[Gllug] Wireless Puzzle

[Steve Nelson]

Hi all,

I've been trying to set up a wireless network based around a belkin
pci card, which uses the Ralink RT2500 drivers, and is known to work
with linux and *bsd.

On a Debian Sarge system, I obtained the latest driver (cvs) and built
the kernel module:

tal:~# modinfo rt2500
filename:    /lib/modules/2.4.27-2-386/extra/rt2500.o
description: "Ralink RT2500 802.11g WLAN driver 1.1.0 CVS 2005/07/10"
author:      "http://rt2x00.serialmonkey.com"
license:     "GPL"
parm:        debug int, description "Enable level: accepted values: 1
to switch debug on, 0 to switch debug off."
parm:        ifname string, description "Network device name (default ra%d)"

After a modprobe rt2500 I can see:

ra0       Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:11:50:8E:6B:B9
          BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)
          Interrupt:10 Base address:0xa000

After running:

iwconfig ra0 essid cheddaman key <secret key>
ifconfig ra0 192.168.74.9 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 192.168.74.255 up
route add default gw 192.168.74.1

I can now see:

ra0       RT2500 Wireless  ESSID:"cheddaman"
          Mode:Managed  Frequency=2.462 GHz  Access Point: 00:06:25:4B:57:2C
          Bit Rate:54 Mb/s
          RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:<secret key>   Security mode:open
          Link Quality=56/100  Signal level=-77 dBm  Noise level:-195 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

and:

tal:~# iwlist ra0 scan
ra0       Scan completed :
          Cell 01 - Address: 00:06:25:4B:57:2C
                    Mode:Managed
                    ESSID:"cheddaman"
                    Encryption key:on
                    Channel:11
                    Quality:56/100  Signal level:-76 dBm  Noise level:-197 dBm

That is the correct mac address of the base station.

The routing table looks like this:

tal:~# netstat -rn


Kernel IP routing table
Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags   MSS Window  irtt Iface
192.168.0.0     0.0.0.0         255.255.255.0   U         0 0          0 eth0
192.168.74.0    0.0.0.0         255.255.255.0   U         0 0          0 ra0
0.0.0.0         192.168.74.1    0.0.0.0         UG        0 0          0 ra0
0.0.0.0         192.168.0.1     0.0.0.0         UG        0 0          0 eth0

Yet I cannot ping the base station:

tal:~# ping 192.168.74.1
PING 192.168.74.1 (192.168.74.1) 56(84) bytes of data.
>From 192.168.74.9 icmp_seq=1 Destination Host Unreachable
>From 192.168.74.9 icmp_seq=2 Destination Host Unreachable
>From 192.168.74.9 icmp_seq=3 Destination Host Unreachable

--- 192.168.74.1 ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 0 received, +3 errors, 100% packet loss, time 3024ms
, pipe 3
tal:~# ping -b 192.168.74.0
WARNING: pinging broadcast address
PING 192.168.74.0 (192.168.74.0) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 192.168.74.9: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.087 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.74.9: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.030 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.74.9: icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=0.029 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.74.9: icmp_seq=4 ttl=64 time=0.016 ms

--- 192.168.74.0 ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 4 received, 0% packet loss, time 2997ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.016/0.040/0.087/0.028 ms

I have performed almost exactly the same setup on my laptop, with a
cisco aironet card, and it works flawlessly.

I must be missing something here... can anyone help?

Thanks,

Steve
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