No wireless - BCM4318

I cannot connect via wireless.

Suse 11.1 64

06:02.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4318 [AirForce One 54g] 802.11g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 02)
Subsystem: AMBIT Microsystem Corp. TravelMate 2410
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 64, IRQ 22
Memory at c0200000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8]
Kernel driver in use: b43-pci-bridge
Kernel modules: ssb

iwconfig:

wlan0 IEEE 802.11bg ESSID:“Farrar”
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.437 GHz Access Point: 00:11:50:57:77:57
Bit Rate=54 Mb/s Tx-Power=27 dBm
Retry min limit:7 RTS thr-off Fragment thr=2352 B
Encryption key:2E11-xxxxxxxx[2] Security mode-open
Power Management-off
Link Quality=65/100 Signal level:-47 dBm Noise level=-73 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

ifconfig:

wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:19:7D:4D:85:9A
inet addr:192.168.2.4 Bcast:192.168.2.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::219:7dff:fe4d:859a/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:91 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:146 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:19562 (19.1 Kb) TX bytes:32740 (31.9 Kb)

Ping fails

Network manager (KDE3) will not run - loads then says not running
Network manager widget crashes almost whatever I try to do.[/size]

jfarrar wrote:
> I cannot connect via wireless.
>
> Suse 11.1 64
>
> 06:02.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4318 [AirForce One
> 54g] 802.11g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 02)
>
> Subsystem: AMBIT Microsystem Corp. TravelMate 2410
>
> Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 64, IRQ 22
>
> Memory at c0200000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8]
>
> Kernel driver in use: b43-pci-bridge
>
> Kernel modules: ssb
>
> iwconfig:
>
> wlan0 IEEE 802.11bg ESSID:“Farrar”
> Mode:Managed Frequency:2.437 GHz Access Point:
> 00:11:50:57:77:57
> Bit Rate=54 Mb/s Tx-Power=27 dBm
> Retry min limit:7 RTS thr-off Fragment thr=2352 B
> Encryption key:2E11-xxxxxxxx[2] Security mode-open
> Power Management-off
> Link Quality=65/100 Signal level:-47 dBm Noise level=-73
> dBm
> Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
> Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0
>
> ifconfig:
>
> wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:19:7D:4D:85:9A
> inet addr:192.168.2.4 Bcast:192.168.2.255
> Mask:255.255.255.0
> inet6 addr: fe80::219:7dff:fe4d:859a/64 Scope:Link
> UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
> RX packets:91 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
> TX packets:146 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
> collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
> RX bytes:19562 (19.1 Kb) TX bytes:32740 (31.9 Kb)
>
> Ping fails
>
> Network manager (KDE3) will not run - loads then says not running
> Network manager widget crashes almost whatever I try to do.

Was that IP address obtained by DHCP, or was it manually assigned?

Does ‘ping 192.168.2.1’ fail? I’m assuming that to be the address of the AP.

From the data you presented, it certainly looks as if the wireless device
authenticated and associated.

The NM problems may be a faulty load. Has it ever worked, or is this a new
installation of 11.1? If so, I would switch the network configuration from NM to
ifup. Once you get it working, then try reloading the NM components from a
network repo.

BTW, when you are redoing the network configuration, turn off IPV6 - assuming
that you don’t need it. You will save some grief later.

Larry
[/size]

IP address obtained by DHCP.

Ping 192.168.2.1 works.

I only tried NM as I had no joy from ifup and a lot of threads seemed to advise setting up via NM.

It was a new installation of 11.1 on a machine that was running 11.0 without any problems.

IPV6 has been off but it was on by default, so I switched it back on. I’ll take it back off.

jfarrar wrote:
>
> IP address obtained by DHCP.
>
> Ping 192.168.2.1 works.

Thus your wireless connection is working, at least to the router. That leaves
only problems with routing or DNS. To check routing, try

ping -c 5 66.70.73.150

If that works, then routing is OK and the problem is likely with DNS. To test, try

ping -c 5 www.samba.org.

> I only tried NM as I had no joy from ifup and a lot of threads seemed
> to advise setting up via NM.

Yes, NM is easier, but it doesn’t crash for most people. If you don’t move
around a lot, then ifup works just as well. One of my test machines doesn’t run
X - too little memory - so setting up wireless with ifup was the only option.

> It was a new installation of 11.1 on a machine that was running 11.0
> without any problems.
>
> IPV6 has been off but it was on by default, so I switched it back on.
> I’ll take it back off.

I don’t think it should be on by default as it causes serious network delays for
most people.

Larry

ping -c 5 66.70.73.150

I had tried that, nothing.

The wireless router must be OK, the desktop is running off it without problem (apart from the fact it is too far away now!)

I have fiddled with the firewall, but that makes no difference.

Is there an issue about the driver? I have bc43 loaded in the kernel. I have tried that and ssb.

Anyway, here in Old Blighty, it is pub time!! Thanks for your help and I hope we can resolve this!

jfarrar wrote:
> ping -c 5 66.70.73.150
>
> I had tried that, nothing.
>
> The wireless router must be OK, the desktop is running off it without
> problem (apart from the fact it is too far away now!)
>
> I have fiddled with the firewall, but that makes no difference.
>
> Is there an issue about the driver? I have bc43 loaded in the kernel.
> I have tried that and ssb.

b43 is the correct driver. It uses ssb to actually drive the b43 PCI interface.

> Anyway, here in Old Blighty, it is pub time!! Thanks for your help and
> I hope we can resolve this!

I hope you had a pint of bitter for me. I love to get yeast with my beer. I
lived for a year in Germany and was rather fond of hefeweizen.

It is routing that is causing the problem. What does the ‘route -n’ command say?

Translating my tables to your IP’s, etc, I would expect

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 2 0 0 wlan0
127.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 255.0.0.0 U 0 0 0 lo
0.0.0.0 192.168.2.1 0.0.0.0 UG 0 0 0 wlan0

Larry

Several pints and a good night’s sleep later…

The difference I am getting is

in line 1, metric is 0 not 2

in line 3, it shows eth0 not wlan0

Thanks

John

Hmmm, found a solution of sorts.

I have to issue:

ifdown wlan0
ifdown eth0
ifup wlan0

And bingo, wireless connection.

I can put this in /etc/init.d/boot.local I guess.