home wireless connection

[Davy]

hi all!

i've got a toshiba laptop with an atheros network card. i got madwifi to work just fine when i'm at work or at school; but for some wierd reason, i can't use the wireless nic at home.

"iwconfig ath0 essid bensplace" find my network just fine; but when i try dhclient or ifup ath0; i get not dhcp offers.

which is strange because my wireless router is set up to give dhcp and i can use that same laptop with windows to connect just fine.

anyone got any clues about where i can start?

[stumbles]

Check your /etc/resolv.conf and see if the entries are what you expect them to be for your home router. I usually just use my wireless router for nameserver entries.

[rdeschene2]

One thing worth trying, first off, is to have your home router assign your laptop's network adapter a static IP address based on its MAC address.

- some useful commands when I'm working on networking problems are:
/sbin/ifconfig to see what (if any) IP# the router has assigned my laptop's network adapter
/sbin/route to see what the router configuration is: would expect the router's IP# to be the default gateway
/usr/bin/dig to see (once you have a connection) what the IP# of the DNS your computer is using

I have a Netgear 814g router, and find it does not "hand off" the DNS correctly. So I end up finding out from the router's setup program what my ISPs DNS IP#s are, and then setting those statically in /etc/resolv.conf
If I leave it up to my router, it takes 0.5-1.0sec to do DNS alone (from the dig output) so sometimes my router times out trying to resolve a URL.

[Davy]

bleh

this router won't let me set up static ip for each machine connected to. it only let's me set up a static ip address to the internet.

/etc/resolv.conf give me dns info from my work and school; but it doesn't match what my router has for home. but i can't get any connection to my router, so entering the right info for home wouldn't do any good.

i can't get ANY sort of connection to the router so ifconfig or dig don't tell me anything usefull.

route tells me that there's no gateway and when i try:

route add -net 192.168.0.1 netmask 255.255.255.0 dev ath0
route: netmask doesn't match route address

then it gives me route usage output

i know that my router's broadcasting because when i do
"iwconfig ath0 essid bensplace" i get a signal strength of 36 from kwifimanager.

it's just wierd. my laptop can see the wireless network, it can even see the gateway address, but i just won't connect. (or maybe it's just that my router doesn't want it to connect)

any ideas?

[Davy]

aw man!!!

don't tell me that i stumped you guys.

[stumbles]

bleh

this router won't let me set up static ip for each machine connected to. it only let's me set up a static ip address to the internet.

You don't set the IP at the router. You set a static IP at the PC. If your router has an IP of 192.168.2.1, then any static IP's assigned to your machines will be 192.168.2.x. I assume your using a netmask of 255.255.255.0.

/etc/resolv.conf give me dns info from my work and school; but it doesn't match what my router has for home. but i can't get any connection to my router, so entering the right info for home wouldn't do any good.

Then use 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220 to get you started. These are OpenDNS server IP's

i can't get ANY sort of connection to the router so ifconfig or dig don't tell me anything usefull.

route tells me that there's no gateway and when i try:

route add -net 192.168.0.1 netmask 255.255.255.0 dev ath0
route: netmask doesn't match route address

then it gives me route usage output

If you know the IP of your router then use that as the gateway.

[Davy]

You don't set the IP at the router. You set a static IP at the PC. If your router has an IP of 192.168.2.1, then any static IP's assigned to your machines will be 192.168.2.x. I assume your using a netmask of 255.255.255.0.

yes, that's my netmask.

i tried setting up statice ip. when my laptop connects while i using windows, it gives me the ip of 192.168.0.101. so i assigned that ip address to my nic when running linux. there was no communication going on.

Then use 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220 to get you started. These are OpenDNS server IP's

would it matter what dns i use? afterall, there's no connection.

If you know the IP of your router then use that as the gateway.

i did. 192.168.0.1 is the ip of my router. i used the "route add -net 192.168.0.1" command to try to set my router up as a gateway; but the syntax or something must be wrong because route just comes back with the you-used-this-command-incorrectly-so-here's-some-guidelines-that-might-help-printout. (sort of as if i typed route --help in the first place)

as proof that my wireless access works out side the my home:
wifi working on my laptop while at school (png image)

so i know the problem has to be with my router.

hmmm... maybe there's a sale on routers going on somewhere.

[Davy]

omg.... i actually stumped you guys.

[dannybunkins]

what kind of encryption are you using on your router? WEP, WPA, WPA2? I know that I cannot use WPA2 with my atheros card under linux, so if you are using any type of encryption, you may want to try turning it off for a couple of minutes to see if that is what is causing the problem.

[Davy]

hi dannybunkins

i like to live life on the dangerous side; so there's no encryption and it broadcasts itself like a howling monkey on a roof.

[Omnscnt(Sortof)]

I don't know how much help this is, but it took me a while to figure it out.

Try "dhcpcd ath0."

If dhcp is not giving you anything, it may be because it by default uses eth0. This can be changed in your dhcpcd config file too, but I forget where it is.

[dannybunkins]

hi dannybunkins

i like to live life on the dangerous side; so there's no encryption and it broadcasts itself like a howling monkey on a roof.

[Davy]

I don't know how much help this is, but it took me a while to figure it out.

Try "dhcpcd ath0."

If dhcp is not giving you anything, it may be because it by default uses eth0. This can be changed in your dhcpcd config file too, but I forget where it is.

thanks guy, but dhcp is already set up for ath0. as a matter of fact, the dhcp client runs automatically everytime i try to connect.

i SO wish that were the problem.

this issue is really frustrating 'cuz kwifimanager SEES my wireless network and my router has a utility that DOES detect my laptop's attempts to connect; but they just WON'T. grrrrr.