wlan0 doesn't exist, network works fine, no web

[Atokad]

Okay, I'm the ultra-noob, but usually pretty good at find my backside with both hands and a flashlight;)

Two days ago, installed Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy), and LOVED it (even the steepish learning curve) on my laptop (specs below).

Today, I learn there's a specific Ubuntu for media creation, etc, called UbuntuStudio 8.04, so I went ahead and installed it.

The Broadcom Driver worked fine for my system (without NDISWrapper), during the Vanilla Ubuntu work, so I expected things to be fine in UbuntuStudio.

Now, the funny things and questions:
1) Why is it I've been able to set up all my automounts/shares, etc, and can access them perfectly FINE with my wireless card... but CANNOT get to any web page in Firefox?

2)Why does my wlan0 tell me "interface does not exist", when I try to configure it?
I don't think I need to go through the NDISWRAPPER issue, as it was working fine earlier.

Any suggestions, please and thanks?!?

Laptop:
Dell Vostro 1500 Laptop (2GB/160/Broadcom/yadda)
(yes, the Broadcom wireless, but its doing its thing fine?)

Router is a NetGear FM114p, and appears tro be doing everythiung fine.

O/S is Dual-Boot WinXP and UbuntuStudio 8.04

I know its not giving you much to work with, yet, but I assume you'll have me type a few commands and reply with the results. I'm willing to "work the problem"... just a little dazed that I can read anything through the network, except the internet!

Dave

[pytheas22]

It could be a DNS problem or something weird going on with the network. Please post the output of these commands:


iwconfig
ifconfig
host google.com
wget google.com
wget 64.233.187.99

These should help narrow down the problem.

[Atokad]

Thanx for the quick reply pytheas!
Sorry for the wait (had to let the failures timeout).

Here's the results of your code lines:
---------------------------------------------------
me@MyComp:~$ iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

wmaster0 no wireless extensions.

wlan0 IEEE 802.11g ESSID:"CapnBlyOne"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.457 GHz Access Point: 00:09:5B:2D:1E:F6
Bit Rate=11 Mb/s Tx-Power=27 dBm
Retry min limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr=2346 B
Link Quality=96/100 Signal level=-37 dBm Noise level=-69 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

-------------------------------------------------------------

me@MyComp:~$ ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:1d:09:c2:57:7a
inet addr:192.168.0.6 Bcast:192.168.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::21d:9ff:fec2:577a/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1492 Metric:1
RX packets:22 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:14 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:2911 (2.8 KB) TX bytes:1812 (1.7 KB)
Interrupt:17

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:1834 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:1834 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:93634 (91.4 KB) TX bytes:93634 (91.4 KB)

wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:1e:4c:46:68:fa
inet addr:192.168.0.5 Bcast:192.168.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::21e:4cff:fe46:68fa/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1492 Metric:1
RX packets:2251 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:2236 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:1101097 (1.0 MB) TX bytes:299881 (292.8 KB)

wmaster0 Link encap:UNSPEC HWaddr 00-1E-4C-46-68-FA-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

-----------------------------------------------------

me@MyComp:~$ host google.com
;; connection timed out; no servers could be reached
dave@BlyBook:~$ wget google.com
--16:24:19-- http://google.com/
=> `index.html'
Resolving google.com... failed: Name or service not known.

--------------------------------------------------------

me@MyComp:~$ wget 64.223.187.99
--16:25:33-- http://64.223.187.99/
=> `index.html'
Connecting to 64.223.187.99:80... failed: Connection timed out.
Retrying.

-----------------------------------------

Any clues in there?

[pytheas22]

Yes, it does look like a DNS issue. What does:


cat /etc/resolv.conf

tell you?

And do you know the IP addresses for your DNS servers? These should be supplied by your ISP, or if you have Windows computers on your network, use the ipconfig /all command and it should show you the DNS server addresses somewhere in the output.

[Atokad]

Really appreciate your help, here!

The "cat" line results in:
"No such file or Directory"

Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.

C:\Documents and Settings\xxxxxxxxx>ipconfig /all

Windows IP Configuration

Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : capnbly
Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Unknown
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
DNS Suffix Search List. . . . . . : rochester.rr.com

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : rochester.rr.com
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Realtek RTL8168/8111 PCI-E Gigabit E
thernet NIC
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-18-F3-63-AC-C5
Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.3
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.1
DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.1
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 24.92.226.40
24.92.226.41
24.92.226.9
Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : Thursday, July 03, 2008 3:06:25 PM
Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : Sunday, July 06, 2008 3:06:25 PM
-------------------------------

I owe you one, one day when I'm gooder at this ;)

[Atokad]

The fresh data is from rebooting the router, earlier.
It's a NetGear FM114P, and I'm using 128-bit WEP on the WLAN
(rest of machines are LAN)

Dave

[Atokad]

While browsing some Forums I stumbled across a link that shows how to set DNS Servers to something other than the standard ISP ones.

http://prash-babu.blogspot.com/2008/04/how-to-configure-dns-servers-in-linux.html

Anyway, I told myself I'd go have a peek at that file (and swore I'd not touch anything until I heard back from you, lol)...

Here's what I found
(contents of /etc/dhcp3/dhclient.conf)

request subnet-mask, broadcast-address, time-offset, routers, domain-name, domain-name-servers, host-name, ntp-servers;

A little odd to have a config file all blanks, isn't it?

Thought maybe the info would help you helping me.

I'll be nearby ;)

[pytheas22]

A little odd to have a config file all blanks, isn't it?

No, actually mine is blank too, so I guess it's supposed to be that way. But to be honest I'm not sure what that file is for.

What I do know for sure is that there's a problem if /etc/resolv.conf doesn't exist; that's where Ubuntu looks to figure out how it should resolve domain names (i.e., figure out which IP addresses "google.com" represents). Try creating it and entering the right information:


sudo gedit /etc/resolv.conf

A blank file will open. Add in the line:


nameserver 24.92.226.40

Then save the file and run the command:


/etc/init.d/networking restart

and see if you can use the Web (you may need to reconnect to your wireless network first).

[Atokad]

pytheas...

as my mom said, "When you're good, it ain't braggin'!"

Well Done, Man! It worked right off, then I've just made it survive a reboot just to double-check... seems fine and dandy.

Is there more left we need to take care of?
If so, I'm here.

If you want to explain any of what you did (I'm already hip to sudo, gedit, and basics), I'd be glad to learn more.

If not, or you're busy helping somebody else out (or having a life), I'm sure I'll run into you again.

Many Thanks

Dave

[chili555]

request subnet-mask, broadcast-address, time-offset, routers, domain-name, domain-name-servers, host-name, ntp-servers;These are not 'empty.' They tell the DHCP process to retrieve all those things from the DHCP server, generally your router or access point. So, when 'sudo dhclient wlan0' runs, dhclient is supposed to grab DNS servers. Did you get
inet addr:192.168.0.5via DHCP or did you set up a static IP address? Static assumes the user will provide the DNS server addresses, not the router.

[Atokad]

Roger on the "emtpy" (thought maybe that was the "request" idea, Chili.

That IP is via DHCP (let the router pick), as my router has static ability on LAN, but not WAN (or I've not found it).

Dave

[pytheas22]

As for what I did:

I just had you tell the system which server to connect to for resolving domain names. Usually it figures that out automatically, although I'm not sure how--as per chili555's comments, it sounds like maybe that's where /etc/dhcp3/dhclient.conf comes in. But in your case it didn't know where the DNS servers were for whatever reason. So you opened the file that's supposed to tell Ubuntu where to look for DNS servers, /etc/resolv.conf. And you added the line to tell it that there is a DNS server (aka nameserver) at the IP address 24.92.226.40. The /etc/init.d/networking restart command just refreshes your networking to that the new settings could take effect--a reboot of the computer would have done the same thing, but this isn't Windows, so we try not to reboot every other time we click the mouse:)

Anyway, I'm glad it's fixed, and have fun with Ubuntu.