RESOLVED! was: NetGear MA401, firmware 1.3.6, cannot use hostap mode, massive transmission errors, difficulty speaking to the rest of the network


From: PinkFreud (pf-hostap_at_mirkwood.net)
Date: 2002-09-13 06:15:37 UTC



I think I have figured this out. A buggy orinoco_cs driver in 2.4.18 seemed to be the cause of at least one of the problems I was experiencing (errors). I'm not sure if that's related to the laptop's refusal to find the hostap system.
I actually decided to go with the hostap driver on the laptop as well (using 9-12 on both ends now), and actually using the gateway in access point mode (laptop in managed mode) works.

One thing that I'm curious about, though:

When in ad-hoc mode (even with both sides using hostap), the laptop's ARP replies never make it out to the other end of the link. As soon as I got hostap mode working, this problem disappeared. Why is this?

On Wed, Sep 11, 2002 at 10:03:31PM -0400, PinkFreud babbled thus:
> Date: Wed, 11 Sep 2002 22:03:31 -0400
> From: PinkFreud <pf-hostap_at_mirkwood.net>
> To: hostap_at_lists.ssh.com
> Subject: NetGear MA401, firmware 1.3.6, cannot use hostap mode, massive transmission errors, difficulty speaking to the rest of the network
> Mail-Followup-To: hostap_at_lists.ssh.com
> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4i
>
> I'm using two NetGear MA401s, and seem to be having some difficulties.
> My gateway (a Digital Multia, P100) is using the HostAP driver and
> 2.4.19, as well as bridging eth0 (internal lan interface) and wlan0.
> My laptop is using 2.4.18's orinoco_cs driver.
>
> Problem #1. hostap mode fails to work. I'm starting off with open
> authentication (both WEP and ACL), and the two cards cannot seem to
> find the other when the gateway is in master mode, and the laptop is in
> managed mode.
>
> Problem #2. When using ad-hoc mode, my laptop can see the gateway and
> the internet. It cannot see the rest of my network. It looks like the
> laptop receives the ARP requests fine, and tries to send a response,
> which the gateway never receives for some reason.
>
> Problem #3. /proc/net/dev shows a large amount of errors - almost as
> many errors as packets transmitted on the gateway (none for received),
> and almost as many erorrs as packets received on the laptop (a few for
> transmitted, but nothing near the other two). At time of writing, the
> counters look like this:
>
> gateway:
> Receive (packets/errors): 12198/0
> Transmit (packets/errors): 7022/6821
>
> laptop:
> Receive (packets/errors): 21828/10878
> Transmit (packets/errors): 37662/628
>
> The numbers are off because I've reset the gateway's interface several
> times.
>
> wlan0 on the gateway is bound with an RTL 8139 into bridge br0 (the
> 8139 shows no errors).
>
> Any ideas why I seem to be experiencing these problems?

-- 

	Mike Edwards

Brainbench certified Master Linux Administrator
http://www.brainbench.com/transcript.jsp?pid=158188
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