (192.168.1.1) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=150 time=1.62 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=150 time=1.64 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=3 ttl=150 time=1.59 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=4 ttl=150 time=1.51 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=5 ttl=150 time=1.54 ms

--- 192.168.1.1 ping statistics ---
5 packets transmitted, 5 received, 0% packet loss, time 4005ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 1.516/1.583/1.647/0.059 ms

ping -c 5 192.168.0.1
PING 192.168.0.1 (192.168.0.1) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=63 time=3.84 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=63 time=1.90 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=3 ttl=63 time=1.82 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=4 ttl=63 time=1.84 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=5 ttl=63 time=1.83 ms

--- 192.168.0.1 ping statistics ---
5 packets transmitted, 5 received, 0% packet loss, time 4007ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 1.820/2.248/3.845/0.800 ms

So everybody's talking to me and to each other.

I can also ping a local machine by name (connected to the router) and the outside world (I'm writing this on the laptop so, yeah, I can get to the outside world).

ifconfig looks like this:

Code:

ifconfig
eth0: flags=4099<UP,BROADCAST,MULTICAST>  mtu 1500
        ether 00:25:64:69:99:80  txqueuelen 1000  (Ethernet)
        RX packets 0  bytes 0 (0.0 B)
        RX errors 0  dropped 0  overruns 0  frame 0
        TX packets 0  bytes 0 (0.0 B)
        TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0
        device interrupt 18  

lo: flags=73<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING>  mtu 65536
        inet 127.0.0.1  netmask 255.0.0.0
        inet6 ::1  prefixlen 128  scopeid 0x10<host>
        loop  txqueuelen 0  (Local Loopback)
        RX packets 362  bytes 74473 (72.7 KiB)
        RX errors 0  dropped 0  overruns 0  frame 0
        TX packets 362  bytes 74473 (72.7 KiB)
        TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0

wlan0: flags=4163<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST>  mtu 1500
        inet 192.168.1.100  netmask 255.255.255.0  broadcast 192.168.1.255
        inet6 fe80::721a:4ff:fe34:2a8f  prefixlen 64  scopeid 0x20<link>
        ether 70:1a:04:34:2a:8f  txqueuelen 1000  (Ethernet)
        RX packets 3931  bytes 4020717 (3.8 MiB)
        RX errors 0  dropped 0  overruns 0  frame 0
        TX packets 2336  bytes 358512 (350.1 KiB)
        TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0

And

Code:

nslookup www.google.com
Server:		192.168.0.1
Address:	192.168.0.1#53

Non-authoritative answer:
Name:	www.google.com
Address: 74.125.224.212
Name:	www.google.com
Address: 74.125.224.211
Name:	www.google.com
Address: 74.125.224.210
Name:	www.google.com
Address: 74.125.224.209
Name:	www.google.com
Address: 74.125.224.208

And

Code:

dig www.google.com

; <<>> DiG 9.9.5-P1 <<>> www.google.com
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 44099
;; flags: qr rd ra ad; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 5, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;www.google.com.			IN	A

;; ANSWER SECTION:
www.google.com.		1200	IN	A	74.125.224.209
www.google.com.		1200	IN	A	74.125.224.208
www.google.com.		1200	IN	A	74.125.224.212
www.google.com.		1200	IN	A	74.125.224.211
www.google.com.		1200	IN	A	74.125.224.210

;; Query time: 3 msec
;; SERVER: 192.168.0.1#53(192.168.0.1)
;; WHEN: Wed Aug 13 08:51:04 EDT 2014
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 112

All this sort of leads me to wonder...

Have you got any other device that connects to your wi-fi? Say a Kindle or something?
Are you sure that you've got WICD configured correctly with the right password (chek yer speling)?
Are you sure that the dongle you've got is actually working (is it USB, unplug it and plug it into another USB port maybe)?

The relevant sections of /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf look like this:

Code:

# Config information for eth0:
IPADDR[0]="192.168.1.30"
NETMASK[0]="255.255.255.0"
USE_DHCP[0]=""
DHCP_HOSTNAME[0]=""

# Config information for eth1:
IPADDR[1]=""
NETMASK[1]=""
USE_DHCP[1]=""
DHCP_HOSTNAME[1]=""

# Config information for eth2:
IPADDR[2]=""
NETMASK[2]=""
USE_DHCP[2]=""
DHCP_HOSTNAME[2]=""

# Config information for eth3:
IPADDR[3]=""
NETMASK[3]=""
USE_DHCP[3]=""
DHCP_HOSTNAME[3]=""

# Default gateway IP address:
GATEWAY="192.168.1.1"

The GATEWAY address is my wired router (which is not connected).

Everything else is commented-out; i.e., there is no wlan configuration, WICD handles all that.

The WICD configuration is WPA 1/2 (Hex[0-9/A-F), Use Encryption and the password is the one I set in the Netgear wi-fi router (not the default).

So, I dunno; it sounds like there might be a password problem? When you start up WICD if you don't see it connect, them's the stuff I'd check.

Hope this helps some.