From: Povl H. Pedersen (pope_at_home.terminal.dk)
Date: 2002-05-26 14:44:07 UTC
Hi,
I just want to send my feedback about my not-so-good experiences with the NetGear MA301/MA401 combo (PLX301 is the PLX adapter).
I have been doing my tests with Mandrake 8.2 + kernel 2.4.18 as the server, and a Windows 2000 machine as the client.
I can get the client to register to the AP, both in Ad-Hoc mode and in Master mode. So far so good.
But this is where all the trouble starts. After I have the connection up, I can't get any further. If I try to ping, my Windows box will see traffic, but I can't ping any end. And the AP will get TX errors on about 10% of the packets sent.
The Windows box sees about 600 bytes/second idle traffic all the time.
tcpdump on the AP sees the arp requests it is sending, as well as any other traffic sent by the Windows box. So it seems like it is the transmit that does not work.
Can anybody help me get this stuff working ? Thanks in advance
What I do to load stuff on boot is this:
modprobe wlan0
iwconfig wlan0 essid "test" nick "linux" \
key s:password [2] open channel 3
ifconfig wlan0 192.168.0.1 netmask 255.255.255.0
And in /etc/modules.conf I have
alias wlan0 hostap_plx
I end up having the following settings:
[root_at_home root]# iwconfig wlan0
Warning : Device wlan0 has been compiled with version 13
of Wireless Extension, while we are using version 12.
Some things may be broken...
wlan0 IEEE 802.11-DS ESSID:"test" Nickname:"linux"
Mode:Master Frequency:2.422GHz Access Point: 00:30:AB:11:62:E8
Bit Rate:2Mb/s Tx-Power:-8 dBm Sensitivity=1/3
Retry min limit:8 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0
And I have the following in syslog:
May 26 13:58:22 home kernel: hostap_plx: hostap_plx.c 0.0.0 2002-05-19 (SSH Communications Security Corp, Jouni Malinen) May 26 13:58:22 home kernel: hostap_plx: (c) SSH Communications Security Corp <jkm_at_ssh.com> May 26 13:58:22 home kernel: PCI: Found IRQ 11 for device 00:09.0 May 26 13:58:22 home kernel: PCI: Sharing IRQ 11 with 00:0e.0 May 26 13:58:22 home kernel: PLX9052 PCI/PCMCIA adapter: mem=0xdb00d000, plx_io=0xa000, irq=11, pccard_io=0xa400 May 26 13:58:22 home kernel: hostap_plx: CIS: 01 03 00 00 ff 17 ... May 26 13:58:22 home kernel: hostap_plx: manfid=0x0156, 0x0002 May 26 13:58:22 home kernel: hostap_plx: cor_index=0x1 cor_offset=0x3e0 May 26 13:58:22 home kernel: Prism2/2.5 PC Card detected in PLX adapter May 26 13:58:22 home kernel: PLX_INTCSR=0x1001 May 26 13:58:22 home kernel: PLX_CNTRL=0x100066d2 (Serial EEPROM present=1) May 26 13:58:22 home kernel: hostap_plx: Registered netdevice wlan0 May 26 13:58:22 home kernel: prism2_hw_init() May 26 13:58:22 home kernel: prism2_hw_config: initialized in 8999 iterations May 26 13:58:22 home kernel: wlan0: NIC: id=0x8008 v1.0.0 May 26 13:58:22 home kernel: wlan0: PRI: id=0x15 v0.3.0 May 26 13:58:22 home kernel: wlan0: STA: id=0x1f v1.3.4 May 26 13:58:22 home /sbin/hotplug: no runnable /etc/hotplug/net.agent is installed May 26 13:58:22 home kernel: wlan0: INFO - fid=0x01dd - len=2 type=0xf200 May 26 13:58:22 home kernel: LinkStatus=2 (Disconnected) May 26 13:58:22 home kernel: wlan0: INFO - fid=0x01de - len=2 type=0xf200 May 26 13:58:22 home kernel: LinkStatus=2 (Disconnected) May 26 13:58:22 home kernel: wlan0: INFO - fid=0x01df - len=2 type=0xf200 May 26 13:58:22 home kernel: LinkStatus=2 (Disconnected) May 26 13:58:22 home kernel: wlan0: INFO - fid=0x01e0 - len=2 type=0xf200 May 26 13:58:22 home kernel: LinkStatus=2 (Disconnected) May 26 13:58:22 home kernel: wlan0: prism2_open May 26 13:58:24 home kernel: wlan0: authentication: 00:30:ab:17:0a:6c len=6, auth_alg=0, auth_transaction=1, status_code=0, fc=0x08b0 May 26 13:58:24 home kernel: wlan0: new STA 00:30:ab:17:0a:6c May 26 13:58:24 home kernel: wlan0: TXEXC - fid=0x0120 - status=0x0001 ([RetryErr]) tx_control=000c May 26 13:58:24 home kernel: retry_count=0 tx_rate=0 fc=0x08b0 (Mgmt::11) May 26 13:58:24 home kernel: addr1=00:30:ab:17:0a:6c addr2=00:30:ab:11:62:e8 addr3=00:30:ab:11:62:e8 May 26 13:58:24 home kernel: wlan0: association request: from 00:30:ab:17:0a:6c to 00:30:ab:11:62:e8 len=16 May 26 13:58:24 home kernel: capability=0x0021, listen_interval=1 - new AID 1 May 26 13:58:24 home kernel: wlan0: TXEXC - fid=0x0135 - status=0x0001 ([RetryErr]) tx_control=000c May 26 13:58:24 home kernel: retry_count=0 tx_rate=0 fc=0x0810 (Mgmt::1) May 26 13:58:24 home kernel: addr1=00:30:ab:17:0a:6c addr2=00:30:ab:11:62:e8 addr3=00:30:ab:11:62:e8 May 26 13:58:24 home kernel: wlan0: STA 00:30:ab:17:0a:6c TX rate lowered to 55
And this is some of the additional entries I get from time to time in syslog:
May 26 14:05:26 home kernel: wlan0: TXEXC - fid=0x00f1 - status=0x0001 ([RetryErr]) tx_control=000c May 26 14:05:26 home kernel: retry_count=0 tx_rate=55 fc=0x0a08 (Data::0) May 26 14:05:26 home kernel: addr1=00:30:ab:17:0a:6c addr2=00:30:ab:11:62:e8 addr3=00:30:ab:11:62:e8 May 26 14:05:26 home kernel: wlan0: STA 00:30:ab:17:0a:6c TX rate lowered to 20 May 26 14:05:41 home kernel: wlan0: TXEXC - fid=0x048b - status=0x0001 ([RetryErr]) tx_control=000c May 26 14:05:41 home kernel: retry_count=0 tx_rate=20 fc=0x0a08 (Data::0) May 26 14:05:41 home kernel: addr1=00:30:ab:17:0a:6c addr2=00:30:ab:11:62:e8 addr3=00:30:ab:11:62:e8 May 26 14:05:41 home kernel: wlan0: STA 00:30:ab:17:0a:6c TX rate lowered to 10 A typical output from iwspy gives me: wlan0 Statistics collected:
00:30:AB:17:0A:6C : Quality:8/92 Signal level:-80 dBm Noise level:-97 dBm (updated) typical/average : Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0
The PC side lists quality as excellent most of the time. Values from 80 - 100%.
Some output of tcpdump:
16:40:20.000145 arp who-has 192.168.0.1 tell 192.168.0.2 16:40:20.000156 arp reply 192.168.0.1 is-at 0:30:ab:11:62:e8 16:40:20.000430 arp who-has 192.168.0.1 tell 192.168.0.2 16:40:20.418560 192.168.0.2.138 > 192.168.0.255.138:DestName=
>>> NBT UDP PACKET(138) Res=0x1102 ID=0x8062 IP=192 (0xc0).168 (0xa8).0 (0x0).2 (0x2) Port=138 (0x8a) Length=193 (0xc1) Res2=0x0SourceName=TERMPC NameType=0x00 (Workstation)
-- Povl H. Pedersen - Use 2 letters from first+last name to form username_at_home.terminal.dk This article was written without the use of Micros~1 Windows