New to Linux

Whack

Hi I am new to linux, and put ubuntu on an old laptop, which worked fine, except for some odd thing: The ethernet will connect to the web with no problems, but the wireless wont.

I have a vario laptop, with a built-in wireless, and am running ubunto 8.10. I put in the 128 wep key, as it finds the network and looks for this, but it comes back as can't connect. Odd that I can see the network with the card, but not connect, even though the wep is fine (it is the same wep as I was usign on windows)

The router is a BT voyager 2110 if that is part of the problem, but it shouldn't be I wouldn't think.

Any advice or help would be greatly appreicated.

duffman85

Were you using this laptop under windows and connecting to the wireless router before putting ubuntu on it?

If you weren't - have you restricted access to your router by MAC address?
If this is the case you would be able to see the wireless router but not connect to it.
to find your MAC address(this also called physical/hardware address)

open a Terminal window and type: ifconfig wlan0
It should spit out something like this:

wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr [B]00:13:0b:10:0c:60 [/B] 
          inet addr:192.168.1.17  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:521 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:547 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:468876 (468.8 KB)  TX bytes:85375 (85.3 KB)

The bit I've highlighted in bold after HWaddr is your MAC Address.

Connect to your router to your laptop(or using another PC) with a network cable and allow this MAC address.

The other possibility is that network manager is forgetting your wep key as it seems to do for me sometimes.
Connect the laptop with a network cable to your router and open the router's webpage.
Find where the wep key is stored and temporarily copy it into a text file.
Remove the cable from the router and try to connect to your wireless network.
when it prompts you to enter the password, tick show password delete what's there and copy in the wep key from the text file.
ditto for the confirm password box and click connect.

Hopefully it will connect

An Fear Aniar

I would suggest to check in edit connections that the connection method is DHCP.

It might be worth a try as well to open a terminal and try to connect it like this:

sudo dhclient wlan0

It might give some helpful output.

.

Whack

Think I am getting further, in that I type

sudo dhclient wlan0

and get 'No Such Device'

ifconfig gives me the choice of eth0 or eth1, both say ethernet, but I am guessing one is the wireless.

This was a windows machine previously, and I was connected to the router before, which might be some of the problem, or confusion.

When I type:

ifconfig wlan0

'wlan0 error fetching interface information: Device not found'

Seems odd that adevice can be not found, but still find the router....

duffman85

Try:

ifconfig -a

It will list all network interfaces. Your wireless card maybe called wlan1 instead of wlan0

Kinetic^

The wifi on my laptop is under "ra0". Try the above with that.

Whack

Got my mac address, you were correct in saying that it was on something else:

Turned out to be eth1 instead of wlan0.

So went to the router via ethernet hard connection: and added this MAc address and an IP assigned to it. Restarted router.

then terminal > sudo dhclient eth1 and it gave me back:

Listening/Sending on LPF/eth1/00:12:f0:48:10:83
DHCPDISCOVER on eth1 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 3, etc etc
NoDHCP OFFERS received

My router is on 255.255.255.0 - will this make for the no-talky?

duffman85

Yep this looks like the problem, you're not getting an ip address from the router.
Go into network manager, select your wireless network,click edit and make sure it says IP address assigned by DHCP or "Dynamically assigned".

then try

sudo if down eth1

sudo if up eth1

This will stop and then restart your wireless connection.

Whack

You sorta lost me there, I am in linux about 24 hours now, and osme of that was sleeping.

I went to my terminal and typed: sudo if down eth1

and I got back - sudo: if: command not found

The network manager has this connection set to find IPv4 by DHCP automatically.

An Fear Aniar

It should be ifdown and ifup.


.

Whack

Did ifdown eht1 and I get 'ifdown: interface eth1 not configured'

Went into network settings, then disabled and renabled it.

Is there some way of manually setting it to connect to the router via IP and mask. I can se the ip's for my machines on the network manually if need be as that is not the problem, and turn the dhcp off?

Also, I notced on reboot, or when I enter my WEP, it says 'requesting network address from BTVoyager-2110'

This is where it hangs, and comes back for me to enter the WEP again.

Webmonkey

I had a problem that WEP wouldn't work. I can' remember if it was ndiswrapper I was working with or not. But anyways, disabling WEP would connect away. I read up that there was an issue with this with some cards. This long time ago now though so I amnt sure.

Could try ndiswrapper maybe, your card may not be supported natively

Whack

Managed to turn off the WEP, and also add some MAC addresses for the fella - working now - thanks guys for the advice, it got me there in a roundabout way - an dI have learned a bit more about Linux.

Woot!

An Fear Aniar

Whack wrote: »

Managed to turn off the WEP, and also add some MAC addresses for the fella - working now - thanks guys for the advice, it got me there in a roundabout way - an dI have learned a bit more about Linux.

Woot!

Doesn't that leave your network open to anyone who want's to piggyback on it though?


.

Webmonkey

An Fear Aniar wrote: »

Doesn't that leave your network open to anyone who want's to piggyback on it though?


.

+1 - wouldn't see disabling wireless security as a solution even though WEP is very easy to crack. What happens if you try WPA or WPA2 - if you can even support it.

Whack

It does leave things open yes, but I live pretty far out in the country, so I am guessing the cows nearby wont be too interested.

Anyone close enough to sit in their cars and get on my network for internet, I would probably see as well.

Anyhow yes it is not so much a solution to turn off the WEP as an interm solution.

An Fear Aniar

Whack wrote: »

It does leave things open yes, but I live pretty far out in the country, so I am guessing the cows nearby wont be too interested.
.

Yeah, you're not too bad so. It's only a problem of urban living.


.