Thinkpad T20 wireless troubles - revisited

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Debian User

On Mon, 10 Sep 2007 Chris Brotherton wrote:
> I just recent got an old T20 and I am attempting to use Debian on it.
> I am using a PCMCIA orinoco wireless card. Here is the crazy part.
> The card is recognized by the installer. The installer asks me for my
> essid and my WEP key. After I input the information, the wireless
> card get its ip address over dhcp and then works flawlessly. The
> trouble comes when I finish the install and boot the machine. Once
> the machine comes up, I cannot get the wireless card to work.
> iwconfig shows that it has all of the correct information, but it
> cannot get an ip address. I have tried both 4.0r1 and a testing
> snapshot. Both have the exact same problem.
>
> Can anyone help?

I just recent got a Thinkpad T30, and now I'm having the same problem,
after installing Lenny on it, using a netinstall cd.
During bootup I noticed these messages, and there are comparatively
long pauses between them:

DHCPDISCOVER on wifi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 5
DHCPDISCOVER on wifi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 12
DHCPDISCOVER on wifi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 14
DHCPDISCOVER on wifi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 11
DHCPDISCOVER on wifi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 12
DHCPDISCOVER on wifi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 7

No DHCPOFFERS received.
No working leases in persistent database - sleeping.
Done.

During other bootups, those interval numbers vary.
Personally I have no idea what to make out of this, but could it shed
some light on it for others?

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Thinkpad T20 wireless troubles - revisited

Submitted by Wayne Topa on Sun, 2007-10-28 14:00.

Sjoerd Hiemstra(shiems146@kpnplanet.nl) is reported to have said:
> On Mon, 10 Sep 2007 Chris Brotherton wrote:
> > I just recent got an old T20 and I am attempting to use Debian on it.
> > I am using a PCMCIA orinoco wireless card. Here is the crazy part.
> > The card is recognized by the installer. The installer asks me for my
> > essid and my WEP key. After I input the information, the wireless
> > card get its ip address over dhcp and then works flawlessly. The
> > trouble comes when I finish the install and boot the machine. Once
> > the machine comes up, I cannot get the wireless card to work.
> > iwconfig shows that it has all of the correct information, but it
> > cannot get an ip address. I have tried both 4.0r1 and a testing
> > snapshot. Both have the exact same problem.
> >
> > Can anyone help?
>
> I just recent got a Thinkpad T30, and now I'm having the same problem,
> after installing Lenny on it, using a netinstall cd.
> During bootup I noticed these messages, and there are comparatively
> long pauses between them:
>
> DHCPDISCOVER on wifi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 5
> DHCPDISCOVER on wifi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 12
> DHCPDISCOVER on wifi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 14
> DHCPDISCOVER on wifi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 11
> DHCPDISCOVER on wifi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 12
> DHCPDISCOVER on wifi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 7
>
> No DHCPOFFERS received.
> No working leases in persistent database - sleeping.
> Done.
>
> During other bootups, those interval numbers vary.
> Personally I have no idea what to make out of this, but could it shed
> some light on it for others?

You don't give enough information to really help troubleshooting these
problems. ie Gome or KDE or standard wireless setup. Any useful
answer depends, at least, on knowing which you are using to connect to
your AP.

As I only use /etc/network/interfaces and dhclient to connect to an
AP, all I can offer is, let us see what that file look like.

--
To the systems programmer, users and applications serve only to provide
a test load.
_______________________________________________________

Thinkpad T20 wireless troubles - revisited

Submitted by Sjoerd Hiemstra on Sun, 2007-10-28 17:00.

Wayne Topa wrote:
> Sjoerd Hiemstra(shiems146@kpnplanet.nl) is reported to have said:
> > On Mon, 10 Sep 2007 Chris Brotherton wrote:
> > > I just recent got an old T20 and I am attempting to use Debian on
> > > it. I am using a PCMCIA orinoco wireless card. Here is the crazy
> > > part. The card is recognized by the installer. The installer
> > > asks me for my essid and my WEP key. After I input the
> > > information, the wireless card get its ip address over dhcp and
> > > then works flawlessly. The trouble comes when I finish the
> > > install and boot the machine. Once the machine comes up, I
> > > cannot get the wireless card to work. iwconfig shows that it has
> > > all of the correct information, but it cannot get an ip address.
> > > I have tried both 4.0r1 and a testing snapshot. Both have the
> > > exact same problem.
> > >
> > > Can anyone help?
> >
> > I just recent got a Thinkpad T30, and now I'm having the same
> > problem, after installing Lenny on it, using a netinstall cd.
> > During bootup I noticed these messages, and there are comparatively
> > long pauses between them:
> >
> > DHCPDISCOVER on wifi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 5
> > DHCPDISCOVER on wifi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 12
> > DHCPDISCOVER on wifi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 14
> > DHCPDISCOVER on wifi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 11
> > DHCPDISCOVER on wifi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 12
> > DHCPDISCOVER on wifi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 7
> >
> > No DHCPOFFERS received.
> > No working leases in persistent database - sleeping.
> > Done.
> >
> > During other bootups, those interval numbers vary.
> > Personally I have no idea what to make out of this, but could it
> > shed some light on it for others?
>
> You don't give enough information to really help troubleshooting these
> problems. ie Gome or KDE or standard wireless setup. Any useful
> answer depends, at least, on knowing which you are using to connect to
> your AP.

When I purchased the T30, it came with Windows XP pre-installed. Before
I wiped that, I took a look at the way its wireless connections work.
My router is set to WPA-PSK encryption by default, and after entering
the WPA-PSK key the connection was OK. Then again, the laptop had a
label saying 'Designed for Windows XP'. I wonder if the manufacturer
violated standards while adapting to XP.

The Lenny installer only knows WEP encryption, as far as I could see.
So I configured the router to WEP, the installer detected the
connection automatically, and installation from the internet went well.

The installer saw three connection systems in the laptop:
- wireless connection with interface wifi0
- wireless connection with interface eth0
- ethernet connection with interface eth1.
Odd enough, only eth0 worked, not wifi0 as one would expect.

After booting the first time, the connection was lost.
Wireless is new to me, and I understand from your words that I'd better
make a study of standard wireless setup, and possibly try to get the
wired connection working in order to do an 'aptitude install kde' and
explore the possibilities that KDE offers.
Until now, I've only used Gnome's tools to try to re-establish the
connection.

> As I only use /etc/network/interfaces and dhclient to connect to an
> AP, all I can offer is, let us see what that file look like.

Contents of /etc/network/interfaces:

s:12345... etc. is the WEP key.
dde1... etc. is the WPA-PSK key.

Thinkpad T20 wireless troubles - revisited

Submitted by Wayne Topa on Sun, 2007-10-28 19:00.

Sjoerd Hiemstra(shiems146@kpnplanet.nl) is reported to have said:
> Wayne Topa wrote:
> > Sjoerd Hiemstra(shiems146@kpnplanet.nl) is reported to have said:
> > > On Mon, 10 Sep 2007 Chris Brotherton wrote:
<----> originsg description
> >
> > You don't give enough information to really help troubleshooting these
> > problems. ie Gome or KDE or standard wireless setup. Any useful
> > answer depends, at least, on knowing which you are using to connect to
> > your AP.
>
> When I purchased the T30, it came with Windows XP pre-installed. Before
> I wiped that, I took a look at the way its wireless connections work.
> My router is set to WPA-PSK encryption by default, and after entering
> the WPA-PSK key the connection was OK. Then again, the laptop had a
> label saying 'Designed for Windows XP'. I wonder if the manufacturer
> violated standards while adapting to XP.

OK, I understand. Now we need even more info. Did you use the orinoco
card to do the install or was it eth1? I suspect eth1 might be an IBM
internal Wireless interface.

> The Lenny installer only knows WEP encryption, as far as I could see.
> So I configured the router to WEP, the installer detected the
> connection automatically, and installation from the internet went well.
>
> The installer saw three connection systems in the laptop:
> - wireless connection with interface wifi0
> - wireless connection with interface eth0
> - ethernet connection with interface eth1.
> Odd enough, only eth0 worked, not wifi0 as one would expect.

At a console prompt do

lspci -v

Be sure the orinoco in plugged in when you run that.
That will tell us what the Network interfaces are. They work in windows so
we have to find out what they are. We need the lines like these from
my T40.

0000:02:02.0 Network controller: Intel Corp. PRO/Wireless LAN 2100 3B
Mini PCI Adapter (rev 04)

0000:02:08.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corp. 82801BD PRO/100 VE (MOB)
Ethernet Controller (rev 81)

0000:07:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications, Inc. AR5212
802.11abg NIC (rev 01)
>
> After booting the first time, the connection was lost.
> Wireless is new to me, and I understand from your words that I'd better
> make a study of standard wireless setup, and possibly try to get the
> wired connection working in order to do an 'aptitude install kde' and
> explore the possibilities that KDE offers.
> Until now, I've only used Gnome's tools to try to re-establish the
> connection.

Most (all) IBM interfaces will work in Linux so you need to know what
modules have to be loaded before bringing the interfaces up.

As I said, I don't use Gnome or KDE, so I can't help you there. If we
can get the network working without them, _they_ should just fall into
line. I hope.

Install the debian-reference package. Chapter 10 is the section you
need to read through.

Another thing to check. Make sure you have the dhcp3-client package
installed in both the etch and testing installs.

Wayne

--
A hacker does for love what others would not do for money.
_______________________________________________________

Thinkpad T20 wireless troubles - revisited

Submitted by Sjoerd Hiemstra on Tue, 2007-10-30 17:00.

In an effort to get wireless on my IBM Thinkpad T30 laptop working,
Wayne Topa wrote:
> Sjoerd Hiemstra wrote:
> > The installer saw three connection systems in the laptop:
> > - wireless connection with interface wifi0
> > - wireless connection with interface eth0
> > - ethernet connection with interface eth1.
> > Odd enough, only eth0 worked, not wifi0 as one would expect.
>
> Now we need even more info. Did you use the orinoco card to do the
> install or was it eth1? I suspect eth1 might be an IBM internal
> Wireless interface.

The installer used eth0, as far as I recall.

> At a console prompt do
>
> lspci -v
>
> Be sure the orinoco in plugged in when you run that.
> That will tell us what the Network interfaces are. They work in
> windows so we have to find out what they are. We need the lines like
> these from my T40.
>
> 0000:02:02.0 Network controller: Intel Corp. PRO/Wireless LAN 2100 3B
> Mini PCI Adapter (rev 04)
>
> 0000:02:08.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corp. 82801BD PRO/100 VE (MOB)
> Ethernet Controller (rev 81)

Relevant output of 'lspci -v':

02:02.0 Network controller: AIRONET Wireless Communications Cisco
Aironet Wireless 802.11b

02:08.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82801CAM (ICH3)
PRO/100 VE (LOM) Ethernet controller (rev 42)

(As a sidenote, there's no orinoco card; the OP had one.)

> Most (all) IBM interfaces will work in Linux so you need to know what
> modules have to be loaded before bringing the interfaces up.

>From [1] I found that I probably need to do a 'modprobe airo_cs'.

Following the directions at [2], the entry for wifi0
in /etc/network/interfaces now looks like this:

iface wifi0 inet dhcp
wireless-essid <....>
wireless-key <....>
auto wifi0
allow-hotplug wifi0

If I do an 'iwlist wifi0 scan' then my AP is detected correctly (as
well as two neighbouring APs - interesting).

There is only one remaining obstacle.
The following messages appear if I do an 'ifup wifi0'.
They also appear after '/etc/init.d/networking stop' and then
'/etc/init.d/networking start'.
And they also appear if I do a 'dhclient wifi0'.

wifi0: unknown hardware address type 801
wifi0: unknown hardware address type 801
Listening on LPF/wifi0/
Sending on LPF/wifi0/
Sending on Socket/fallback
DHCPDISCOVER on wifi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 5
DHCPDISCOVER on wifi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 12
DHCPDISCOVER on wifi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 14
DHCPDISCOVER on wifi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 11
DHCPDISCOVER on wifi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 12
DHCPDISCOVER on wifi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 7
No DHCPOFFERS received.
No working leases in persistent database - sleeping.

Something wrong with DHCP on the AP? My main computer works well with
it, through a wired ethernet connection.

[1]
http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/Linux/Linux.Wireless.drivers.802.11b.html

[2]
http://newbiedoc.berlios.de/wiki/How_to_set_up_a_wireless_network_card_using_drivers_from_Debian_packages#Short_version_if_you_are_impatient

Thinkpad T20 wireless troubles - revisited

Submitted by Wayne Topa on Tue, 2007-10-30 20:00.

Sjoerd Hiemstra(shiems146@kpnplanet.nl) is reported to have said:
> In an effort to get wireless on my IBM Thinkpad T30 laptop working,
> Wayne Topa wrote:
> > Sjoerd Hiemstra wrote:
> > > The installer saw three connection systems in the laptop:
> > > - wireless connection with interface wifi0
> > > - wireless connection with interface eth0
> > > - ethernet connection with interface eth1.
> > > Odd enough, only eth0 worked, not wifi0 as one would expect.
> >
> > Now we need even more info. Did you use the orinoco card to do the
> > install or was it eth1? I suspect eth1 might be an IBM internal
> > Wireless interface.
>
> The installer used eth0, as far as I recall.
>
> > At a console prompt do
> >
> > lspci -v
> >
> > Be sure the orinoco in plugged in when you run that.
> > That will tell us what the Network interfaces are. They work in
> > windows so we have to find out what they are. We need the lines like
> > these from my T40.
> >
> > 0000:02:02.0 Network controller: Intel Corp. PRO/Wireless LAN 2100 3B
> > Mini PCI Adapter (rev 04)
> >
> > 0000:02:08.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corp. 82801BD PRO/100 VE (MOB)
> > Ethernet Controller (rev 81)
>
> Relevant output of 'lspci -v':
>
> 02:02.0 Network controller: AIRONET Wireless Communications Cisco
> Aironet Wireless 802.11b
>
> 02:08.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82801CAM (ICH3)
> PRO/100 VE (LOM) Ethernet controller (rev 42)
>
> (As a sidenote, there's no orinoco card; the OP had one.)
>
> > Most (all) IBM interfaces will work in Linux so you need to know what
> > modules have to be loaded before bringing the interfaces up.
>
> >From [1] I found that I probably need to do a 'modprobe airo_cs'.
>
Add the airo_cs to /etc/modules. ie 'cat airo_cs >> /etc/modules'
or put it in the interfaces file

auto eth1
interface eth1 inet dhcp
pre-up modprobe airo_cs
....
....
post-down rmmod airo_cs

I have 5 wireless interfaces set up on my T40. Some of them will not
come up if I do the 'iwconfig wlan0 essid "myAP"' _before_ I do the
'ifconfig wlan0 up'. It seems to depend on the different drivers but
the ifconfig works, here, for all of them.

So I have a small script that I use to bring
up which ever one I want to use. The script brings up all the
interfaces in the same way.

1. Bring up the interface using 'ifconfig '
2. Run 'iwlist scan'
3, Get which AP to connect to. (any) is allowed
4. Run 'iwconfig essid (answer from 3)'
5. Run 'dhclient '
6. Run 'ifconfig ' (To show the connection is up.)

I also don't use WPA on my AP as I have the dhcp server set to allow
only our MAC addresses and have it set to assign static IP addresses
based on those MAC's.

We are very rural here. :-) Besides being only on dialup now.

> wifi0: unknown hardware address type 801
> wifi0: unknown hardware address type 801
> Listening on LPF/wifi0/
> Sending on LPF/wifi0/
> Sending on Socket/fallback
> DHCPDISCOVER on wifi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 5
> DHCPDISCOVER on wifi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 12
> DHCPDISCOVER on wifi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 14
> DHCPDISCOVER on wifi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 11
> DHCPDISCOVER on wifi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 12
> DHCPDISCOVER on wifi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 7
> No DHCPOFFERS received.
> No working leases in persistent database - sleeping.
>
> Something wrong with DHCP on the AP? My main computer works well with
> it, through a wired ethernet connection.
>

Maybe. I used wireshark to capture the traffic to/from the AP to
troubleshoot connection problems.

:-) HTH, YMMV, HAND :-)

Wayne

--
I have a dream: 1073741824 bytes free.
_______________________________________________________

Thinkpad T20 wireless troubles - revisited

Submitted by celejar on Thu, 2007-11-01 15:00.

On Tue, 30 Oct 2007 19:22:13 -0400
Wayne Topa wrote:

> I also don't use WPA on my AP as I have the dhcp server set to allow
> only our MAC addresses and have it set to assign static IP addresses
> based on those MAC's.

But anyone can set his NIC to an arbitrary MAC address (apt-cache show
macchanger)!

Celejar
--
mailmin.sourceforge.net - remote access via secure (OpenPGP) email
ssuds.sourceforge.net - A Simple Sudoku Solver and Generator

Thinkpad T20 wireless troubles - revisited

Submitted by celejar on Thu, 2007-11-01 15:00.

On Tue, 30 Oct 2007 23:10:48 +0100
Sjoerd Hiemstra wrote:

> Following the directions at [2], the entry for wifi0
> in /etc/network/interfaces now looks like this:
>
> iface wifi0 inet dhcp
> wireless-essid <....>
> wireless-key <....>
> auto wifi0
> allow-hotplug wifi0
>
> If I do an 'iwlist wifi0 scan' then my AP is detected correctly (as
> well as two neighbouring APs - interesting).
>
> There is only one remaining obstacle.
> The following messages appear if I do an 'ifup wifi0'.
> They also appear after '/etc/init.d/networking stop' and then
> '/etc/init.d/networking start'.
> And they also appear if I do a 'dhclient wifi0'.
>
> wifi0: unknown hardware address type 801
> wifi0: unknown hardware address type 801
> Listening on LPF/wifi0/
> Sending on LPF/wifi0/
> Sending on Socket/fallback
> DHCPDISCOVER on wifi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 5
> DHCPDISCOVER on wifi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 12
> DHCPDISCOVER on wifi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 14
> DHCPDISCOVER on wifi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 11
> DHCPDISCOVER on wifi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 12
> DHCPDISCOVER on wifi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 7
> No DHCPOFFERS received.
> No working leases in persistent database - sleeping.
>
> Something wrong with DHCP on the AP? My main computer works well with
> it, through a wired ethernet connection.

This can also indicate that the card isn't properly associating with
the AP. What does 'iwconfig wifi0' give? If the problem is really
with the AP's DHCP configuration, then you should be able to get
network access with a static IP address, e.g. 'ifconfig wifi0
nnnnnnnn'. In my experience, this sort of DHCP failure with a wireless
card and a presumed good AP always means that there's something wrong
with the wireless configuration.

Celejar
--
mailmin.sourceforge.net - remote access via secure (OpenPGP) email
ssuds.sourceforge.net - A Simple Sudoku Solver and Generator

Thinkpad T20 wireless troubles - revisited

Submitted by Sjoerd Hiemstra on Sat, 2007-11-03 19:00.

Op Tue, 30 Oct 2007 23:23:11 -0400 Celejar wrote:
> On Tue, 30 Oct 2007 23:10:48 +0100 Sjoerd Hiemstra wrote:
> > Following the directions at [2], the entry for wifi0
> > in /etc/network/interfaces now looks like this:
> >
> > iface wifi0 inet dhcp
> > wireless-essid <....>
> > wireless-key <....>
> > auto wifi0
> > allow-hotplug wifi0
> >
> > If I do an 'iwlist wifi0 scan' then my AP is detected correctly (as
> > well as two neighbouring APs - interesting).
> >
> > There is only one remaining obstacle.
> > The following messages appear if I do an 'ifup wifi0'.
> > They also appear after '/etc/init.d/networking stop' and then
> > '/etc/init.d/networking start'.
> > And they also appear if I do a 'dhclient wifi0'.
> >
> > wifi0: unknown hardware address type 801
> > wifi0: unknown hardware address type 801
> > Listening on LPF/wifi0/
> > Sending on LPF/wifi0/
> > Sending on Socket/fallback
> > DHCPDISCOVER on wifi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 5
> > DHCPDISCOVER on wifi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 12
> > DHCPDISCOVER on wifi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 14
> > DHCPDISCOVER on wifi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 11
> > DHCPDISCOVER on wifi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 12
> > DHCPDISCOVER on wifi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 7
> > No DHCPOFFERS received.
> > No working leases in persistent database - sleeping.
> >
> > Something wrong with DHCP on the AP? My main computer works well
> > with it, through a wired ethernet connection.
>
> This can also indicate that the card isn't properly associating with
> the AP. What does 'iwconfig wifi0' give?

# iwconfig wifi0
wifi0 IEEE 802.11-DS ESSID:"SX551559148"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.432 GHz Access Point:00:01:E3:55:91:48
Bit Rate:11 Mb/s Tx-Power=17 dBm Sensitivity=0/65535
Retry limit:16 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:****-****-****-****-****-****-** [4] Security mode:open
Power Management:off
Link Quality=80/100 Signal level=-55 dBm Noise level=-98 dBm
Rx invalid nvid:614 Rx invalid crypt:437 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:12986 Missed beacon:0

The output of 'dmesg | grep airo' is:
airo(): Probing for PCI adapters
airo(eth0): Found an MPI350 card
airo(eth0): WPA is supported.
airo(eth0): MAC enabled 0:2:8a:dd:a6:b7
airo(): Finished probing for PCI adapters

So I am under the impression that I should use the eth0 interface instead.
But then 'iwconfig eth0' gives hardly any difference:

# iwconfig eth0
eth0 IEEE 802.11-DS ESSID:"SX551559148"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.432 GHz Access Point:00:01:E3:55:91:48
Bit Rate:11 Mb/s Tx-Power=17 dBm Sensitivity=0/65535
Retry limit:16 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:****-****-****-****-****-****-** [4] Security mode:open
Power Management:off
Link Quality=72/100 Signal level=-59 dBm Noise level=-98 dBm
Rx invalid nvid:94 Rx invalid crypt:341 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:4709 Missed beacon:0

And still there's the error message 'No DHCPOFFERS received'.
And there is some difference with the output of 'iwlist eth0 scan':

# iwlist eth0 scan
....
Cell 03 - Address: 00:01:E3:55:91:48
ESSID:"SX551559148"
Mode:Master
Frequency:2.432 GHz (channel 5)
Quality=88/100 Signal level=-51 dBm Noise level:-98 dBm
Encryption key:on
Bit rates: 1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s; 6Mb/s
12 Mb/s; 24 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s
Extra:bcn_int=100
IE: IEEE 802.11i/WPA2 Version 1
Group Cipher : TKIP
Pairwise Ciphers (1) : PSK
Authentication Suites (1) : PSK
Preauthentication Supported
IE: WPA Version 1
Group Cipher : TKIP
Pairwise Ciphers (2) : TKIP COMP
Authentication Suites (1) : PSK

Thinkpad T20 wireless troubles - revisited

Submitted by Andrew Sackvill... on Sat, 2007-11-03 23:00.

On Sun, Nov 04, 2007 at 12:46:45AM +0100, Sjoerd Hiemstra wrote:
> Op Tue, 30 Oct 2007 23:23:11 -0400 Celejar wrote:
> > On Tue, 30 Oct 2007 23:10:48 +0100 Sjoerd Hiemstra wrote:
> > > Following the directions at [2], the entry for wifi0
> > > in /etc/network/interfaces now looks like this:
> > >
> > > iface wifi0 inet dhcp
> > > wireless-essid <....>
> > > wireless-key <....>
> > > auto wifi0
> > > allow-hotplug wifi0
> > >
> > > If I do an 'iwlist wifi0 scan' then my AP is detected correctly (as
> > > well as two neighbouring APs - interesting).
> > >
> > > There is only one remaining obstacle.
> > > The following messages appear if I do an 'ifup wifi0'.
> > > They also appear after '/etc/init.d/networking stop' and then
> > > '/etc/init.d/networking start'.
> > > And they also appear if I do a 'dhclient wifi0'.
> > >
> > > wifi0: unknown hardware address type 801
> > > wifi0: unknown hardware address type 801
> > > Listening on LPF/wifi0/
> > > Sending on LPF/wifi0/
> > > Sending on Socket/fallback
> > > DHCPDISCOVER on wifi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 5
> > > DHCPDISCOVER on wifi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 12
> > > DHCPDISCOVER on wifi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 14
> > > DHCPDISCOVER on wifi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 11
> > > DHCPDISCOVER on wifi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 12
> > > DHCPDISCOVER on wifi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 7
> > > No DHCPOFFERS received.
> > > No working leases in persistent database - sleeping.
> > >
> > > Something wrong with DHCP on the AP? My main computer works well
> > > with it, through a wired ethernet connection.

Since you question the state of DHCP on the AP, then have you checked
that? It may be that you can control whether DHCP is offered over
wireless independently of whether it is offered over wired interface.

> >
> > This can also indicate that the card isn't properly associating with
> > the AP. What does 'iwconfig wifi0' give?
>
> # iwconfig wifi0
> wifi0 IEEE 802.11-DS ESSID:"SX551559148"
> Mode:Managed Frequency:2.432 GHz Access Point:00:01:E3:55:91:48
> Bit Rate:11 Mb/s Tx-Power=17 dBm Sensitivity=0/65535
> Retry limit:16 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
> Encryption key:****-****-****-****-****-****-** [4] Security mode:open
> Power Management:off
> Link Quality=80/100 Signal level=-55 dBm Noise level=-98 dBm
> Rx invalid nvid:614 Rx invalid crypt:437 Rx invalid frag:0
> Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:12986 Missed beacon:0

I looks like it *is* associated with the Access Point listed above. Is
that you're access point? Look at the MAC address on the bottom of the
AP.

>
> The output of 'dmesg | grep airo' is:
> airo(): Probing for PCI adapters
> airo(eth0): Found an MPI350 card
> airo(eth0): WPA is supported.
> airo(eth0): MAC enabled 0:2:8a:dd:a6:b7
> airo(): Finished probing for PCI adapters
>
> So I am under the impression that I should use the eth0 interface instead.
> But then 'iwconfig eth0' gives hardly any difference:
>
> # iwconfig eth0
> eth0 IEEE 802.11-DS ESSID:"SX551559148"
> Mode:Managed Frequency:2.432 GHz Access Point:00:01:E3:55:91:48

here you are associated with the same AP, looks like it doesn't matter
which interface name you use.

> Bit Rate:11 Mb/s Tx-Power=17 dBm Sensitivity=0/65535
> Retry limit:16 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
> Encryption key:****-****-****-****-****-****-** [4] Security mode:open
> Power Management:off
> Link Quality=72/100 Signal level=-59 dBm Noise level=-98 dBm
> Rx invalid nvid:94 Rx invalid crypt:341 Rx invalid frag:0
> Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:4709 Missed beacon:0
>
> And still there's the error message 'No DHCPOFFERS received'.
> And there is some difference with the output of 'iwlist eth0 scan':
>
> # iwlist eth0 scan
> ....
> Cell 03 - Address: 00:01:E3:55:91:48
> ESSID:"SX551559148"
> Mode:Master
> Frequency:2.432 GHz (channel 5)
> Quality=88/100 Signal level=-51 dBm Noise level:-98 dBm
> Encryption key:on
> Bit rates: 1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s; 6Mb/s
> 12 Mb/s; 24 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s
> Extra:bcn_int=100
> IE: IEEE 802.11i/WPA2 Version 1
-----------------------------^^^^

Are yiou using wpasupplicant? Looks like you need to use wpa to
connect...

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Thinkpad T20 wireless troubles - revisited

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Thinkpad T20 wireless troubles - revisited

Thinkpad T20 wireless troubles - revisited

Thinkpad T20 wireless troubles - revisited

Thinkpad T20 wireless troubles - revisited

Thinkpad T20 wireless troubles - revisited

Thinkpad T20 wireless troubles - revisited

Thinkpad T20 wireless troubles - revisited

Thinkpad T20 wireless troubles - revisited

Thinkpad T20 wireless troubles - revisited

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