argh -- can't get wireless in someone else's house

[Robert P. J. Day]

On Fri, 8 Feb 2008, John W. Linville wrote:

> I'd have to see more of /var/log/messages, as well as iwconfig output.

# iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

wmaster0  no wireless extensions.

wlan0     IEEE 802.11g  ESSID:"xxxxxxx"
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.412 GHz  Access Point: Not-Associated
          Tx-Power=27 dBm
          Retry min limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr=2352 B
          Encryption key:3431-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx
          Link Quality:0  Signal level:0  Noise level:0
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

where the ESSID is correct and the key is the ASCII representation of
the 10-digit WEP key, which is precisely what can be read from the
linksys wireless security page.

  from /var/log/messages, upon running system-config-network and
trying to activate wlan0:

...
Feb  8 13:13:47 localhost dhclient: wmaster0: unknown hardware address type 801
Feb  8 13:13:47 localhost dhclient: wmaster0: unknown hardware address type 801
Feb  8 13:13:47 localhost dhclient: DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 8
Feb  8 13:13:55 localhost dhclient: DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 12
Feb  8 13:14:07 localhost dhclient: DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 10
Feb  8 13:14:17 localhost dhclient: DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 19
Feb  8 13:14:36 localhost dhclient: DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 12
Feb  8 13:14:48 localhost dhclient: No DHCPOFFERS received.
...

> Are they using shared-key authentication instead of open?  Or
> perhaps vice versa?

  the stock linksys firmware doesn't offer that kind of choice -- you
can pick either straight WEP or a number of WPA variations or RADIUS.
i'm not sure what the connecting windows system has.

> Are you setting the WEP key before setting the SSID?

  i'm not sure what this means -- in system-config-network, i've
simply filled in the appropriate values in the dialog screen.

  Mode: Managed
  SSID: Specified XXXXXXX
  Key: xxxxxxxxxxx

and no manual selection of channel or transmit rate.  this has always
worked before.

> Are you doing this manually?  Did you stop NetworkManager before
> doing any manual configuration?

yes, manually, and NM and NMD are both disabled.

rday
--

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Robert P. J. Day
Linux Consulting, Training and Annoying Kernel Pedantry
Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA

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