Problem connecting to WiFi

[Chris F.A. Johnson]

On Sat, 27 Aug 2011, Alejandro Imass wrote:

> On Sat, Aug 27, 2011 at 1:53 AM, Chris F.A. Johnson
> <chris-E7bvbYbpR6jSUeElwK9/Pw at public.gmane.org> wrote:
>>
> [...]
>
>>
>> iwconfig gives:
>>
>> wlan0  IEEE 802.11g  ESSID:"Douchbag Express"
>>  Nickname:"localhost.localdomain"
>>       Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.412 GHz  Access Point: 00:1C:DF:CF:39:5C
>>       Bit Rate=36 Mb/s   Tx-Power:20 dBm   Sensitivity=-121 dBm
>>       RTS thr=2347 B   Fragment thr=2346 B
>>       Power Management:off
>>       Link Quality:42/100  Signal level:-69 dBm  Noise level:-96 dBm
>>       Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
>>       Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0
>>
>
> If the ESSID you are effectively trying to connect to is "Douchbag
> Express" then from the results above you are in fact associated to the
> AP and with a decent signal level.

   No it's not. I should be connecting to UPJOHN. I cannot connect to
   Douchbag Express; I don't have the password.

> So iwconfig is the first step in associating the device to the
> network, much like plugging in to a switch or hub...

   And what args do I give it?

> The next step is for the AP (or some other device on that network) to
> give you an IP or set one manually yourself. So you still need
> ifconfig and other tools like dhclient to configure the network
> interface.
>
> ifconfig wlan0 and see what you get. If you have an IP on wlan0 then
> it probably means everything is OK and maybe you have a routing table
> conflict between your cable NIC and your WiFi NIC.

wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 48:5B:39:BE:3C:7C
           UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
           RX packets:6 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
           TX packets:7 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
           collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
           RX bytes:1299 (1.2 KiB)  TX bytes:1271 (1.2 KiB)
           Interrupt:16 Memory:fb000000-fb008000


> Do you by any
> chance have a network cable plugged in to a local networks at the same
> time you are trying to connect through the WiFi interface?

    I didn't, but I do now, so that I can send this email through the
    XP laptop.

> If you don't have an ip, you could manually try dhclient wlan0 and see
> what happens.

    Nothing happened.

> If you have access to the AP/router you could also see
> what is going on by looking at the status and logs of the AP.

    I don't.

> Also, while you do this it maybe wise to kill your GUI set-up tool.

    Done.

> I don't have that much experience with Mandriva but when it was
> Mandrake I remember they used Gnome. If so, can you tell me if
> drakonnect is the default network manager tool in Mandriva and that
> you don't have Gnome's nm-applet also running??

    I don't use Gnome (or KDE).

-- 
    Chris F.A. Johnson, <http://cfajohnson.com/>
    Author:
    Pro Bash Programming: Scripting the GNU/Linux Shell (2009, Apress)
    Shell Scripting Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach (2005, Apress)