Re: Laptop Connects to WAP, But Cannot Access 'Net

On Tue, 27 Mar 2012, Claudio Fontana wrote:

> are you really running with everything at the default values? So you
> are using pristine rc.inet1.conf, for example, without configuring
> anything in there?

   This message tries to respond to everyone's comments and suggestions. I
did nothing on the Sony all week as I have client's paying me for my
expertise and I spent the week on their needs. :-)

   First, on /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf. It has 4 eth[n] interfaces and a long
section for wlan0. eth0 is configured with static IP addresses for the
home/office network. Nothing in the wlan0 section is uncommented. There was a
line for DEFAULT GATEWAY with the LAN router's IP address; I commented that
out and put the GATEWAY= line in the eth0 section.

> The fact that some free wifi work for you and some don't would suggest
> some assumption in the configuration that is ok for some of those and not
> for others.

   The problem is that wifi works nowhere.

   I just spent almost an hour at a local coffee shop, and bought a small
coffee to get one of their passwords for 'Net access. Tried everyone's
suggestions and report the results here.

   In a root login console I ran 'ifconfig -a' and saw that eth0 was not
RUNNING, and wlan0 was RUNNING; good. It showed the IP address of
10.5.70.104.

   In another console (as a user) I ran 'wicd-client -n' and the first
network shown was 'NETbeans Silk Expresso' at 100%, so I clicked the Connect
button and was connected. The instruction card told me to invoke a browser
(firefox-11.0 on the Sony), enter the password in the dialog box on their
site, accept the terms and conditions, and be good to go. Just like last
week, this is where the Sony failed. The NETbeans web page did not
automatically display. In the firefox URL window I tried both
'www.google.com' and 'www.netbeans.com' but no page would load. This is
where the problem is seen, so I did more checking.

   /etc/resolv.conf showed contents filled by DHCP at the netbeans server
(the connetion is definitely working): nameserver 8.8.8.8 and nameserver
8.8.4.4 (both Google DNS servers).

   'lspci -v' showed the same Intel Centrino wireless chip as one of you
reported, so I created /etc/modprobe.d/wireless.conf with:
options iwlagn 11n_disable=1
options iwlwifi 11n_disable=1

and rebooted. No difference.

   'netstat -r' at first showed only the LAN router IP address for eth0;
after a few seconds it displayed two lines for wlan0 with the default and
gateway lines having IP addresses of 10.5.70.0 and 10.5.70.1. Confirmation
that there's definitely a connection established.

   'traceroute -r 149.20.4.69' (to kernel.org) immediately reported that the
network is unreachable.

   To summarize, wicd, resolv.conf, and netstat all indicate there's a
wireless connection between the Sony, the wireless access point, and
NETbeans' server. However, web pages (including their gateway page) will not
load, ping fails with a single line showing 56 bytes sent (rather than the
64 bytes in a working ping), and traceroute says the network is unreachable.

   I have absolutely no idea were the problem might be. I certainly hope that
you folks, individually or collectively, can help me solve this puzzle.

Rich