Ralink wlan connection - please help

English Network/Internet
1

Hi everyone,
I have installed opensuse 11.2 on a second partition, with the ultimate aim of leaving windows altogether. Unfortunately, I seem to be having terrible trouble (as do many others) getting my wireless internet connection working. I have viewed lots of posts in these forums and done everything I can think of, but since I am a linux novice, am unable to identify the problem. The card is working, since it can identify local SSIDs, it has been set up (to the best of my knowledge) correctly in YAST, but nothing seems to work. Any help would be really appreciated!

I’ll include some information I have recorded from my system, but this’ll have to be in more than one post…

2

I typed the commands below with the accompanying output listed:

sudo /usr/sbin/iwlist scan:

Cell 04 - Address: my router’s mac address
Channel:13
Frequency:2.472 GHz (Channel 13)
Quality=50/70 Signal level=-60 dBm
Encryption key: on
ESSID:“my ssid”
Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s
24 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s
Bit Rates:6 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s; 12 Mb/s; 48 Mb/s
Mode:Master
Extra:tsf=000000c3b282c183
Extra: Last beacon: 273ms ago
IE: Unknown: 000B70657465726C617572656E
IE: Unknown: 010882848B962430486C
IE: Unknown: 03010D
IE: Unknown: 2A0104
IE: Unknown: 2F0104
IE: Unknown: 32040C121860
IE: Unknown: DD090010180203F0000000
IE: Unknown: DD180050F2020101800003A4000027A4000042435E0062322F00

/usr/sbin/iwconfig:

wlan0 IEEE 802.11bg ESSID:“my ssid”
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.472 GHz Access Point: my router’s mac address
Bit Rate=36 Mb/s Tx-Power=6 dBm
Retry long limit:7 RTS thr: off Fragment thr: off
Power Management: on
Link Quality=46/70 Signal level=-64 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

/usr/sbin/iwconfig:

wlan0 IEEE 802.11bg ESSID:“my ssid”
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.472 GHz Access Point: my router’s mac address
Bit Rate=36 Mb/s Tx-Power=6 dBm
Retry long limit:7 RTS thr: off Fragment thr: off
Power Management: on
Link Quality=46/70 Signal level=-64 dBm
Rx invalid nwid: 0 Rx invalid crypt: 0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries: 0 Invalid misc: 0 Missed beacon:0

/sbin/ifconfig:

wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr my wlan card’s mac address
inet6 addr: fe80::20e:2eff:fe9d:6783/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:80 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:87 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:4782 (4.6 Kb) TX bytes:29910 (29.2 Kb)

netstat:

Active Internet connections (w/o servers)
Proto Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address Foreign Address State

/sbin/lspci: - relevant line

02:07.0 Network controller: RaLink RT2561/RT61 802.11g PCI

/sbin/lspci -n -relevant line

02:07.0 0280: 1814:0301

dmesg | grep wlan:

85.315444] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready
187.069746] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready
187.071108] wlan0: direct probe to AP my router’s mac address try 1
187.073298] wlan0: direct probe to AP my router’s mac address try 1
187.078916] wlan0 direct probe responded
187.078924] wlan0: authenticate with AP 00:1f:33:46:64:d0
187.081826] wlan0: authenticated
187.081834] wlan0: associate with AP my router’s mac address
187.084251] wlan0: RX AssocResp from my router’s mac address (capab=0x411 status=0 aid=2)
187.084256] wlan0: associated
187.085047] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): wlan0: link becomes ready
197.273023] wlan0: no IPv6 routers present

dmesg | grep firmware:

85.285473] rt61pci 0000:02:07.0: firmware: requesting rt2561s.bin

3

I am not that good at this subject, but a few remarks.

The dmesg linesays a firmware file is needed, what do the lines directly after it say? Is it found and loaded or not?

In fact I suppose it is because the other output does show a lot of information. Even your router is seen.

But I see only IPv6 addresses, no IPv4. Did you disable IPv6? that might help.

4

On 03/06/2010 11:06 AM, hcvv wrote:
>
> I am not that good at this subject, but a few remarks.
>
> The dmesg linesays a firmware file is needed, what do the lines
> directly after it say? Is it found and loaded or not?

As the scan returns data, the firmware is loaded.
>
> In fact I suppose it is because the other output does show a lot of
> information. Even your router is seen.

The iwconfig and dmesg info both show that wlan0 has associated and
authenticated. The problem appears to be with DHCP as there is no IPV4 address.
>
> But I see only IPv6 addresses, no IPv4. Did you disable IPv6? that
> might help.

Good advice.

5

Thankyou - i think i did disable ipv6, but i’ll check

6

Ok - having checked ipv6 - i have since learned that in the 64 bit version of 11.2, yast does not correctly disable ipv6. In order to correct this (from forum information), I’ve added the following in bold to the /boot/grub/menu.lst file

###Don’t change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: linux###
title Desktop – openSUSE 11.2 - 2.6.31.5-0.1
root (hd0,5)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31.5-0.1-desktop root=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-Maxtor_7L250S0_L50JZFQG_L50JZFQG-part6 resume=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-Maxtor_7L250S0_L50JZFQG_L50JZFQG-part5 splash=silent quiet showopts vga=0x31a ipv6.disable=1
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.31.5-0.1-desktop

and then get

/usr/sbin/iwconfig

IEEE 802.11bg ESSID:“my ssid”
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.472 GHz Access Point: 00:1F:33:46:64:D0
Bit Rate=36 Mb/s Tx-Power=6 dBm
Retry long limit:7 RTS thr: off Fragment thr: off
Power Management: on
Link Quality=48/70 Signal level=-62 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

/sbin/ifconfig

wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:0E:2E:9D:67:83
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:134 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:137 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:8040 (7.8 Kb) TX bytes:49594 (48.4 Kb)

dmesg | grep wlan

26.788073] wlan0: direct probe to AP 00:1f:33:46:64:d0 try 1
26.790068] wlan0 direct probe responded
26.790078] wlan0: authenticate with AP 00:1f:33:46:64:d0
26.791806] wlan0: authenticated
26.791813] wlan0: associate with AP 00:1f:33:46:64:d0
26.794177] wlan0: RX AssocResp from 00:1f:33:46:64:d0 (capab=0x411 status=0 aid=1)
26.794183] wlan0: associated
248.456367] wlan0: deauthenticating by local choice (reason=3)
250.303068] wlan0: authenticate with AP 00:1f:33:46:64:d0
250.304546] wlan0: authenticated
250.304556] wlan0: associate with AP 00:1f:33:46:64:d0
250.306942] wlan0: RX AssocResp from 00:1f:33:46:64:d0 (capab=0x411 status=0 aid=1)
250.306951] wlan0: associated

From the ifconfig result (which has changed from before), it seems that there is no inet address. It looks like I am really close to being sorted, but does anyone (considerably more experienced than me) know what I am either doing wrong, or need to do to get my internet connection working? Any help would be gratefully received,

Pete

7

As lwfinger says, it seems to be a DHCP problem.

Is it true that you try to use DHCP? And that that is configured?

8

I think I have configured to use DHCP through yast, although since I am completely new to linux (4 days or so), I am not entirely sure. Is there a failsafe way I can configure DHCP via command line? Any information would help.

9

It is not that difficult to go to YaST > System > Networkconfig, choose the network card, click Edit and see what the DHCP buttons show! When they are correct, bail out. Else change.

And you can check in /etc/sysconfig/network/ifcfg-wlano what YaST made out of it. It may say

BOOTPROTO='dhcp'

which would be OK for a start.

BTW I do not encourage you to edit the files in /etc/sysconfig/network manualy. YaST is perfect for this task.

10

In that case, as far as I know, it is set correctly.

11

Ok - I have checked everything I can, and it seems I am setting everything up correctly. This is the 64 bit version of 11.2, and I am aware that there is a bug with YAST disabling ipv6 (I have done this manually). I have also tried to manually configure the file /etc/sysconfig/network/ifcfg-wlan0 by using the template in the same folder. When originally opening this file to look at it, it was blank, even after correctly configuring YAST and then saving. I proceeded to manually configure this file as described (including the suggestion in the previous post) and saved it. I restarted the operating system, but still no internet connection. I get

/sbin/ifconfig

eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:14:2A:C8:5D:1E
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)
Interrupt:21

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:254 errors: 0 dropped: 0 overruns: 0 frame: 0
TX packets:254 errors: 0 dropped: 0 overruns: 0 carrier: 0
collisions: 0 txqueuelen: 0
RX bytes:18036 (17.6 Kb) TX bytes:18036 (17.6 Kb)

wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00: 0E:2E:9D:67:83
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:1217 errors: 0 dropped: 0 overruns: 0 frame: 0
TX packets:1223 errors: 0 dropped: 0 overruns: 0 carrier: 0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:81128 (79.2 Kb) TX bytes:442726 (432.3 Kb)

wmaster0 Link encap:UNSPEC HWaddr 00-0E-2E-9D-67-83-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00
UP RUNNING MTU:0 Metric:1
RX packets: 0 errors: 0 dropped: 0 overruns: 0 frame: 0
TX packets: 0 errors: 0 dropped: 0 overruns: 0 carrier: 0
collisions: 0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes: 0 (0.0 b) TX bytes: 0 (0.0 b)

I notice there is no inet address in wlan0. Also, why does wmaster0 have the same hardware address as the wlan card - I am missing something fundamental here. I also get:

/usr/sbin/iwconfig

lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

wmaster0 no wireless extensions.

wlan0 IEEE 802.11bg ESSID:""
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.472 GHz Access Point: 00:1F:33:46:64:D0
Bit Rate=36 Mb/s Tx-Power=6 dBm
Retry long limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:
Power Management: on
Link Quality=44/70 Signal level=-66 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt: 0 Rx invalid frag: 0
Tx excessive retries: 0 Invalid misc: 0 Missed beacon: 0

which as far as my limited experience goes, looks ok.

After this, I thought I’d try and reconfigure through YAST again. After configuring correctly, I save and exit, and find that YAST has completely wiped out the ifcfg-wlan0 file - it is now completely blank again.

Please, does anyone know what is happening, and why I can’t connect to the internet? It’s difficult doing anything useful without an internet connection :frowning:

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Pete