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#1 2008-04-27 14:19:50

dante4d
Member
From: Czech Republic
Registered: 2007-04-14
Posts: 176

[REOPENED] Weird netcfg2 behavior

Hi,

I'm experiencing weird network behavior with my home wireless network. I have to execute 'netcfg2 -c wifi' three times to connect. How I do it is logged here plus some ifconfig/iwconfig output.

If I use wired connection, dhcp works fine. Also, connecting wireless with different laptops (with Windows XP) works fine.

Edit: after writing above, I changed wireless channel to 9 and everything seems to work much better. I found these networks then. So, it's actually caused by wifi "pollution" - too many networks interfering?

David

Last edited by dante4d (2008-05-14 12:13:25)

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#2 2008-04-27 14:27:21

tigrmesh
IRC Op
From: Florida, US
Registered: 2007-12-11
Posts: 794

Re: [REOPENED] Weird netcfg2 behavior

Is the profile named 'wifi'?  Please post the profile.

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#3 2008-04-27 14:45:17

dante4d
Member
From: Czech Republic
Registered: 2007-04-14
Posts: 176

Re: [REOPENED] Weird netcfg2 behavior

tigrmesh wrote:

Is the profile named 'wifi'?  Please post the profile.

Sure, here:

[dante4d ~]$ cat /etc/network.d/wifi
CONNECTION="wireless"
DESCRIPTION="Home wifi WEP encrypted"
INTERFACE=wlan0
SCAN="yes"
SECURITY="wep"
ESSID="linksys"
KEY="266EBBB2527DAE75FFB832C893"
IP="dhcp"

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#4 2008-04-27 16:23:42

tigrmesh
IRC Op
From: Florida, US
Registered: 2007-12-11
Posts: 794

Re: [REOPENED] Weird netcfg2 behavior

If I were you, I would change the name of my network.  Any neighbor of yours who buys a linksys router and doesn't change its name is going to mess you up.  I wouldn't use STARNET either; too many people in your area already do.

Is net-profiles in the daemons line of your rc.conf?

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#5 2008-04-27 17:07:13

dante4d
Member
From: Czech Republic
Registered: 2007-04-14
Posts: 176

Re: [REOPENED] Weird netcfg2 behavior

tigrmesh wrote:

If I were you, I would change the name of my network.  Any neighbor of yours who buys a linksys router and doesn't change its name is going to mess you up.  I wouldn't use STARNET either; too many people in your area already do.

Yes, I know. But that's really minor issue as I would find out exactly at time my network would stop working. STARNET is local ISP who's polluting air with tons of their crappy wifi networks. As I said earlier, I changed to channel 9 and everything seems fine now.

tigrmesh wrote:

Is net-profiles in the daemons line of your rc.conf?

No it isn't. If understand correctly, you put it there if you want networking up at the boot time. I do 'netcfg2 -c wifi' manually when needed.

Usually what happens is I try to bring up wifi profile and it fails. Second time I do it, wlan0 is assigned essid of some other network (I have no idea why) and on the third go, it's assigned correctly and ip's assigned by dhcp. Since I changed my wifi channel to 9, it connects immediately, so it looks solved. I really could have changed it before, but no other interfering networks were visible, so I didn't mind that.

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#6 2008-04-27 17:34:26

tigrmesh
IRC Op
From: Florida, US
Registered: 2007-12-11
Posts: 794

Re: [REOPENED] Weird netcfg2 behavior

dante4d wrote:

I changed my wifi channel to 9

That's a great idea.  I should do that.

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#7 2008-04-28 17:35:50

dante4d
Member
From: Czech Republic
Registered: 2007-04-14
Posts: 176

Re: [REOPENED] Weird netcfg2 behavior

Actually, the problem is back here. The question is, what the hell can we do with ten wifi networks around? Probably nothing sad.

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#8 2008-04-28 20:06:33

zenlord
Member
From: Belgium
Registered: 2006-05-24
Posts: 1,221
Website

Re: [REOPENED] Weird netcfg2 behavior

Try with SCAN="no". AFAIK this is only needed when roaming. You know the ESSID of your network, so you shouldn't need to scan for it.

Zl.

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#9 2008-04-29 08:15:58

iphitus
Forum Fellow
From: Melbourne, Australia
Registered: 2004-10-09
Posts: 4,927

Re: [REOPENED] Weird netcfg2 behavior

zenlord wrote:

Try with SCAN="no". AFAIK this is only needed when roaming. You know the ESSID of your network, so you shouldn't need to scan for it.

Zl.

Disabling scan is only useful when it says "Network unavailable"

Scan is best left on (and is on by default). It checks if a network is available before connecting to it. When set to no, netcfg will blindly attempt to associate, failing only after a timeout (10 or 15 seconds default IIRC).

dante4d: What you're getting is fairly typical of either crap reception/interference or a driver bug. Most likely the first two given what you've said.

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#10 2008-05-01 16:57:22

dante4d
Member
From: Czech Republic
Registered: 2007-04-14
Posts: 176

Re: [REOPENED] Weird netcfg2 behavior

iphitus wrote:

dante4d: What you're getting is fairly typical of either crap reception/interference or a driver bug. Most likely the first two given what you've said.

Can I do something about it?

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#11 2008-05-05 03:13:30

unregistered
Member
Registered: 2008-04-09
Posts: 134

Re: [REOPENED] Weird netcfg2 behavior

dante4d wrote:
iphitus wrote:

dante4d: What you're getting is fairly typical of either crap reception/interference or a driver bug. Most likely the first two given what you've said.

Can I do something about it?

non overlapping channels in the 2.4GHz range include 1,6 and 11. Since from your scan here:
http://dante4d.cz/arch/wifi1.log
there are many people using channel 6 onwards in 2.4GHz band, you can try changing the channel of your router to 1.

Either that or you can try increasing the transmit power of your router or both or use a directional antenna on your computer to point to the router or vice versa or ..............................

Last edited by unregistered (2008-05-05 03:14:08)

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#12 2008-05-10 17:20:51

dante4d
Member
From: Czech Republic
Registered: 2007-04-14
Posts: 176

Re: [REOPENED] Weird netcfg2 behavior

unregistered wrote:
dante4d wrote:
iphitus wrote:

dante4d: What you're getting is fairly typical of either crap reception/interference or a driver bug. Most likely the first two given what you've said.

Can I do something about it?

non overlapping channels in the 2.4GHz range include 1,6 and 11. Since from your scan here:
http://dante4d.cz/arch/wifi1.log
there are many people using channel 6 onwards in 2.4GHz band, you can try changing the channel of your router to 1.

Either that or you can try increasing the transmit power of your router or both or use a directional antenna on your computer to point to the router or vice versa or ..............................

Ok, but I think my wifi would disconnect in case of overlapping channels more often, wouldn't it? My only problem is just that connection attempts fail twice each time. And I read on netcfg2 wiki that netcfg2 with iwl3945 and 128bit wep behaves similarly for the person who tested it.

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#13 2008-05-11 03:19:42

unregistered
Member
Registered: 2008-04-09
Posts: 134

Re: [REOPENED] Weird netcfg2 behavior

im not sure why the connection attempts fail twice, honestly, netcfg didn't work too well for me too but i think the reason was probably like yours, bad signal (My quality was something like 6/70). its strange that when i connect to the network manually using iwconfig, success rate was much better.

when you use a channel that is overlapping with another channel that has many clients on, there would be interference with the other clients (although lesser than what you'd get if you connected to the same channel as them), hence, your disconnection.

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#14 2008-05-13 16:32:24

dante4d
Member
From: Czech Republic
Registered: 2007-04-14
Posts: 176

Re: [REOPENED] Weird netcfg2 behavior

unregistered wrote:

im not sure why the connection attempts fail twice, honestly, netcfg didn't work too well for me too but i think the reason was probably like yours, bad signal (My quality was something like 6/70). its strange that when i connect to the network manually using iwconfig, success rate was much better.

when you use a channel that is overlapping with another channel that has many clients on, there would be interference with the other clients (although lesser than what you'd get if you connected to the same channel as them), hence, your disconnection.

Yes, I have some background knowledge. But, still...

Let's say we have overlaps. Then, if I even manage to connect, I would probably get disconnected often, wouldn't it?. But that doesn't happen. Also, connections work very well without WEP. It looks more like there's something ill with WEP for me.

I'll try to dedicate more time for this kind of things so I could also bring something instead of just asking questions...

EDIT: If you are intereseted, my 'iwlist scan wlan0' now:

wlan0     Scan completed :
          Cell 01 - Address: 00:13:64:22:B3:E5
                    ESSID:"LANET"
                    Mode:Master
                    Channel:6
                    Frequency:2.437 GHz (Channel 6)
                    Quality=76/100  Signal level=-58 dBm  Noise level=-68 dBm
                    Encryption key:on
                    IE: WPA Version 1
                        Group Cipher : TKIP
                        Pairwise Ciphers (1) : TKIP
                        Authentication Suites (1) : PSK
                    Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s; 22 Mb/s
                              6 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s; 12 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s; 24 Mb/s
                              36 Mb/s; 48 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s
                    Extra:tsf=0000002ecbc5a441
          Cell 02 - Address: 00:1A:70:9B:21:0A
                    ESSID:"linksys"
                    Mode:Master
                    Channel:9
                    Frequency:2.452 GHz (Channel 9)
                    Quality=97/100  Signal level=-29 dBm  Noise level=-67 dBm
                    Encryption key:on
                    Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s; 22 Mb/s
                              6 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s; 12 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s; 24 Mb/s
                              36 Mb/s; 48 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s
                    Extra:tsf=00000143bf32e8e8
          Cell 03 - Address: 00:0C:42:18:69:25
                    ESSID:"STARNET-30-681-10"
                    Mode:Master
                    Channel:52
                    Frequency:5.26 GHz (Channel 52)
                    Quality=80/100  Signal level=-76 dBm  Noise level=-108 dBm
                    Encryption key:off
                    Bit Rates:6 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s; 12 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s; 24 Mb/s
                              36 Mb/s; 48 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s
                    Extra:tsf=0000001d0a4d403a
          Cell 04 - Address: 00:1D:0F:E4:30:34
                    ESSID:"Nabrezi"
                    Mode:Master
                    Channel:6
                    Frequency:2.437 GHz (Channel 6)
                    Quality=46/100  Signal level=-81 dBm  Noise level=-68 dBm
                    Encryption key:on
                    Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s; 6 Mb/s
                              12 Mb/s; 24 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s
                              48 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s
                    Extra:tsf=00000006316e02dd
          Cell 05 - Address: 00:0E:8E:7B:2D:E1
                    ESSID:"peso_net"
                    Mode:Master
                    Channel:6
                    Frequency:2.437 GHz (Channel 6)
                    Quality=43/100  Signal level=-83 dBm  Noise level=-68 dBm
                    Encryption key:on
                    Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s; 6 Mb/s
                              12 Mb/s; 24 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s
                              48 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s
                    Extra:tsf=000000c7935d1ddc

So no dangerous channels it seems. Now the connection goes fine.

Last edited by dante4d (2008-05-13 16:37:37)

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#15 2008-05-14 09:47:50

unregistered
Member
Registered: 2008-04-09
Posts: 134

Re: [REOPENED] Weird netcfg2 behavior

for disconnection, its due to how bad the interference is, and other environmental factors also play a part, things which cause mainly things which cause refraction, diffraction and absorption.

as for me, im not sure why but netcfg2 seems not to be working as good as other tools like network manager or doing it manually although im quite sure that the settings are correct, in fact i managed to connect to a wep network once but it seems much easier to associate using other tools, anybody has any idea why?

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