Hello,

My wireless card can find the network, but I cannot ping others. The odd thing is, it seems that I can be pinged (when I took the card out, I could no longer reach the IP address I had set my card to.) but this is only when the ethernet cable is plugged in (???). How can the wlan IP address be reached through the NIC card?

In /var/log/messages I found this:

kernel: dot11req_reset: the macaddress and setdefaultmib arguments are currently unsupported

..not sure if it is relevant
I had earlier had an IPv6 problem, which (I think) I solved by adding
install ipv6 /bin/true
to the /etc/modprobe.conf file

Does anyone have any ideas on this?

thanks

What does iwconfig says? What about ifconfig -a? And the route?

The output from iwconfig, ifconfig, and route is below. I have tried setting the MAC address (using YAST in SuSE 9.1), but the access point always appears as 00:00:00:00:00:00


iwconfig.................

lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

wlan0 IEEE 802.11-DS ESSID:"WLAN" Nickname:"WLAN"
Mode:Auto Frequency:2.462GHz Access Point: 00:00:00:00:00:00
Bit Rate:2Mb/s Tx-Power:2346 dBm
Retry min limit:8 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Link Quality:42/92 Signal level:-59 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


ifconfig -a ...................

eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:0D:9D:C8:43:F8
inet addr:192.168.2.24 Bcast:255.255.255.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
UP BROADCAST NOTRAILERS RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:921 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:695 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:318414 (310.9 Kb) TX bytes:100016 (97.6 Kb)
Interrupt:11 Base address:0xa000

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:335 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:335 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:25231 (24.6 Kb) TX bytes:25231 (24.6 Kb)

wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:06:25:16:C3:C2
inet addr:192.168.2.39 Bcast:192.168.2.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:3 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)
Interrupt:3 Base address:0x100


route ..................

Kernel IP routing table
Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface
192.168.2.0 * 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 eth0
192.168.2.0 * 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 wlan0
link-local * 255.255.0.0 U 0 0 0 eth0
loopback * 255.0.0.0 U 0 0 0 lo
default 192.168.2.1 0.0.0.0 UG 0 0 0 eth0

Your network interfaces are in the same subnet, this not necessarily what you want.

If eth0 interface is up, it is used to route all the packages, so wlan0 interface is used only to discuss to itself (which isn't very useful).

If you want to use your wlan interface, you might want to drop down the eth0 interface prior using wlan0, or atleast modify your routing settings.

If you want this to be automatic, see a thread about detecting cable connection.

Thanks Toni,

I hadn't realised there was an issue with using the same subnet. However, I have the same problem when I do ifdown eth0, or uninstall the ethernet card, so that the WLAN is on its own.

When you drop the eth0, what is left to the routing tables?

You probably have an access point that you are trying to talk with. If you try to ping the broadcast address (192.168.2.255 in this case), does the lights blink in your wlan card and in your access point? Where do you get replies from?

Toni,

I tried route when eth0 was down....

Kernel IP routing table
Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface
192.168.2.0 * 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 wlan0
loopback * 255.0.0.0 U 0 0 0 lo

When I ping (broadcast), the only reply is from itself.

I have used kwifimanager to monitor the card. It shows only 2Mb/s. I tried changing this with
iwconfig wlan0 rate 11M, but ....
Error for wireless request "Set Bit Rate" (8B20) :
SET failed on device wlan0 ; Function not implemented.

BTW, when I bring up eth0 with ifup, it gets no IP address. How do I do this (now I go through the YAST gui which restores all the settings for me)?

thanks

If you bring the interface down with ifdown eth0 (instead of ifconfig eth0 down), it should be bringed back up by ifup eth0.

ok. Is your access point configured to work as a bridge, or something else? You have some other device that is wire-connected, if you broadcast ping from it, does the lights in your access point blink?

I have now managed to get my wireless card working. It took hours of searching and trying different things, and I am still not entirely sure why it works like this, but ....

The solution was to delete all network cards with YasT. I then inserted the wireless card and found that it registered with kwifimanager as functioning at 11Mb/s, although not able to connect to the router. With ifconfig I found that it was functioning as eth1 rather than wlan0. WIth YasT all I did was to add the name of the wireless LAN to the device configuration. The card then was able to connect.

One odd thing is that if the card is installed during power on and boot, it won't work. So I boot up, then push the card into the PCMCIA slot. Not much help if you have an inbuilt card. I have no idea yet what could cause this problem, but it doesn't inconvenience me. Please let me know if you have anything to add to this.

I am using a Linksys WPC11 ver.3, on an HP laptop running SuSE 9.1

There is a SuSE Forum thread here that relates to SuSE wireless problems after YOU online update. It was one of the posts on this thread that prompted me to try deleting both Wireless card and the Ethernet card in Network Card settings.