WPA issues on Mepsis 6.0

bmccorm2 · 03-22-2007, 04:36 PM

I cannot get WPA protocol to work on Mepsis 6.0 with a Netgear wireless adapter (WG111v2). I have tried through the console and through a GUI (wifi-radar) and both methods get an IP through DHCP, but when I ping a website or try to surf, I get nothing. I have googled the issue and looked through Mepis' documentation and have found nothing. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Here is my wpa_supplicant.conf, which resides in /etc:

Code:

ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant

network={
        ssid="MikeNet"
        #psk="temp"
        psk=2828377485ab74451d21c10a41c289595135849792942a57102736e8d15ffb5a
        key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
        proto=WPA
        pairwise=CCMP TKIP
}

To bring up the wpa_supplicant, I issue this command as root:

Code:

wpa_supplicant -i wlan0 -D wext -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf

I don't know which driver my wireless card is using because Mepis recognized it via native drivers, so I just use the general "wext" driver for the command. Thanks again for any help.

jschiwal · 03-22-2007, 05:49 PM

Now that you have posted your key, you might want to change it.

If you are able to get an address via DHCP, that means that wireless is working. Your problem may be a regular networking problem instead.

Check if you have both the regular NIC interface and the wireless interface are up and on the same subnet. If you aren't using the ethernet NIC, you can shut it down.

Also look at the output of "/sbin/route". Is the wireless interface used for your default gateway?

If there is no default gateway, you could use the command:
sudo /sbin/route add default gw <IP address of router> dev wlan0

Another thing that can prevent internet access in the browser is if your /etc/resolv.conf file doesn't contain your ISP's nameserver addresses. However, this is normally provided by DHCP. In any case, pinging an IP address rather than a domain name would still work.

bmccorm2 · 03-22-2007, 11:10 PM

That key was just a temporary one (psk=temp)

but thanks for the heads up. All my other network interfaces are disabled and the output of /sbin/route is:

Code:

root@1[bryan]# route
Kernel IP routing table
Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags Metric Ref    Use Iface
192.168.0.0     *               255.255.255.0   U     0      0        0 wlan0
default         dslmodem.domain 0.0.0.0         UG    0      0        0 wlan0

I don't know quite how to interpret this, but I do know that the IP of my router is as follows:

Code:

root@1[bryan]# route add default gw 192.168.0.1 dev wlan0
SIOCADDRT: File exists

I have a laptop right next to this desktop that runs Mandriva and it has no problem connecting to the WPA-enabled network, so I think the network should be fine. Is there anything else that could be wrong? Thanks again for the help.

jschiwal · 03-23-2007, 03:03 PM

Sorry, I didn't read the comment. Is the router a NAT router?
You do have a default route.

Monitor the output of "sudo /usr/sbin/wpa_cli -p /var/run/wpa_supplicant -i wlan0". It will give the state of authentication.

Also, try pinging the router.

Could you post the output of /etc/resolve.conf. Compare the nameserver list on both computers and see if they are the same.