Realtek RTL8191SU PING was working, but I could not access the internet

English Network/Internet
1

Hi all,
I have a freshly installed OpenSuse Leap 42.1 and I configured the wired ethernet fine. Now I am trying to get the Realtek RTL8191SU work as well. I moved the computer to a location where I don’t have an ethernet cable and I have to configure the wireless. At one stage, I was able to ping my router, but when I was pinging google, there was no result. Typically, in Windows this means the gateway/DNS is not set up - but in Linux, for wireless connection I could not see an entry for gateway or DNS

In Network Settings I have Network Setup Method Wicked Service, Activate device - on Hotplug, Firewall Zone disabled, set MTU 1492 (my router uses PPPoE). I statically assigned IP address of 192.168.1.33/255.255.255.0, hostname opensuse (I also tried with DHCP IP4 only and DHCP IP4 and IP6). Kernel Module is r8712u. I set operating mode on Managed, I selected my wifi network from the list using Scan Network. I selected Authentication Mode to WPA-PSK, EAP Mode TLS.
I think there are some bugs in the software - although I set the subnet mask to 255.255.255.0, the bottom side shows subnet mask blank and every time I go back to edit, instead of my entered subnet mask, I see “/24”.
I also got a few times the message “Internal error - please provide a report with log” when I aborted some changes.

Now, when I ping 192.168.1.1 it works
But when I ping www.google.com, I get ping: unknown host www.google.com

When I run iwconfig I get:
wlan0: IEEE 802.11bgn ESSID: TP-LINK_…
Mode: Managed, Frequency 2.412 GHz, Access Point: E8:DE:27:89:0D:87
Bit Rate: 150 MB/s, Sensitivity: 0/0
Retry: Off, RTS: thr:off, Fragment: thr:off
Encryption Key: ****… Security Mode: Open
Power Management: off
Link Quality: 100/100 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

When I use the command lsusb, I get:
Bus 005 Device 004: ID 0bda:8172 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTL8191SU 801.11n WLAN Adapter

When I use dmesg, I get:
Product: RTL8191S WLAN Adapter (it is not RTL8191SU !)
r8712u 5-3:1.0 wlan0: 1 RCR=0x153f00c

In Hardware Info, it says Device Identifier: 229746, Driver: r8712u, Kernel Driver: r8712u, Vendor Identifier: 199642, Vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Corp.

When I run iwlist scan, I get:
Cell 01: Protocol IEEE 802.11bgn
Mode: Master
Frequency: 2.412 GHz (Channel 1)
Encryption Key: on
IE: WPA Version 1
Group Cypher: TKIP
Authentication Suites: PSK
Signal Level: 92/100

Any advice what to do next?

Thanks,
Nick

2

Then your DNS does not work.

Check your DNS configuration:

grep -v '^#' /etc/resolv.conf

When there are no nameserver statements there, something is wrong. You/we could try to find out why. but you could also make a quick fix by adding

nameserver 8.8.8.8

to te file.

3

I was able to solve it. Sadly, I am not sure what were the actions that solved the problem, since I tried quite a lot.
Using Yast2, I edited the /etc/sysconfig and I went into Network->General settings, where I set everything to default value. Now Netconfig_DNS_Static_Searchlist is blank, Netconfig_DNS_Static_Servers contains 192.168.1.1 (Which is my router).
Using Yast->Network Settings, I have:
Network Setup Method: Wicked Service, Enable IP6 is disabled, DHCP Client Identified - blank, Hostname to Send: AUTO, Change Default Route via DHCP - unticked.
Overview wlan0: IP 192.168.1.13/255.255.255.0 (still shows /24), Hostname: opensuse, Started automatically at boot,
Domain Name - blank, Change Hostname via DHCP - unticked, Assign Hostname via Loopback IP - unticked.
Modify DNS Configuration - Use Default Policy. Name Server 1: 192.168.1.1 (my router) all others blank
Domain Search - blank
Routing: Default IPv4 Gateway 192.168.1.1, Device: wlan0. Enable IPv4 forwarding - ticked.

Hopefully this will help somebody else.
Nick

4

Hi Henk,

Thanks for help.

You are right, after configuring the system in a different way, now the file /etc/resolv.conf contains the line:

nameserver 192.168.1.1

and I checked it before and there were only the commented lines.

Now I wonder if this was the only problem - because I was unable to ping a website by its IP address (such as ping 216.58.220.142) and it was still not working.
I suspect it was something else, apart for the DNS.

Cheers,
Nicolae

5

Yes, there are several steps to check. In most cases i start from “inside the system” and then gradualy walk to the internet.:wink:

  • Check if your NIC is up and has a IP address
ip addr
  • Check if you can ping the router (and/or other systems on the LAN).
  • Check if there is a default route through your router
ip route

.

  • Check if you can resolve host-domainnames
host forums.opensuse.org
6

Thank you very much. This is valuable information, it would have been better if I had checked all these in the beginning.

Nick

7

Typical a “if I had know that …” problem. :wink:
But how could you know that? For Dutch speaking people I have a tutorial about this in the Dutch section here. But again, how do you get people that need it, to find and read it in the right moment?

In fact every system administer/maintainer/manager should follow a basic course. But as long as many Windows end-users believe they can be system adminstrators without any learning, telling Linux users that shey should do so is in fact only chases people away from Linux (that is very difficult, you must learn things there).

8

Thank you Nick, the information you provided sure helped me!

After a fresh install of OpenSuse 42.1, the problem I was encountering was that I couldn’t access the internet. I could access the router from the browser, but I couldn’t access anything on the internet. From a terminal window I could ping the router and the other computers that were connected to the router, but nothing on the internet.

The solution was to enter the IP address of the router into the “Default IPV4 Gateway” parameter. The “Device” parameter to the right of the gateway parameter had to be left as “-”. If I selected the device as eth0, the NIC used to which the router is connected, it wouldn’t work. I’ve been using OpenSuse for about 10 years, and this is the first time I’ve ever had to specify the gateway.

This is the path I used to get to the parameter:

Yast -> System -> Network Settings -> Routing tab

9

Now, if only I had known that …