Router mysteriously stopped working with Linux

Hunter2 · 03-02-2007, 03:33 PM

Hi,
I'm having a pretty weird problem... I don't know precisely what caused it, it *may* have been shortly after a kernel recompile but I think the only thing I changed was enabling software suspend.

Basically, I can't connect to my router anymore, when I'm booted into Linux. When booted in Windows on the same machine, it detects and connects with no issues.

What's really puzzling to me is that the wireless connection is working slightly better than the wired connection right now. The wired connection just 100% stopped working - it's as if it's not plugged in at all, dhcpcd just times out after 15 seconds. However, the wireless connection will connect and authenticate (using WPA-PSK), retrieve DHCP info, and I'll even be able to browse the internet for about 30 seconds... then it cuts off and ifconfig shows that the assigned IP address disappeared too.

My wired connection still works fine when plugged directly into the residence network - the problems only occur when connecting to the residence network _through_ my router.

Does anybody know what could be going wrong? I've always been able to connect both wired and wireless to this router with Linux before...

------------------
Distro: Gentoo
Wireless: MadWifi driver, atheros-based chipset; separately built module
Wired: 8139too driver, Realtek 8139 chipset [or similar]; built into kernel
Kernel: 2.6.19-gentoo-r5

Note: I *did* re-emerge the madwifi driver after rebuilding the kernel.

comprookie2000 · 03-02-2007, 04:58 PM

Well first all this is just a stab into the dark but we have to start somewhere.
Lets see what is running.

Code:

rc-update show
ifconfig
route -n

stop any net.* that is up

Code:

/etc/init.d/net.eth0 stop <-- same for eth1 if it is up

look at cat /etc/resolv.conf
Try to connect the wired alone;
dhcpcd eth0
and then look at;
ifconfig
route -n
cat /etc/resolv.conf
what happens?

Hunter2 · 03-02-2007, 06:42 PM

Thanks for the reply.

Oddly enough, it seems that the problem is just that dhcpcd was timing out too soon. A timeout value of 30 seems to give it enough time to connect now, and both wired and wireless are connecting without issue. I really don't know why this is the case, a timeout of 5 used to be more than enough for this router.

I've actually also been noticing that my router seems to detect my wireless connection twice, with different MAC's (status shows 2 wireless connections with same timestamp), but I've never noticed any related issues... do you have any idea where this might be coming from?

comprookie2000 · 03-02-2007, 06:51 PM

I would *THINK* (we are in trouble now) if it shows two mac's it would be two different laptops. That and the slow dhcp, the router may be acting up. I have had problems with mine before and just turn everything off and unplug it for maybe 20 seconds and then reconnect everything and it worked fine.