Linux guru wanted

[Russ]

Hi,

Is anyone a linux guru? I have a laptop running the latest kernel and Fedora Core 3. I have a 3com 3CRWE154G72 wireless card in and running (after many hours messing about with Prism54 drivers, linuxant.com and the firmware), but I'm having dhcp problems.

Basically I managed to get onto the network when I disabled encryption. So I went about getting that sorted. I have set the key with

iwconfig eth1 key open [4] 1F1F1F1F1F

and I get a link light. The next trick is getting an ip from my router.

I get a Determining IP Address.... Failed typically. So I edited dhclient.conf to

alias {
interface "eth1";
fixed-address 192.168.1.222;
option subnet-mask 255.255.255.0;
}

So I run dhclient eth1 and it runs the new conf file fine. I get this

DHCPDISCOVER on eth1 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 4

And different intervals every time I run it. It ends with No DHCP offers received. I haven't gotten into networking greatly but I'd guess that the dhcp response will come from the same subnet mask as my lan? Why is it looking at 255.255.255.255 when I specified 255.255.255.0?

I'm about to upgrade my router firmware see if that helps. DHCP works fine for my lovely Windows boxes but there is something up with this Linux rubbish I'm having to run

I have tried setting the ip static but that hasn't helped.

I'm getting 99% Invalid Misc packets when I query iwconfig, so its not connecting somewhere, I don't think its getting past the encrytion properly. I have tried turning off mac address filtering, no help, and I bet if I turn of encryption it'll all be smooth.

Anyone?

 

[mikecart]

Russ,

To be honest I'm no great help with this (my approach to getting Linux up and running with wireless was to keep swapping distros until I found one that worked for me - and it is that far back I can't remember how I did it, or even which distro - got a feeling it was SuSE though - but that machine has now been forcibly reallocated..!). The other thing I ended up doing was a whole lot of fiddling with NIC card software of various versions - but I am guessing you already got past that stage ...

However I can help with one part of your post:

I'd guess that the dhcp response will come from the same subnet mask as my lan? Why is it looking at 255.255.255.255 when I specified 255.255.255.0?

That is normal behaviour - 255.255.255.255 is just the broadcast IP address (it isn't a mask - just looks like one with all those 11111111s ) - when your machine is seeking out an IP it just broadcasts to all and sundry - you are right that generally the reply would come back from the same subnet, but that is more a function of routers not passing broadcasts on than anything else ... that is also why if someone sets up a rogue DHCP server on a subnet it can cause a bit of a headache...

Mike

 

[Russ]

Thanks for your help Mike, interesting.

Unfortunately I'm using Fedora Core 3, which I must say is alright, and its the distro that my lecturer uses.

I could try another, but it's a lot of messing about... hmm