BCM4306 connects to router using b43 but cannot connect to internet

Altay_H · 2009-02-15 19:52:02

I've been having some strange problems with my bcm4306 (Rev 3) wireless card. According to Linux Wireless I'm using the correct driver for my wireless card. I managed to set everything up correctly. The wireless light came on, I can scan networks using iwlist, I can connect to them with iwconfig, and I can obtain an IP address with dhcpcd. However, after setting all of that up I have a connection but no internet access.

What could be wrong? I've checked this from the router's end as well, and it acknowledges that my laptop has connected to it, so I've definitely established a connection. Could this mean my driver isn't installed correctly? It's strange to me that I can connect to a wireless network and obtain an IP address and still not have internet access.

Every time any program tries to access the internet it times out while trying to resolve the proxy. I'm sure the router is working correctly and that the proxy is set up correctly, but somehow I still can't connect to the internet via the router.

Does anyone have any idea what I might be doing wrong?

Here are some potentially relevant terminal commands:

$ iwlist wlan0 scanning
wlan0     Scan completed :
          Cell 01 - Address: 00:1C:10:8D:46:E4
                    ESSID:"Goats"
                    Mode:Master
                    Channel:1
                    Frequency:2.412 GHz (Channel 1)
                    Quality=46/100  Signal level:-76 dBm  Noise level=-65 dBm
                    Encryption key:off
                    IE: Unknown: 0005476F617473
                    IE: Unknown: 010882848B962430486C
                    IE: Unknown: 030101
                    IE: Unknown: 2A0104
                    IE: Unknown: 2F0104
                    IE: Unknown: 32040C121860
                    IE: Unknown: 2D1A1C181AFFFF000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
                    IE: Unknown: 3D1601001300000000000000000000000000000000000000
                    IE: Unknown: 7F0101
                    IE: Unknown: DD090010180202F4010000
                    IE: Unknown: DD180050F2020101000003A4000027A4000042435E0062322F00
                    IE: Unknown: DD1E00904C331C181AFFFF000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
                    IE: Unknown: DD1A00904C3401001300000000000000000000000000000000000000
                    Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s
                              24 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s; 6 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s
                              12 Mb/s; 48 Mb/s
                    Extra:tsf=0000000e2ecf8183
                    Extra: Last beacon: 90ms ago

$ iwconfig wlan0
wlan0     IEEE 802.11bg  ESSID:"Goats"  
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.412 GHz  Access Point: 00:1C:10:8D:46:E4   
          Bit Rate=1 Mb/s   Tx-Power=27 dBm   
          Retry min limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr=2352 B   
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=53/100  Signal level:-70 dBm  Noise level=-65 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

$ ifconfig wlan0
wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:90:4B:EB:3C:8A  
          inet addr:192.168.1.104  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::290:4bff:feeb:3c8a/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:61 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:13 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:8239 (8.0 Kb)  TX bytes:1626 (1.5 Kb)

Last edited by Altay_H (2009-02-15 19:55:32)

Altay_H · 2009-02-21 10:03:41

After a week of searching I found a potential solution, but I'm not sure it's relevant to me.
This thread discusses the same problem I'm having, and it was solved by "configuring wlan0 as a wireless device" in the firewall settings. I haven't installed a firewall in Arch, and it doesn't look like Arch comes with one by default, so this solution didn't lead anywhere.

Does Arch actually come with a firewall? If so, how can I configure it to allow my wlan0 device to connect? If not, why else could I be able to connect to the router but not able to have internet access? I know the router is working properly because I can connect to it with Windows or Ubuntu. How can I troubleshoot this problem?

Also, in case it's relevant, I connect to the internet via an http proxy server. However, when connected to the router I can't get internet access whether I use the proxy settings or not.

Thanks in advance for any help.

viga · 2009-02-21 16:58:41

Use network profiles to connect. take a look here: http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Network_Profiles

R00KIE · 2009-02-21 17:22:20

If you are dong it manually maybe you are forgetting something .... as I am lazy and using xfce I have been using wicd for all my wireless needs and it has been working perfectly with b43, ath5k and 8130too(wired) (two different notebooks).

Altay_H · 2009-02-21 20:40:21

viga wrote:

Use network profiles to connect. take a look here: http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Network_Profiles

When I use Network Profiles, it connects and obtains and IP address successfully, but I still have no internet access. Interestingly, if I try to connect to a network with WEP protection (with the proper settings, of course) it fails with the error "- DHCP IP lease attempt failed" which I can easily correct by running:

# dhcpcd wlan0

R00KIE wrote:

If you are dong it manually maybe you are forgetting something .... as I am lazy and using xfce I have been using wicd for all my wireless needs and it has been working perfectly with b43, ath5k and 8130too(wired) (two different notebooks).

I tried wicd and it worked in Xfce! However, it's only working for networks without WEP encryption. I'll test it out some more and see if I can get it to work. I don't particularly like wicd partly because it won't allow me to connect with both eth0 and wlan0 simultaneously.

I'd still like to know why I can't connect without Xfce though. I used the following steps to connect:

$ su
# ifconfig wlan0 up
# iwlist wlan0 scanning
# iwconfig wlan0 essid Goats
# dhcpcd

And obtained an IP address and a connection to the router. I'm sure it connects to the router because I can access the router when connected to it. What could I possibly be forgetting that wicd isn't? Thanks for the help.

viga · 2009-02-22 17:04:00

I use to have some issues when using wep encryption. Since i switched to wpa they went away. wap is more secure

thelucster · 2009-02-25 16:44:56

I installed Arch yesterday and was having exactly the same problem, I have the same card and am using the same driver, and using the latest version of Arch (2009.0). I found out today the issue, for some reason my ethernet was up (even though it wasn't connected) and this was the default route. Easily solved:

ifconfig eth0 down

Now I need to solved this problem, although thats a driver issue as I have had it on Gentoo and Ubuntu too...

Last edited by thelucster (2009-02-25 16:45:21)

arew264 · 2009-02-26 01:50:13

To the OP, could you post the output of `route`? Can you ping your router? Can you ping 208.67.222.222?

R00KIE · 2009-02-26 08:53:53

Are you sure you are using the right profile in wicd?
Also check around the web if your card supports encrypted networks or at least the type of encryption you are trying to use.

Altay_H · 2009-03-01 19:15:39

arew264 wrote:

To the OP, could you post the output of `route`? Can you ping your router? Can you ping 208.67.222.222?

# route
Kernel IP routing table
Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags Metric Ref    Use Iface
192.168.1.0     *               255.255.255.0   U     0      0        0 wlan0
10.24.0.0       *               255.255.0.0     U     0      0        0 eth0

No, I can't ping anyone regardless of whether or not I'm online. Even when I'm successfully connected to the internet via ethernet, I can't ping www.google.com.

I think the problem I'm having is related somehow to the http proxy I need to use. When I left campus and I had no trouble connecting to my home wireless network which does not require a proxy.

R00KIE wrote:

Are you sure you are using the right profile in wicd?
Also check around the web if your card supports encrypted networks or at least the type of encryption you are trying to use.

I don't know what you mean by "the right profile". The only profile setting I saw in wicd-client regarding profiles was the wired network's default profile which I have set to "wired-default". Also, wicd is no longer working for me. It obtains IP addresses successfully, but still not internet connection unless I'm wired.
I know my wireless card supports encryption because I've successfully used encrypted networks with it before.

Last edited by Altay_H (2009-03-01 20:09:07)

arew264 · 2009-03-01 19:19:53

Yes, the proxy is the problem.
Is it a transparent proxy (IE it filters traffic without you knowing it) or do you have to set it up manually?

Your route output didn't list a default gateway, which means that when you try to ping anything that's not on your network, the kernel doesn't know where to send it. If you have a transparent proxy, you can just use `route add default gw xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx` to add a default gateway. If you need to put in proxy settings, that depends on what application you're using.

Altay_H · 2009-03-01 20:12:59

arew264 wrote:

Yes, the proxy is the problem.
Is it a transparent proxy (IE it filters traffic without you knowing it) or do you have to set it up manually?

I must set it up manually. I've set the proxy settings in each program that connects to the internet (wget, firefox, pidgin, etc.).

arew264 wrote:

Your route output didn't list a default gateway, which means that when you try to ping anything that's not on your network, the kernel doesn't know where to send it. If you have a transparent proxy, you can just use `route add default gw xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx` to add a default gateway. If you need to put in proxy settings, that depends on what application you're using.

Can you explain this more thoroughly? What do you mean by "which application I'm using"? What IP address do I set as the default gateway? I don't have a static IP.

R00KIE · 2009-03-01 20:57:19

By profiles I mean when you go to the advanced settings of your wireless connection and select the type of encryption / authentication scheme for the network you are trying to connect to but if it can connect then something else must be wrong .... no idea of what it might be though.

arew264 · 2009-03-01 22:58:29

Altay_H wrote:

arew264 wrote:
Yes, the proxy is the problem.
Is it a transparent proxy (IE it filters traffic without you knowing it) or do you have to set it up manually?
I must set it up manually. I've set the proxy settings in each program that connects to the internet (wget, firefox, pidgin, etc.).
arew264 wrote:
Your route output didn't list a default gateway, which means that when you try to ping anything that's not on your network, the kernel doesn't know where to send it. If you have a transparent proxy, you can just use `route add default gw xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx` to add a default gateway. If you need to put in proxy settings, that depends on what application you're using.
Can you explain this more thoroughly? What do you mean by "which application I'm using"? What IP address do I set as the default gateway? I don't have a static IP.

optionsarr[i .. (i + optionsarr[i + 1] + 1)]
When a normal computer gets on the internet, it really has no idea where google.com is. It just has a "default gateway" that it sends packets to when they're supposed to go somewhere else. For example, when my computer (10.0.0.100) wants to send a computer to 10.0.0.101, it knows to just send a packet straight out and that the other computer will get it because they're on the same network.
When I want to send a packet to 208.67.222.222.... What network is that? How the heck do I get there? A normal computer doesn't know, so it just sends the packet to the default gateway, which relays it through other gateways until it reaches the target computer.

Your computer doesn't have a default gateway, which means it doesn't know where to send packets to computers that aren't on your network. If you have a proxy server that IS on your network, it's no problem because the proxy server will relay the packets for you (it probably has a default gateway, incidentally).

So... is your proxy server on your network? Should you have a default gateway?

Altay_H · 2009-03-02 10:00:25

arew264 wrote:

Your computer doesn't have a default gateway, which means it doesn't know where to send packets to computers that aren't on your network. If you have a proxy server that IS on your network, it's no problem because the proxy server will relay the packets for you (it probably has a default gateway, incidentally).

I see.

arew264 wrote:

So... is your proxy server on your network? Should you have a default gateway?

I suppose the proxy server is on my network when I'm connected directly to the network via ethernet. However, if I connect indirectly by connecting a wireless router to the network and my computer to the router then the proxy isn't directly in my LAN? I'm still not sure what to set the default gateway to. Would it be the router's local IP address?

Just to clarify, I'm currently on a college campus. The college has set its servers up in such a way that we must connect to its proxy server to be allowed access to the internet. Therefore any outbound connections must go through the campus proxy.

arew264 · 2009-03-02 13:34:46

The default gateway is normally the router, so yes, you would set it to the router's IP address.
If you have to explicitly set up a proxy server, it probably means that when you're on the network normally, you shouldn't have a default gateway, but while you're on a wireless network that uses a different set of IP addresses, you should set the router as the default gateway.

The reason one isn't being set is probably that the kernel isn't sure what to set it to because you have eth0 and wlan0 both connected to different networks.

Arch Linux

#1 2009-02-15 19:52:02

BCM4306 connects to router using b43 but cannot connect to internet

#2 2009-02-21 10:03:41

Re: BCM4306 connects to router using b43 but cannot connect to internet

#3 2009-02-21 16:58:41

Re: BCM4306 connects to router using b43 but cannot connect to internet

#4 2009-02-21 17:22:20

Re: BCM4306 connects to router using b43 but cannot connect to internet

#5 2009-02-21 20:40:21

Re: BCM4306 connects to router using b43 but cannot connect to internet

#6 2009-02-22 17:04:00

Re: BCM4306 connects to router using b43 but cannot connect to internet

#7 2009-02-25 16:44:56

Re: BCM4306 connects to router using b43 but cannot connect to internet

#8 2009-02-26 01:50:13

Re: BCM4306 connects to router using b43 but cannot connect to internet

#9 2009-02-26 08:53:53

Re: BCM4306 connects to router using b43 but cannot connect to internet

#10 2009-03-01 19:15:39

Re: BCM4306 connects to router using b43 but cannot connect to internet

#11 2009-03-01 19:19:53

Re: BCM4306 connects to router using b43 but cannot connect to internet

#12 2009-03-01 20:12:59

Re: BCM4306 connects to router using b43 but cannot connect to internet

#13 2009-03-01 20:57:19

Re: BCM4306 connects to router using b43 but cannot connect to internet

#14 2009-03-01 22:58:29

Re: BCM4306 connects to router using b43 but cannot connect to internet

#15 2009-03-02 10:00:25

Re: BCM4306 connects to router using b43 but cannot connect to internet

#16 2009-03-02 13:34:46

Re: BCM4306 connects to router using b43 but cannot connect to internet

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