[SOLVED] Debian wifi issues.

[trq]

Brand new machine here and I've been having quite a few issues getting her up and running, the last of which (hopefully) is my wifi card.

 

I'm running Debian Sid (2.6.24-1-amd64) and all appears to be in working order, but I simply cannot ping my gateway or any other machine locally or on the net.

 

Relevent details are as follows.

# lspci | grep ^Net

05:01.0 Network controller: RaLink RT2561/RT61 rev B 802.11g

 

The rt61pci module is built and loaded.

# lsmod | grep ^rt

rt61pci                29184  0 
rt2x00pci              15232  1 rt61pci
rt2x00lib              26752  2 rt61pci,rt2x00pci

 

Udev found the card.

# cat /etc/udev/rules.d/z25-persistent-net.rules | tail -n1

SUBSYSTEM=="net", DRIVERS=="?*", ATTR{address}=="00:1c:f0:89:f5:10", ATTR{type}=="1", NAME="wlan0"

 

I have installed wireless-tools and firmware-ralink and checked iwconfig.

# sudo iwconfig

lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

eth1      no wireless extensions.

wmaster0  no wireless extensions.

wlan0     IEEE 802.11g  ESSID:"TSP"  
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.412 GHz  Access Point: Not-Associated   
          Tx-Power=27 dBm   
          Retry min limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr=2346 B   
          Encryption key:AC45-FE23-ED3E-DF51-A78C-DE45-F3
          Link Quality:0  Signal level:0  Noise level:0
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

 

My configuration seems ok to me. In fact I have a laptop here running the exact same config excepting different ips of course.

# cat /etc/network/interfaces | grep -v ^#

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

allow-hotplug eth1

iface eth1 inet static
address 192.168.10.10
netmask 255.255.255.0
network 192.168.10.0
broadcast 192.168.10.255
gateway 192.168.10.1
dns-nameservers 203.0.178.191
dns-search trq.ath.cx

auto wlan0
iface wlan0 inet static
address 192.168.10.2
netmask 255.255.255.0
network 192.168.10.255
gateway 192.168.10.1
wireless-key AC45FE23ED3EDF51A78CDE45F3
wireless-essid TSP
dns-nameservers 203.0.178.191
dns-search trq.ath.cx

 

Booting the machine shows no errors relating to wlan0. I have looked through dmesg and cannot find anything there either. However, when both eth1 and wlan0 appear to be up I cannot ping my gateway but can ping google. Taking eth1 down stops me being able to ping anything at all. For example, Ive just rebooted the machine....

 

# sudo ifconfig

eth1      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:13:46:3a:36:e8  
          inet addr:192.168.10.10  Bcast:192.168.10.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::213:46ff:fe3a:36e8/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:6 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:468 (468.0 B)
          Interrupt:18 Base address:0x2000 

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:12 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:12 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:932 (932.0 B)  TX bytes:932 (932.0 B)

wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:1c:f0:89:f5:10  
          inet addr:192.168.10.2  Bcast:192.168.10.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP 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)

wmaster0  Link encap:UNSPEC  HWaddr 00-1C-F0-89-F5-10-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00  
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING 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)

# ping -c 1 192.168.10.1

PING 192.168.10.1 (192.168.10.1) 56(84) bytes of data.
From 192.168.10.2 icmp_seq=1 Destination Host Unreachable

--- 192.168.10.1 ping statistics ---
1 packets transmitted, 0 received, +1 errors, 100% packet loss, time 0ms

# ping -c 1 google.com

PING google.com (64.233.167.99) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from py-in-f99.google.com (64.233.167.99): icmp_seq=1 ttl=243 time=225 ms

--- google.com ping statistics ---
1 packets transmitted, 1 received, 0% packet loss, time 0ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 225.143/225.143/225.143/0.000 ms

# sudo ifdown eth1

# sudo ifconfig

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:21 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:21 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:1940 (1.8 KiB)  TX bytes:1940 (1.8 KiB)

wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:1c:f0:89:f5:10  
          inet addr:192.168.10.2  Bcast:192.168.10.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP 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)

wmaster0  Link encap:UNSPEC  HWaddr 00-1C-F0-89-F5-10-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00  
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING 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)

# ping -c 1 192.168.10.1

PING 192.168.10.1 (192.168.10.1) 56(84) bytes of data.
From 192.168.10.2 icmp_seq=1 Destination Host Unreachable

--- 192.168.10.1 ping statistics ---
1 packets transmitted, 0 received, +1 errors, 100% packet loss, time 0ms

# ping -c 1 google.com

ping: unknown host google.com

 

I'm really at a bit of a loss as to what is going on. Anyone with any ideas your suggestions would be much appreciated. This telephone extension cable running from one end of my house to the other is driving my fiance nuts.

 

Need anything else, just let me know.... thanks in advance.

 

[trq]

Not to worry. Would seem wireless-tools is parsing the wireless-* options from within my /etc/network/interfaces file a little too early in the boot process or something, card isn't ready yet.

 

Leaving out those options and sending them straight to iwconfig in the last stages of the boot process appears to have fixed the issue, all be it a bit of a hack.