problem: wireless to wlan works - no internet access

[oldcpu]

A problem just recently started on our family laptop (Dell Studio 1537) wireless that I have not encountered before.

I can access the home LAN via wireless (and the home PCs on the LAN can access the laptop via the laptop's wireless (and our home router)) but the laptop can not access the Internet. Other (wired) PCs on the LAN can access the internet.

The wireless device is a:

04:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 5300 AGN [Shiloh] Network Connection
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device 1121

What has me puzzled is last time we used the laptop (my wife was using it) the wireless worked for internet access on our home LAN. This was around a week ago, just after the 2.6.27.37 kernel update. I installed the kernel update, confirmed wireless to the Internet worked, and then my wife tested the laptop, and we confirmed wireless to the Internet worked then. We have not changed any router settings (indeed we have not accessed the router's configuration menus). So nothing has changed on our side of the ISP connection, and I can't see the ISP changing something to cause this.

I note the laptop's wired ethernet connection to our LAN does give Internet access.

Some aspects which may help explain the puzzle, we did have wicd installed. wicd (and ALL wireless, including LAN) stopped working after the 2.6.27.37 kernel update. So I went to yast (a week ago after the 2.6.27.37 kernel update) and configured for the tradtitional ifup (ignoring wicd). Wireless with Internet access worked then with that and survived a few reboots and functioned. I noted to myself to fix the wicd problem later. Today, Internet access with the wireless does not function. Today, AFTER discovering wireless access to the Internet did not work, I have subsequently removed wicd, although that makes no difference (I did not expect it would - I simply saw no point in keeping a non-functioning package).

So there is something specific to the wireless that is causing a problem for Internet access (although access to the LAN via the wireless works).

It suggests our router, but note our router has not been touched from before when it worked.

dell:/home/oldcpu # rpm -qa | grep kernel
kernel-default-extra-2.6.27.37-0.1.1
linux-kernel-headers-2.6.27-2.28
kernel-source-2.6.27.37-0.1.1
kernel-default-2.6.27.37-0.1.1
kernel-default-base-2.6.27.37-0.1.1
kernel-syms-2.6.27.37-0.1.1

The laptop's desktop is KDE-4.3.2.

RPM's installed (chronologically) since kernel update are:

alsa-driver-kmp-default-1.0.21.20091031_2.6.27.37_0.1-1.1 Sun 01 Nov 2009 01:33:46 PM CET
alsa-firmware-1.0.20-5.1                      Sun 01 Nov 2009 01:32:05 PM CET
alsa-utils-1.0.21-13.4                        Sun 01 Nov 2009 01:31:59 PM CET
alsa-docs-1.0.18-8.12.1                       Sun 01 Nov 2009 01:31:54 PM CET
fglrx64_7_4_0_SUSE111-8.661-1                 Sun 01 Nov 2009 01:16:08 PM CET
kernel-default-extra-2.6.27.37-0.1.1          Sun 01 Nov 2009 01:04:11 PM CET
kernel-default-2.6.27.37-0.1.1                Sun 01 Nov 2009 01:02:50 PM CET
kernel-syms-2.6.27.37-0.1.1                   Sun 01 Nov 2009 01:02:47 PM CET
kernel-default-base-2.6.27.37-0.1.1           Sun 01 Nov 2009 01:02:17 PM CET
kernel-source-2.6.27.37-0.1.1                 Sun 01 Nov 2009 01:01:27 PM CET

hence I see nothing there that could cause problem, since laptop's internet access via wireless worked much later Sunday afternoon (1 Nov 2009) after the kernel update. ... Puzzling.

[oldcpu]

I forgot to mention - ipv6 IS disabled on this laptop. Its been disabled as part of the initial install.

[oldcpu]

My wife just reminded me our ISP went down earlier this week for a few hours, and we did have to reboot our router to get our LAN internet access back.

I also note the Laptop's wireless (a month ago) successfully could access the Internet via a live CD on our home LAN. So I think I will give that a try (ie boot to a liveCD and see if I can configure the wireless to access the Internet with that liveCD in place). IF I can still access the Internet via the liveCD on the laptop, that will take our router out of "consideration" as the cause.

[oldcpu]

Originally Posted by oldcpu

My wife just reminded me our ISP went down earlier this week for a few hours, and we did have to reboot our router to get our LAN internet access back.

I also note the Laptop's wireless (a month ago) successfully could access the Internet via a live CD on our home LAN. So I think I will give that a try (ie boot to a liveCD and see if I can configure the wireless to access the Internet with that liveCD in place). IF I can still access the Internet via the liveCD on the laptop, that will take our router out of "consideration" as the cause.

I just finished booting to the openSUSE-11.2 RC2 KDE live CD. I went to YaST, configured for the traditional ifup, entered our LAN ssid, passphrase, and the laptop can now see the LAN and surf the Internet when booting to the liveCD.

I think that proves its not an ISP nor our LAN router at issue here. Rather there is a configuration problem with the 64-bit openSUSE-11.1 KDE-4.3.2 on the laptop, such that it can access our WLAN but not access the Internet. Its very puzzling. One thing I note is after the last time I had Internet access on that laptop (with openSUSE-11.1) I changed the graphic driver to the latest ATI proprietary driver for a Radeon 3450 (which is the hardware on that laptop). But I can't see that being related to an Internet specific wireless problem.

I'm out of my depth here for investigating. Now that it is narrowed down to a 64-bit openSUSE-11.1 (w/KDE-4.3.2) specific problem (which may not be relevant to KDE-4.3.2) are there any suggestions where I should investigate? Again note wireless to our LAN works, it is just wireless to the Internet that fails with the installed openSUSE-11.1. (but works from a liveCD)

[lwfinger]

On 11/07/2009 06:46 AM, oldcpu wrote:
>
> oldcpu;2061436 Wrote:
>> My wife just reminded me our ISP went down earlier this week for a few
>> hours, and we did have to reboot our router to get our LAN internet
>> access back.
>>
>> I also note the Laptop's wireless (a month ago) successfully could
>> access the Internet via a live CD on our home LAN. So I think I will
>> give that a try (ie boot to a liveCD and see if I can configure the
>> wireless to access the Internet with that liveCD in place). IF I can
>> still access the Internet via the liveCD on the laptop, that will take
>> our router out of "consideration" as the cause.
>
> I just finished booting to the openSUSE-11.2 RC2 KDE live CD. I went to
> YaST, configured for the traditional ifup, entered our LAN ssid,
> passphrase, and the laptop can now see the LAN and surf the Internet
> when booting to the liveCD.
>
> I think that proves its not an ISP nor our LAN router at issue here.
> Rather there is a configuration problem with the 64-bit openSUSE-11.1
> KDE-4.3.2 on the laptop, such that it can access our WLAN but not access
> the Internet. Its very puzzling. One thing I note is after the last
> time I had Internet access on that laptop (with openSUSE-11.1) I changed
> the graphic driver to the latest ATI proprietary driver for a Radeon
> 3450 (which is the hardware on that laptop). But I can't see that being
> related to an Internet specific wireless problem.
>
> I'm out of my depth here for investigating. Now that it is narrowed
> down to a 64-bit openSUSE-11.1 (w/KDE-4.3.2) specific problem (which may
> not be relevant to KDE-4.3.2) are there any suggestions where I should
> investigate? Again note wireless to our LAN works, it is just wireless
> to the Internet that fails with the installed openSUSE-11.1. (but works
> from a liveCD)

I always suspect DNS when you can access local networks, but not the Internet.
You have a valid connection, and routing is likely OK.

(1) When you access some machine on the local network, is this by IP, by entries
in /etc/hosts, or are you running a local name server?

(2) Does 'ping 74.125.19.103' work? If it does, does 'ping www.google.com' work?

(3) If you ifdown the connection, delete /etc/resolv.conf, and ifup the
connection, does that change anything in step 2?

[oldcpu]

Thankyou for your reply.

Originally Posted by lwfinger

I always suspect DNS when you can access local networks, but not the Internet. You have a valid connection, and routing is likely OK.

Yes its puzzling. After encountering the problem, I tried putting in some DNS (208.67.222.222 and also 208.67.220.220) under YaST but that made no difference, so I removed them. I've shut down the laptop (for unrelated reasons) and switched ON since and symptoms are the same. Its looking like my expertise is pretty much non-existent here when it comes to debugging network issues. In the past things typically "just worked" for me.

Originally Posted by lwfinger

(1) When you access some machine on the local network, is this by IP, by entries in /etc/hosts, or are you running a local name server?

I access locally using ssh, typing in the local IP. Our LAN router assigns the local IP addresses. I've never bothered looking at /etc/hosts before so I assume I am not using entries in /etc/hosts. I note n /etc/hosts is the hostname and domain assigned by YaST network devices.

Originally Posted by lwfinger

(2) Does 'ping 74.125.19.103' work? If it does, does 'ping Google' work?

No, ping 74.125.19.103 does not work when using wireless (Destination Host Unreachable). It does with wired. I can access our router from the wireless PC, and I can run firefox to access the router menu's. But thats all within our LAN.

Originally Posted by lwfinger

(3) If you ifdown the connection, delete /etc/resolv.conf, and ifup the connection, does that change anything in step 2?

It does not change anything. I still get destination Host is still Unreachable.

[lwfinger]

Hmm. This problem seems tougher than most.

Let's concentrate on differences between wired that works, and wireless that
doesn't.

Please look at the output of '/sbin/route -n' for both cases. Are there any
differences other than the "ethX" vs "wlanY" in the Iface column? I expect X to
be 0 and Y to be 0 or 1.

Please 'cat /etc/resolv.conf' for the two cases. Any differences?

Check the BOOTPROTO line in /etc/sysconfig/network/ifcfg-ethX and
/etc/sysconfig/network/ifcfg-wlanY. Do both say BOOTPROTO='dhcp4'? Does the ethX
file have STARTMODE='ifplugd' and the wlanY one have STARTMODE='auto'?

[Wilson_Phillips]

Did something get changed in the firewall, to cause it to lock down the wireless?

[lwfinger]

On 11/07/2009 12:06 PM, Wilson Phillips wrote:
>
> Did something get changed in the firewall, to cause it to lock down the
> wireless?

Unlikely, but it could be worth testing with firewall off.

[oldcpu]

This is puzzling. I keep asking if I am doing something silly , but I can't find anything suggestive of a silly mistake.

Originally Posted by lwfinger

Please look at the output of '/sbin/route -n' for both cases. Are there any differences other than the "ethX" vs "wlanY" in the Iface column? I expect X to be 0 and Y to be 0 or 1.

Here is the file. It is identical for both wired and wireless:
oldcpu@dell:~> /sbin/route -n

Kernel IP routing table
Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags Metric Ref    Use Iface
192.168.2.0     0.0.0.0         255.255.255.0   U     0      0        0 wlan0
192.168.123.0   0.0.0.0         255.255.255.0   U     0      0        0 eth0
169.254.0.0     0.0.0.0         255.255.0.0     U     0      0        0 eth0
127.0.0.0       0.0.0.0         255.0.0.0       U     0      0        0 lo
0.0.0.0         192.168.123.254 0.0.0.0         UG    0      0        0 eth0

An explanation:

• 192.168.2.x is associated with our speedport router, which interfaces to the high speed internet connection coming into our apartment. There is also wireless on that router that we use for the Laptop's wireless access.
• 192.168.123.x is associated with our Level one router, that we use to manage a subnet. The Level One is plugged into the speedport router via a hardwired ethernet connection. My desktop PCs (and the laptop) all successfully use that level one router's subnet to access the Internet via the wired connection to the Level One (where the Level One's wired connection to the speed port router gives the Level One internet access).

Originally Posted by lwfinger

Please 'cat /etc/resolv.conf' for the two cases. Any differences?

No differences. The only uncommented lines there are:

### Please remove (at least) this line when you modify the file!
nameserver 192.168.2.1
nameserver 192.168.123.254

Originally Posted by lwfinger

Check the BOOTPROTO line in /etc/sysconfig/network/ifcfg-ethX and /etc/sysconfig/network/ifcfg-wlanY. Do both say BOOTPROTO='dhcp4'? Does the ethX file have STARTMODE='ifplugd' and the wlanY one have STARTMODE='auto'?

BOOTPROTO in both cases equals "dhcp".
STARTMODE in both cases equals "auto".