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View Full Version : bug in linksys firmware??

dkii
11-12-2002, 07:10 PM
Ok.. I gotta screwy on for ya'll. This is my setup:

Cable modem connected to a
Linksys BEFW11S4 Wireless access point/nat/router/firewall/whatever

Have the linksys set to do standard nat and dhcp

Have a soekris running staros server with 2 lucents in it. One(wlan1) is set to infrastructure on the linksys(is a client to the linksys AP). The other(wlan2) is set to AP mode.

Linksys is handing out NATted ip's in 192.168.1.0/24 on the AP side, with its IP being 192.168.1.1

Have a default route of 0.0.0.0 to gateway 192.168.1.1 on wlan1 on the soekris. wlan1's IP is 192.168.1.220/24

wlan2's ip is 192.168.2.1/24. Also have dhcp running on wlan2 handing out ip's in 192.168.2.0/24 with a gateway of 192.168.2.1

Now this is where it gets wierd.

If I turn the nat on staros ON (masq from 192.168.2.0/24 to dev $net (wlan1)) then everything works fine. I can ping everthing and surf etc... no problemo. BUT I don't like the idea of double nat's running(staros and linksys). So, having my very limited knowledge of routing, I kept playing with numbers until I found something that worked.

I turned NAT off on the staros, left everything else the same. Went to the linksys, set up a static route with these settings:

Dest. lan ip: 192.168.2.0
Subnet: 255.255.255.0
Gateway: 192.168.1.1
Hop count: 1
Interface: LAN

And voila! everything works, I can ping everything, browse the web, etc... and no double nat! BUT only one problem. I can't browse to the linksys's web interface(192.168.1.1) I can ping it, kick it, do whatever I want to it, but I can't browse to it. Go figure?? So... that is my question, why can I ping and browse to the linksys with nat turned ON in staros, but with it turned off, I can only ping it. Everything else works either way.

My theories:

#1: Linksys ignores http requests from anything outside of the subnet it is controlling
#2: Linksys thinks 192.168.1.220 is requesting the info, instead of 192.168.2.x, thus sending it back to 192.168.1.220 and staros dumping it because it didn't ask for it.
#3(and most likely): Some screwy bug in the linksys's firmware.
#4: All the above

Now, I'm not stupid, this is not a production set up, I wouldn't be caught DEAD using a linksys in a real environment. This is just a test system that I set up so I can teach myself the ropes(routing, scripting etc...)

Any ideas? :roll:
lonnie
11-12-2002, 10:20 PM
Went to the linksys, set up a static route with these settings:

Dest. lan ip: 192.168.2.0
Subnet: 255.255.255.0
Gateway: 192.168.1.1
Hop count: 1
Interface: LAN

Any ideas? :roll:

The Gateway should be 192.168.1.220. The LinkSys has to be told which specific machine can see the 192.168.2.x subnet. You were close.
dkii
11-13-2002, 02:34 AM
ahh.. option #5: Someone doesn't know how to route ;) Interesting though that it still worked fine, i could browse, ping, etc... just couldn't browse to the linksys itself. Is the linksys wap11/wet11 bridge mode compatible with staros's bridge mode? Also I have 2 ap-1000's and 2 ror-1000's. are they any good to me at all? I can make the 2 ror's talk to each other, but thats about all I can figure they are good for. Any other uses for them besides paper weights?
lonnie
11-13-2002, 08:31 AM
I'm not sure what you mean by "is StarOS bridge mode compatibe". Bridge mode is a pseudo bridge for clients. It is a mode that was left out of the 802.11 MAC spec - it is only defined for AP mode.

So client bridge mode tries various tricks to simulate bridging, but in my view all get broken eventually.

Learn to route. It is not that difficult and you will never, ever regret using a routed design. It will be more reliable and much better performing, although the bridge spanning tree tries to separate the segments. It is better than nothing, but nothing is better than a router at doing that.
tony
11-13-2002, 08:46 AM
ahh.. option #5: Someone doesn't know how to route ;) Interesting though that it still worked fine, i could browse, ping, etc... just couldn't browse to the linksys itself. Is the linksys wap11/wet11 bridge mode compatible with staros's bridge mode? Also I have 2 ap-1000's and 2 ror-1000's. are they any good to me at all? I can make the 2 ror's talk to each other, but thats about all I can figure they are good for. Any other uses for them besides paper weights?

Yes, the WET11 is bridge mode compatible with StarOS AP, which can also be bridged or routed. The WAP11 is compatible with StarOS bridged clients.

Thanks
dkii
11-13-2002, 10:09 AM
I agree, routing is better and i'm learning it, but I am working for an ISP in illinois right now that has quite a bit of linksys and other wireless equipment that they want to do something with, and they don't want to come off of their wallets to get a bunch of star-os boxes, so I have to work with what they have. I already gave them the bridging speech, so I can say 'I told you so' later when it doesn't work very well :) Thanks guys.
dkii
11-23-2002, 06:58 PM
Ok. I have a wap11 here and I can't seem to get it to talk to star-os at all. I have tried access point client, and entering the mac address of the wireless card in the star-os box as the bss ID. I have the ssid and channels set properly. I also tried ptp bridge, and tried both the wireless mac address, and ether1's mac address as the preferred mac address, and I have set it to ptmp(no mac address entry) and non of the modes will allow me to ping the star-os box. I can use the card in my laptop and talk to the box without a problem. They are sitting right next to each other, so I know signal is not a problem. Any ideas?
tony
11-24-2002, 05:51 PM
What mode do you have your StarOS card set too, and what brand of card are you using? We have had no problems using Linksys WMP11 and WET11 clients with our APs. Our APs should work well with any WiFi client.

As a troubleshooting tactic, make sure you keep the AP security options disabled (such as the AP Stealth option). This option is supposed to be compatible with any WiFi client that does proper scan/join & authentication, but we've found that some clients take shortcuts that make them unable to associate. Somethat have been reported to not work are some Cisco bridge products, and original Linksys products (such as the WAP11, the WET11 works fine however)

Thanks!
dkii
11-24-2002, 07:23 PM
ahh.. I have the original wap11. would a firmware upgrade maybe fix it?
tony
11-24-2002, 08:00 PM
ahh.. I have the original wap11. would a firmware upgrade maybe fix it?

First thing to do is disable the stealth option (if you enabled it) to see if you are able to associate fine, at that point if you wish to keep using the stealth option, try a firmware upgrade on the WAP11.

Thanks!
dkii
11-24-2002, 08:59 PM
stealth is disabled. I have star-os running in regular AP mode with no wep and ibss relay disabled. I thought for sure the wap11 would associated with it set to access point client, but no-go.
tony
11-24-2002, 09:01 PM
What brand of wireless card are you using?
dkii
11-25-2002, 09:31 AM
Lucent
tony
11-25-2002, 09:39 AM
Lucent

Thank you,

Can you do me a favor any downgrade your AP to version 1.05i and see if you are able to work with the Linksys unit? Let me know what your results.

But.... before you try this, can you upgrade the firmware on your Linksys WAP11 first?
dkii
11-25-2002, 08:23 PM
ok.. Linksys unit was already at the latest firmware. After I downgraded to 1.05i, wap11 would work as an access point client, but not as a bridge. So I upped it back to 2832 and and tried it like that, and it worked also. I think I toasted the ver. of star-os I had on there before, it was showing several problems - if I clicked activate changes(even if there were no changes) I would loose wireless connectivity to the box until I rebooted it. Also if I clicked reboot, it would never reboot. I couldn't get it to go into upgrade mode either(wouldn't reboot) I had to pull the cf out and write it again. Anyways, 2832 is talking to the wap11 in client mode, which isn't too bad because i can just put a befsr11/41 on the other side of the wap11 and route through that, but by then I could of just bought another soekris :) any ideas on getting the wap11 to bridge to my star-os box?
tony
11-25-2002, 09:00 PM
Glad to see you got it going!

The WAP11 client bridge is propriatary to Linksys and is not compatible with anything. Linksys solved this with their WET11 units.

What kind of hardware are you using? I'm a little interested in the problem you mentioned regarding your reboot problems, etc. Do you continue to have those odd problems with the latest release?

Thanks!