Cannot connect Fedora 16 when SSID not broadcasting

Jay See II · #1 3rd January 2012, 05:04 PM

Hello all,

(I am away from my home network currently, but will be able to paste command line output if needed at a later time.)

I have been able to connect to every wireless network I have ever needed to, with the exception of my home network when running F16. The main difference of my home network and the others is that I have disabled SSID for increased security of my surrounding neighbors. (I live near a lot of Wi-Fi hotspots apparently.) My laptop is currently configured as a dual boot machine, and I do not have a problem connecting with my W7 Partition.

In the command line, I can ping my router, my modem, www.google.com, etc. etc. When I do an ifconfig I am getting an IP address. I have been doing research and I ran across a forum that mentions my DNS may not be functioning correctly. It is to my understanding this is the role of the router in a home network. My wife has a late model Macbook Pro and doesn't have any issues connecting to our non-broadcasting wireless network. Does anybody have any ideas?; I am out.

Thanks in advance,

Jay See II

stoat · #2 3rd January 2012, 05:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jay See II

Does anybody have any ideas?

Not anything with certainty. Sorry. But I can say that I've heard of some wireless drivers for Linux not supporting hidden SSIDs. And on the subject of hidden SSIDs, I know it's often suggested in Internet articles about wireless security. I used to do that, too. But hiding your SSID doesn't really provide much security. A determined teenager with free software can get that SSID from packet traffic in mere seconds. Your normal neighbors will only look at it. So if it solves the current problem, I would consider turning SSID broadcasting on and use WPA encryption with a strong passphrase. For me, that's where the money is in wireless security.

smr54 · #3 3rd January 2012, 07:05 PM

If using a wpa_supplicant file, you will need the line

scan_ssid=1

in the network section.

See my page http://home.roadrunner.com/~computer.../wireless.html

If you're using NetworkManager, then I'm sorry, I have no idea. The link above tells you how to test if it's a NetworkManager issue.

sea · #4 3rd January 2012, 07:42 PM

Is it 'normal' behaviour that firing the wpa_supplicant -c/path/configfile remains in idle state without returning to prompt?

Quote:

Originally Posted by last messag seen:

Tryint to associate with hwaddr
Associate with hwaddr
wpa key negotation....
ctrl-event-connected

I ask this because i think its rather annoying if one's in a terminal, to have switch vt login and do dhclient 'over there'.

smr54 · #5 3rd January 2012, 08:08 PM

Yes.

You need the -B as in background flag to get it to go to background. (Then, of course, you can't see what's going on with it, though you can check with iwconfig to see if it's associated itself yet.)

sea · #6 3rd January 2012, 09:15 PM

Thank you for the -B hint.
I've saved that line code as a simple script, executed after reboot, and... it went back to console, without the -B.. weird.

Jay See II · #7 4th January 2012, 03:48 AM

OK after doing some more scouring and turning SSID on, I have come to the conclusion the reason I could connect to the other networks I had been able to connect to did NOT have encryption. I can still ping IP's in command line and URL's while in my home network. I am inclined to believe there may be an issue with the driver itself or there may be a config file that must be appended.

Now, with this information, does anyone have any ideas on where to go next with this? I am using a Realtek RTL8191SE Wireless LAN 802.11n PCI-E NIC. I have been to Realtek's website and used an older driver when I had used F14 in the past. I am really at a loss here...

Thanks for any feedback,

Jay See II

JEO · #8 4th January 2012, 06:59 AM

Some routers behave badly doing dns lookups when ipv6 is enabled. Try putting "about:config" in the firefox address bar, search for ipv6 and double click the disable line to set it to true and see if it starts working.

Jay See II · #9 4th January 2012, 10:52 AM

JEO,

You are spot on. I went into Firefox and set the below value to true after typing in "about:config" in the address bar:

network.dns.disableIPv6;true

It did not even dawn on me that my trustworthy router is a Belkin unit that is probably approaching 5 years old. You are so right. I am up and surfing now. One question for you, though: Is security going to be compromised as a result of me toggling this function?

I will say there is a silver lining in all of this. I went into the router and did some administrative snooping. It turns out when I browsed my dhclient list, I found about 7 unidentified MAC addresses. Chalk it up to being hacked or what have you, I have since changed my passwords AND enabled SSID as "stoat" had suggested. It is a safe bet this case is closed now. Thanks again for everyone's suggestions.

Jay See II