I have installed madwifi drivers for my laptops pcmcia wireless card, I have had this card working perfectly in the past but have had to re-install linux Mandriva because of problems. Now I am having difficulty withusing the card, here's what i have done......

Installed and compiled Madwifi drivers,
added setpci -s 0:14.4 SUBORDINATE_BUS=0A to pcmcia file in /etc/rc.d/innit.d
plugged in the card, ifconfig ath0 up (card starts flashing away)
then dhclient ath0
which gives the card ipaddress etc from my router. BUT I can't connect to the net etc.....

Any ideas what I can try???

Thanks for any help you may be able to give
Malc

Try not doing "ifconfig", and doing
iwconfig ath0 mode "Managed"
iwconfig ath0 essid "ESSID"
and if you use Encryption,
iwconfig ath0 key "KEY"
Note: you can use one command like
iwconfig ath0 mode "Managed" essid "ESSID" key "KEY"
then
dhcpcd, not dhclient.
This is how it works on my machine. I don't know whether dhclient works as well, I just use dhcpcd.

I tried that but still no joy, when I use $ iwconfig ath0 this is what I get :

iwconfig ath0
ath0 IEEE 802.11g ESSID:"private network" Nickname:"192.168.1.1"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.462 GHz Access Point: 00:0F:66:4D:20:6D
Bit Rate:54 Mb/s Tx-Power:18 dBm Sensitivity=0/3
Retryff RTS thrff Fragment thrff
Encryption keyff
Power Managementff
Link Quality=35/94 Signal level=-60 dBm Noise level=-95 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

Is this saying it is connected to my router? which has an ssid of "private network"
the lights on the card suggest that it is, if I use $ dhclient ath0

dhclient ath0
Internet Systems Consortium DHCP Client V3.0.2
Copyright 2004 Internet Systems Consortium.
All rights reserved.
For info, please visit http://www.isc.org/products/DHCP

sit0: unknown hardware address type 776
eth1: unknown hardware address type 24
sit0: unknown hardware address type 776
eth1: unknown hardware address type 24
Listening on LPF/ath0/00:11:95:17:8c:99
Sending on LPF/ath0/00:11:95:17:8c:99
Sending on Socket/fallback
DHCPREQUEST on ath0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67
DHCPACK from 192.168.1.1
bound to 192.168.1.109 -- renewal in 42803 seconds.

Which is saying it has got an ipaddress from 192.168.1.1 (my router)

BUT if i try and ping the router -

ping 192.168.1.1
PING 192.168.1.1 (192.168.1.1) 56(84) bytes of data.
From 192.168.1.109 icmp_seq=1 Destination Host Unreachable
From 192.168.1.109 icmp_seq=1 Destination Host Unreachable
From 192.168.1.109 icmp_seq=1 Destination Host Unreachable
From 192.168.1.109 icmp_seq=1 Destination Host Unreachable
From 192.168.1.109 icmp_seq=1 Destination Host Unreachable
From 192.168.1.109 icmp_seq=1 Destination Host Unreachable
ping: sendmsg: Operation not permitted
From 192.168.1.109 icmp_seq=2 Destination Host Unreachable
ping: sendmsg: Operation not permitted
From 192.168.1.109 icmp_seq=3 Destination Host Unreachable
ping: sendmsg: Operation not permitted

--- 192.168.1.1 ping statistics ---
3 packets transmitted, 0 received, +8 errors, 100% packet loss, time 2022ms

?!?! What's going on?!!


Thanks
Malc

Maybe your router has some setting that is blocking you from using the net. For example, my linksys router allows me to block wireless cards by their MAC address.

See if by default you browser has blocked all wireless. If so, you can either choose "allow all" or you can choose to allow by the MAC address.

I've reviewed the router settings and it is open to all at the moment, no encryption, no mac filtering and up to 50 client connect so I think that is ok, it was working until I had to re-install mandriva and now I can't figure it out!! I am at a total loss now as to what I can try.

Thanks
Malc

Maybe is something is screwed up with your routing table ... what does "netstat -rn" (no quotes) show?

Thanks for the reply, I typed it in.....here's the result :

netstat -rn
Kernel IP routing table
Destination Gateway Genmask Flags MSS Window irtt Iface
192.168.1.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 ath0
0.0.0.0 192.168.1.1 0.0.0.0 UG 0 0 0 ath0

Thanks
Malc

routing table looks good, no loopback though. But that should not be the problem. What does "ifconfig" say (no parameters)?

Thanks for your reply tuxdev!! I managed to get it working again!! but I really have not much of an idea what i've done!! It was something to do with a $export KERNELRELEASE'uname -r' command I think but i am no more clued up to how to get it working than I had before!!

Thanks loads for your help though, i'm off to play around with it and see what I can find out. I read through a linux for dummies book but it's not really informative enough so i've got various other stuff to read through, years of Windows and an MCSE have rotted my brain!! lol

Malc