wireless router help needed

ozzkoz · #1 11th October 2005, 04:50 AM

Hi, I am having trouble with my netgear wireless router. I've read a few threads on the subject, but I am afraid that I am a newbie still and do not completly understand how to do what these threads instructed. If someone can please help me out it would be much appreciated.

Anyway, I can connect to my router using an ethernet cable and set up the configurations. I know that the router is logining on to my internet service because I can connect online as long as I have a wired connnection to the router. I can scan for and see the router with my wireless card, and I belevie I can associate my wireless card with the router (I type iwconfig eth1 and it lists my network in the ESSID) but I can not actaully get online wirelessly. I read some stuff about changing the DNS from 192.168.1.1 to 192.168.0.1 but where do I change this ? is this on my computer, or on the router? any thoughts or comments are welcome. Thanks

nomak · #2 11th October 2005, 07:34 AM

did you use some encryption on your router ? like WEP or WPA ?

How do you try to connect ? with the network interface ?

brianmsu80 · #3 11th October 2005, 07:48 AM

I wouldnt test by trying to go to www.yahoo.com yet. I would test by pinging IP addresses that would tell you if DNS is the problem or not.
Try:
ping 127.0.0.1
ping whatever.your gatewayIP.is

Also try pinging you cable modem or another computer on your LAN (or something/anything on the "otherside" of the wireless router, to see if you are getting to AND through the router.)

chili555 · #4 11th October 2005, 02:59 PM

First, try pinging the router: ping -c5 192.168.1.1 <==or whatever your router's IP address is.
Next, try pinging the IP address for yahoo.com: ping -c5 216.109.118.68
Then ping -c5 www.yahoo.com

If the first two succeed and the last one fails, you have a problem with your /etc/resolv.conf file. Gedit /etc/resolv.conf and see if there are nameserver entries. If not, you can try adding: nameserver 192.168.1.1 <==or whatever your router's IP address is.

You can also try to get dhclient to populate the /etc/resolv.conf file:
As root, /sbin/ifdown eth1
/sbin/dhclient eth1

Then ping -c5 www.yahoo.com. You should be all set!

ozzkoz · #5 12th October 2005, 12:40 AM

nomak - I am using my cetrino wireless card in my laptop. I am trying to connect with the iwconfig commands, and I have WEP protection

brianmsu80 and chili555 - when i ping 192.168.1.1 it says host unreacahble .
I DO get packets back when i ping 127.0.0.1

how do i ping my modem? would it be the internet port adress? I don't get anything when i ping that

Iron_Mike · #6 12th October 2005, 02:34 AM

Your modem would be 192.168.100.1 more than likely. Since you mentioned that when you are wired with ethernet you can get to the internet and thus would be able to ping the modem address, but on the wireless side, if you can't ping the router using wireless, you wil not be able to ping the modem. When you are trying to use the wireless, check the applications -->system tools -->network device control, and run through the settings to make sure your default gateway, and DNS are set correctly. And you can run iwconfig and ifconfig they should look something like this or a close.

iwconfig:

eth1 IEEE 802.11g ESSID:"mesa_wifi" Nickname:"localhost.localdomain"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.412 GHz Access Point: 00:14:BF:12:41:FA
Bit Rate=54 Mb/s Tx-Power=20 dBm
Retry limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx Security mode:open
Power Management:off
Link Quality=89/100 Signal level=-38 dBm Noise level=-86 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:18

ifconfig:

Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:0E:35:xx:xx:xx
inet addr:192.168.1.100 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::20e:35ff:fed0:e043/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:57613 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:49959 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:1
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:60658235 (57.8 MiB) TX bytes:5472140 (5.2 MiB)
Interrupt:10 Base address:0xa000 Memory:d0000000-d0000fff

ozzkoz · #7 12th October 2005, 03:11 AM

how do i know what my default gateway and DNS sould be? Also, under my current configuration I can connect to other wireless networks fine, and I have never input any gateway information. How come it would be different this time?

Iron_Mike · #8 12th October 2005, 03:32 AM

Open Applications -->System Tools --> Network Device Control, highlight your wireless cad and select configure, it will ask for the root password. Go back to devices and highlight the wireless and hit edit. If you are running DHCP from your router make sure the "Auto obtain ip address" has a X in it and also "Obtain DNS info from ISP has a X in the box. If you are using static ip's this is where you will enter the DNS and gateway info.....

ozzkoz · #9 12th October 2005, 04:31 AM

Hey thanks Iron, I got it working now. Tell you the truth I don't really know why its working. I went to the settings you told me and those boxes were already checked. I normally assign my key manually with iwconfig eth1 key ... but I put it in here, and activated my wireless card, and it went and found the IP adress. I even had problems connecting with NO security enabled before, but for whatever its working now. Thanks again

Iron_Mike · #10 12th October 2005, 02:31 PM

Now if you want to put an applet (radar scanning) looking thing on your notification bar. Go into your "Services" menu, you will need the root password for this. You will see 2 services listed at the top of the list, Networkmanager, and NetworkmanagerDispatcher or something like that. Put check marks in both the boxes and save it. Reboot the computer, Open a terminal window and type
NetworkManagerInfo, and you should see the icon appear top panel. You can use this to scan for wireless networks in the area. Double click the network you want to log on to, if it has WEP set it will ask for the KEY.

ozzkoz · #11 13th October 2005, 12:28 AM

hey thanks, one quick question, I have done so, but now when I start my computer it doesnt automatically log onto my router. Is there anyway to have my computer connect to my network on startup, but still run in the event i want to scan? Thanks

Iron_Mike · #12 13th October 2005, 01:50 AM

Sure can, go to Applications -->System Tools --Network Device Control
Highlight your wireless card and select the configure tab. It will ask for the root password. Highlight the wireless card again and select the edit tab. Put a check make in the "Activate the device when start" then move over to the "Wireless Settings" tab you will see the KEY tab. This is where you put your WEP key, save it and reboot and it should auto connect to you router....

ozzkoz · #13 13th October 2005, 01:55 AM

hmm this is how I had it configured, and it logs on just fine, but when I added the applet as you described, then restarted the computer, it didnt log on when it comes back. Any thoughts?

Iron_Mike · #14 13th October 2005, 02:39 AM

Is this a Desktop or Laptop, if it is a desktop you can disable the services for NetworkManager, if it is a Laptop try double clicking the Applet, double click the SSID for for your router and it should ask for your WEP key. Try it then log off and reboot and see if it connects upon startup.....

ozzkoz · #15 13th October 2005, 02:40 AM

laptop, thanks alot for the help. I think I have it under control