Wifi not working with Arch, but it works in windows 7.

hokasch · 2011-01-27 00:27:25

My university's network is giving me a headache at the moment as well:

- worked flawlessly last year
- wlan connects fine (wep - actual connection is by vpn)
- but: dhcpcd as well as dhclient time out
- works with windows on the same machine
- dhcpcd works on my home wireless network

There are no error messages whatsoever even with -v, it just never receives a reply. Today I booted an archboot initrd, and ta-dah, dhcpcd gets an IP...
So I guess it chokes on this particular combination of AP, kernel and/or dhcpcd version. Just installed kernel26-lts and downloaded previous versions of dhcpcd, and will try to pin it down tomorrow.

Last edited by hokasch (2011-01-27 00:28:16)

ConnorBehan · 2011-01-27 04:07:13

For people connecting the manual way a good rule of thumb is this: if iwconfig appears to work and dhcpcd times out, it's probably the case that iwconfig failed to work. For example, if I enable WEP on my home network and run:

iwconfig wlan0 essid <home_network> key <wrong_key>

I don't get any error message but then I run dhcpcd and obviously that times out. If I replace the iwconfig command with

iwconfig wlan0 essid <home_network> key <right_key>

dhcpcd works fine after that.

Another example is at my school. All the networks there are called "queensu" so there are multiple networks with the same name at any given place. If I run:

iwconfig wlan0 essid queensu

I don't get any error until I try dhcpcd and then it becomes more or less clear that I connected to the wrong one.

iwconfig wlan0 channel 7 essid queensu

followed by dhcpcd fixes the problem. I knew to do channel 7 because that one had the highest signal quality according to iwlist wlan0 scan.

Last edited by ConnorBehan (2011-01-27 04:08:22)

drexl · 2011-01-27 12:59:01

To access the routers admin panel you type 192.168.1.1 into your browser. Since it's the schools router I would guess they have a password on it sorry, I kinda didn't read your question thoroughly. umm.. I can tell you how I connect, it's similar to the answer by whatshisname.

here is my script for wpa_supplicant:

# allow frontend (e.g., wpa_cli) to be used by all users in 'wheel' group
          ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=root
          #
          # home network; allow all valid ciphers
          network={
               ssid="school"   ### this should be the essid of your schools wireless connection # iwlist scan should find it for you
               scan_ssid=1
               key_mgmt=NONE
               
          }

so save this code under the filename wpa_supplicant.conf
then in your console type -Dwext -iwlan0 -c /path/to/wpa_supplicant.conf

after wpa_supplicant associates you with an access point then open another terminal and type dhcpcd - this should get you an ip address from the routers dhcp. there is another switch for wpa_supplicant to fork it into the background so you don't have to leave your terminal open but I can't remember that right now. it's in the man pages somewhere.

Last edited by drexl (2011-01-27 13:03:58)

Arch Linux

#26 2011-01-27 00:27:25

Re: Wifi not working with Arch, but it works in windows 7.

#27 2011-01-27 04:07:13

Re: Wifi not working with Arch, but it works in windows 7.

#28 2011-01-27 12:59:01

Re: Wifi not working with Arch, but it works in windows 7.

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