This is a little OT for debian-laptop, but I'm not sure where else to
ask.
I have two PCMCIA wifi cards: a Xircom CWE1100 (uses the Cisco 340
chipset) and an SMC 2632W v3. They're both 802.11b cards. I'm running
sid with recent vanilla kernels (2.4.24 or 2.6.1). I'm using pcmf502rd,
an out-of-kernel module for the SMC card, and airo_cs for the Xircom
card.
I have a USR 8054 wireless router which I'm only using as an access
point; I'm using a DLINK-604 as the (wired) router and DCHP server. The
USR 8054 connects to the DLINK-604, which connects to the cable modem. No
encryption or access controls of any sort anywhere in my network.
Everything is fine with the SMC 2632W card. With the Xircom card,
initially I was getting very strange behavior: it was getting assigned
the WAN IP address rather than a NAT address. The USR 8054 is configured
not to do DCHP at all, and the DLINK-604 is configured to assign
addresses in the 192.168.0.* range. There does not seem to be any
setting such that *any* DCHP server should assign the WAN ("real") IP
address! Furthermore, when this happened, my laptop was totally exposed
to the Internet--i.e., all ports were accessible from outside, even
though the DLINK-604 is supposed to act as a firewall (and in fact does
so for every other network card).
syslog shows that the DCHP server on the router was, in fact, assigning
my card the WAN IP address.[0] It wasn't the situation where the DCHP
client can't get an address so it defaults to 'last known good'--it was
successfully getting an address, and it was the WAN address. Bringing
the card up and down (or ejecting and inserting) just gave the same
result.
So that was strange. But then it got stranger.
Now I can no longer see my home WLAN at all with the Xircom card.
Instead, I'm getting connected to a WLAN somewhere else. I'm not sure
where, but the essid of the LAN is two blocks away--at least 100 or more
yards. No matter what I do, I can't see my own LAN which is just a few
feet away with the Xircom card. If I put the SMC card back in,
everything is fine.
I've tried network scanning with airtraf
<http://airtraf.sourceforge.net/> to try to find my own LAN with the
Xircom card with no luck.
I've also tried calling USR and DLINK, but they have been no help at all.
The DLINK people told me to just turn my router on and off. Similarly,
the USR folks recommended that I reset the device.
I have no idea how to even debug this further. I'm pretty sure there's
nothing wrong with my configuration. I'm using the latest firmware for
both routers. The wireless router is configured to accept 802.11b or g,
but both cards are b.
If anyone can even give me some ideas as to how to move forward on this,
I would be very appreciative. Or if there's another forum where I should
post, please point me in that direction.
Thanks!
--
Adam Kessel
http://bostoncoop.net/adam
[0] Sample syslog entres getting assigned WAN IP address:
Jan 6 15:03:36 joehill pumpd[352]: PUMP: sending discover
Jan 6 15:03:37 joehill pumpd[352]: got dhcp offer
Jan 6 15:03:37 joehill pumpd[352]: PUMP: sending second discover
Jan 6 15:03:37 joehill pumpd[352]: reject: xid: 0x5a69aa64 <--> 0x5a69aa63
Jan 6 15:03:37 joehill pumpd[352]: reject: xid: 0x5a69aa64 <--> 0x5a69aa63
Jan 6 15:03:37 joehill pumpd[352]: PUMP: got an offer
Jan 6 15:03:37 joehill pumpd[352]: PUMP: got lease
Jan 6 15:03:37 joehill pumpd[352]: intf: device: eth1
Jan 6 15:03:37 joehill pumpd[352]: intf: set: 416
Jan 6 15:03:37 joehill pumpd[352]: intf: bootServer: 24.34.241.34
Jan 6 15:03:37 joehill pumpd[352]: intf: reqLease: 43200
Jan 6 15:03:37 joehill pumpd[352]: intf: ip: 65.96.107.180
Jan 6 15:03:37 joehill pumpd[352]: intf: next server: 0.0.0.0
Jan 6 15:03:37 joehill pumpd[352]: intf: netmask: 255.255.255.0
Jan 6 15:03:37 joehill pumpd[352]: intf: gateways[0]: 65.96.107.1
Jan 6 15:03:37 joehill pumpd[352]: intf: numGateways: 1
Jan 6 15:03:37 joehill pumpd[352]: intf: dnsServers[0]: 63.240.76.19
Jan 6 15:03:37 joehill pumpd[352]: intf: dnsServers[1]: 204.127.198.19
Jan 6 15:03:37 joehill pumpd[352]: intf: numDns: 2
Jan 6 15:03:37 joehill pumpd[352]: intf: domain: ne2.client2.attbi.com
Jan 6 15:03:37 joehill pumpd[352]: intf: broadcast: 255.255.255.255
Jan 6 15:03:37 joehill pumpd[352]: intf: logServers[0]: 0.0.0.0
Jan 6 15:03:37 joehill pumpd[352]: intf: numLog: 1
Jan 6 15:03:37 joehill pumpd[352]: intf: hostname: x1-6-00-40-96-5a-3c-ea
Jan 6 15:03:37 joehill pumpd[352]: intf: network: 65.96.107.0
Jan 6 15:03:37 joehill pumpd[352]: configured interface eth1
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