Dlink 2100AP bridge mode setup question

Hi All,

I have 2 x Dlink 2100Ap which I have setup as bridge mode. Wireless link is
always up, no problem there but internet on the remote computer works for
3-4 mins then doesn't work. Link is ok as I can log in via VNC and still get
screen updates even when internet stops responding.

The fact that I can browse internet and log into vnc on remote computer
makes me think bridge is set up correctly. Other setup guides talk about the
difference between LAN Mac address and wireless. The only Mac address I can
find seems to be the one for both LAN AND wireless...surely this doesn't
make sense but it does seem to work.

I am connecting into an ADSL router, I've heard there can be issues there
with multiple connections.

Anyone offer some thoughts?

Thanks
Jac

On Thu, 26 Aug 2004 22:06:51 +0800, "Jac" <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

>I have 2 x Dlink 2100Ap which I have setup as bridge mode. Wireless link is
>always up, no problem there but internet on the remote computer works for
>3-4 mins then doesn't work. Link is ok as I can log in via VNC and still get
>screen updates even when internet stops responding.

What firmware version?
Are you using Super-G at both ends?
Do you have "802.11g mode only" on or off?
http://support.dlink.com/techtool/dw...WLanParam.html

I've found that playing with these two settings tends to stabilize a
point to point link. The problem is caused by RF intereference
causing a momentary dropout and the access point taking forever
(several seconds) to recover. It seems the Super-G mode is rather
susceptible to this effect. However, even with Super-G turned off,
the 802.11g mode will do the same thing if it hears an 802.11b signal.
Yeah, I know you paid for 108mbits/sec of mythical performance, but
perhaps slowing things down a bit might improve stability.

There seems to be some confusion as to whether the link is "up" and
whether it's able to pass traffic. There are far too many boxes and
software layers between you and the internet. Time for some
simplification.

Open an MSDOS window on your unpsecified Windoze mutation and run:
ping -t ip_address_of_the_DWL-2100AP_on_the_other_end
This will give a continuous display of the connectivity to the
DWL-2100AP over the link and will eliminate any involvement of your
unspecified model router. The internet could die completely, and you
would still show a connection.

Then, try to determine where the internet stop responding. Try
pinging the IP address of the router. If that stays up but the
internet is still going up and down, try pinging your ISP's gateway IP
address. At some point, something will show packet loss. That's
where the problem is buried.

One catch is that it's difficult to spot lost packets with Microsloth
ping. That's because they don't number their packets. Find, download
and use instead "fping", which properly numbers the packets.
http://www.snapfiles.com/get/fping.html

>The fact that I can browse internet and log into vnc on remote computer
>makes me think bridge is set up correctly.

Good assumption. Now prove it with ping.

>Other setup guides talk about the
>difference between LAN Mac address and wireless. The only Mac address I can
>find seems to be the one for both LAN AND wireless...surely this doesn't
>make sense but it does seem to work.

Try:
apr -a
to see the MAC addresses your computer knows about. You may have to
ping the device first in order to populate the arp cache and display
the MAC addresses. On a bridged system, you'll see the MAC address of
every device that has an IP address. Therefore, you'll see both your
DWL-2100AP bridges, your unspecified router, and nothing else.

>I am connecting into an ADSL router, I've heard there can be issues there
>with multiple connections.

Any reason to not disclose the make and model? Such "issues" tend to
follow specific models.

>Anyone offer some thoughts?

--
Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 AE6KS 831-336-2558

"Jeff Liebermann" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> On Thu, 26 Aug 2004 22:06:51 +0800, "Jac" <(E-Mail Removed)>
> wrote:

> What firmware version?
> Are you using Super-G at both ends?
> Do you have "802.11g mode only" on or off?
>
http://support.dlink.com/techtool/dw...WLanParam.html

Thanks again for your response Jeff.

There is only the 1.01eu ( European) revision available. I am running with
all super G off and have manually set the points to "1 Mbps" as I'm only
interested in sharing the net. I am probably still in "G mode" though.

>
> There seems to be some confusion as to whether the link is "up" and
> whether it's able to pass traffic. There are far too many boxes and
> software layers between you and the internet. Time for some
> simplification.

Traffic always passes as when the internet no longer works on the remote
machine, I still get the VNC screen updates. As a matter of interest going
to channel 11 gave me better performance (the mouse cursor was smoother in
VNC even though I was still limiting connection to 1Mbps) and the internet
stayed up for 10 mins before dropping. I can't believe that internet traffic
would be more susceptible to interference. It's all just packets right?

>
> Open an MSDOS window on your unpsecified Windoze mutation and run:
> ping -t ip_address_of_the_DWL-2100AP_on_the_other_end
> This will give a continuous display of the connectivity to the
> DWL-2100AP over the link and will eliminate any involvement of your
> unspecified model router. The internet could die completely, and you
> would still show a connection.

I used Hostalive on the remote machine to ping the other bridge on the
router side every 5 seconds. Out of about 4000 attempts yesterday, 3900 or
so where successful. Thats over 5 hours or so. connection was dropping out
to net every 2-3 mins. keep retrying and it would come back. I will try the
above today though to compare results.
>
> Then, try to determine where the internet stop responding. Try
> pinging the IP address of the router. If that stays up but the
> internet is still going up and down, try pinging your ISP's gateway IP
> address. At some point, something will show packet loss. That's
> where the problem is buried.

when I can't get internet, I also can't ping the ADSL router 192.168.0.1
(Netgear DG834) but i can ping the computer attached to the router
192.168.0.2 as well as both bridges 0.50 and 0.51. This is all from the
remote computer 0.100

I thought this might mean its some sort of routing issue.

>
> One catch is that it's difficult to spot lost packets with Microsloth
> ping. That's because they don't number their packets. Find, download
> and use instead "fping", which properly numbers the packets.
> http://www.snapfiles.com/get/fping.html
>
> >The fact that I can browse internet and log into vnc on remote computer
> >makes me think bridge is set up correctly.
>
> Good assumption. Now prove it with ping.
>
> >Other setup guides talk about the
> >difference between LAN Mac address and wireless. The only Mac address I
can
> >find seems to be the one for both LAN AND wireless...surely this doesn't
> >make sense but it does seem to work.
>
> Try:
> apr -a
> to see the MAC addresses your computer knows about. You may have to
> ping the device first in order to populate the arp cache and display
> the MAC addresses. On a bridged system, you'll see the MAC address of
> every device that has an IP address. Therefore, you'll see both your
> DWL-2100AP bridges, your unspecified router, and nothing else.

When i can remotely fire my machine up I'll try that apr -a and ping -t and
let you know.
>
> >I am connecting into an ADSL router, I've heard there can be issues there
> >with multiple connections.
>
> Any reason to not disclose the make and model? Such "issues" tend to
> follow specific models.

Netgear DG834 ADSL modem and router integrated.

Thanks, as always.....

>
> >Anyone offer some thoughts?
>
> --
> Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
> 150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
> Santa Cruz CA 95060 AE6KS 831-336-2558

I've just setup that hostalive on teh remote machine to ping both the bridge
attached to the router and the router itself. the brdige pins always respond
but never the router ping. I could ping the router a few times in cmd prompt
but after that, no good either. must be some sort of damn setup issue. I've
set the gateway on the remote machinen to the router, could that be casuing
issues?

Thanks
Jac



"Jeff Liebermann" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> On Thu, 26 Aug 2004 22:06:51 +0800, "Jac" <(E-Mail Removed)>
> wrote:
>
> >I have 2 x Dlink 2100Ap which I have setup as bridge mode. Wireless link
is
> >always up, no problem there but internet on the remote computer works for
> >3-4 mins then doesn't work. Link is ok as I can log in via VNC and still
get
> >screen updates even when internet stops responding.
>
> What firmware version?
> Are you using Super-G at both ends?
> Do you have "802.11g mode only" on or off?
>
http://support.dlink.com/techtool/dw...WLanParam.html
>
> I've found that playing with these two settings tends to stabilize a
> point to point link. The problem is caused by RF intereference
> causing a momentary dropout and the access point taking forever
> (several seconds) to recover. It seems the Super-G mode is rather
> susceptible to this effect. However, even with Super-G turned off,
> the 802.11g mode will do the same thing if it hears an 802.11b signal.
> Yeah, I know you paid for 108mbits/sec of mythical performance, but
> perhaps slowing things down a bit might improve stability.
>
> There seems to be some confusion as to whether the link is "up" and
> whether it's able to pass traffic. There are far too many boxes and
> software layers between you and the internet. Time for some
> simplification.
>
> Open an MSDOS window on your unpsecified Windoze mutation and run:
> ping -t ip_address_of_the_DWL-2100AP_on_the_other_end
> This will give a continuous display of the connectivity to the
> DWL-2100AP over the link and will eliminate any involvement of your
> unspecified model router. The internet could die completely, and you
> would still show a connection.
>
> Then, try to determine where the internet stop responding. Try
> pinging the IP address of the router. If that stays up but the
> internet is still going up and down, try pinging your ISP's gateway IP
> address. At some point, something will show packet loss. That's
> where the problem is buried.
>
> One catch is that it's difficult to spot lost packets with Microsloth
> ping. That's because they don't number their packets. Find, download
> and use instead "fping", which properly numbers the packets.
> http://www.snapfiles.com/get/fping.html
>
> >The fact that I can browse internet and log into vnc on remote computer
> >makes me think bridge is set up correctly.
>
> Good assumption. Now prove it with ping.
>
> >Other setup guides talk about the
> >difference between LAN Mac address and wireless. The only Mac address I
can
> >find seems to be the one for both LAN AND wireless...surely this doesn't
> >make sense but it does seem to work.
>
> Try:
> apr -a
> to see the MAC addresses your computer knows about. You may have to
> ping the device first in order to populate the arp cache and display
> the MAC addresses. On a bridged system, you'll see the MAC address of
> every device that has an IP address. Therefore, you'll see both your
> DWL-2100AP bridges, your unspecified router, and nothing else.
>
> >I am connecting into an ADSL router, I've heard there can be issues there
> >with multiple connections.
>
> Any reason to not disclose the make and model? Such "issues" tend to
> follow specific models.
>
> >Anyone offer some thoughts?
>
> --
> Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
> 150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
> Santa Cruz CA 95060 AE6KS 831-336-2558

On Fri, 27 Aug 2004 09:02:19 +0800, "Amhir Sohail"
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>There is only the 1.01eu ( European) revision available. I am running with
>all super G off and have manually set the points to "1 Mbps" as I'm only
>interested in sharing the net. I am probably still in "G mode" though.

There is no 1Mbit/sec speed in 802.11g. That's only for 802.11b. The
slowest speed for 802.11g is 6Mbits/sec. The problem with setting the
speed to 1Mbit/sec is that the management packet overhead is rather
high as all management packets are also sent at 1Mbit/sec. In 802.1b,
*ALL* management frames are sent at the slowest 1Mbit/sec speed.

Therefore, to take advantage of the lower overhead of 802.11g, you
have to use an 802.11g speed. It's also a good idea to set the
DWL-2100AP to the 802.11g mode, so that it doesn't backslide into
802.11b compatible mode. Methinks you can safely speed things up a
bit. I suggest:
Data Rate: 9 or 12 Mbits/sec
Super G mode: Disabled
802.11g only mode: On
Make sure you're using the "PIP bridge" (point to point bridge) and
not the "PIMP bridge" (point to multipoint bridge) which will allow
other bridges to association. No clue what "Radio Wave" does.

>when I can't get internet, I also can't ping the ADSL router 192.168.0.1
>(Netgear DG834) but i can ping the computer attached to the router
>192.168.0.2 as well as both bridges 0.50 and 0.51. This is all from the
>remote computer 0.100

Bingo. There is a problem between the remote DWL-2100AP and the
Netgear DG834 ADSL router. I've seen such nonsense caused by either a
miswired or flakey CAT5 ethernet cable between the two boxes. NWAY
negotiation fails and one box thinks it's talking to a full duplex
connection, while the other thinks it's half duplex. Traffic passes,
but with lots of errors. The same problems can be induced by a broken
data wire, mis-wiring, or rediculously long cable running at
100BaseTX. I sometimes do something disgustion like temporarily place
an old 10baseT half duplex hub in between the wireless bridge and the
ADSL router to slow down the speed.

>I thought this might mean its some sort of routing issue.

That's possible if you have another box running RIP (router info
protocol) on the LAN side, and you have RIP enabled in Netgear DG834.
Bridges don't do RIP so it's not in there. Any other machines or
boxes on the LAN doing RIP?

Have you looked at the log files in the Dlink and Netgear boxes?
There should some clues if there are corrupted packets or disconnects
in the log files:
http://support.dlink.com/techtool/dw...tatistic1.html
Unfortunatly, the DLink only tracks wireless stats.


--
Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 AE6KS 831-336-2558

Just reread my post below, sorry for the terrible spelling :-)

initially hostalive didn't ping the router. It kicked in for some reason and
has now been up without dropout for 5 hours. I'll monitor it over the
weekend and let you know but I think pinging the router is keeping the
connection alive.

Jac

"Amhir Sohail" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:412e984f$0$27221$(E-Mail Removed) om.au...
> I've just setup that hostalive on teh remote machine to ping both the
bridge
> attached to the router and the router itself. the brdige pins always
respond
> but never the router ping. I could ping the router a few times in cmd
prompt
> but after that, no good either. must be some sort of damn setup issue.
I've
> set the gateway on the remote machinen to the router, could that be
casuing
> issues?
>
> Thanks
> Jac
>
>
>
> "Jeff Liebermann" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> > On Thu, 26 Aug 2004 22:06:51 +0800, "Jac" <(E-Mail Removed)>
> > wrote:
> >
> > >I have 2 x Dlink 2100Ap which I have setup as bridge mode. Wireless
link
> is
> > >always up, no problem there but internet on the remote computer works
for
> > >3-4 mins then doesn't work. Link is ok as I can log in via VNC and
still
> get
> > >screen updates even when internet stops responding.
> >
> > What firmware version?
> > Are you using Super-G at both ends?
> > Do you have "802.11g mode only" on or off?
> >
>
http://support.dlink.com/techtool/dw...WLanParam.html
> >
> > I've found that playing with these two settings tends to stabilize a
> > point to point link. The problem is caused by RF intereference
> > causing a momentary dropout and the access point taking forever
> > (several seconds) to recover. It seems the Super-G mode is rather
> > susceptible to this effect. However, even with Super-G turned off,
> > the 802.11g mode will do the same thing if it hears an 802.11b signal.
> > Yeah, I know you paid for 108mbits/sec of mythical performance, but
> > perhaps slowing things down a bit might improve stability.
> >
> > There seems to be some confusion as to whether the link is "up" and
> > whether it's able to pass traffic. There are far too many boxes and
> > software layers between you and the internet. Time for some
> > simplification.
> >
> > Open an MSDOS window on your unpsecified Windoze mutation and run:
> > ping -t ip_address_of_the_DWL-2100AP_on_the_other_end
> > This will give a continuous display of the connectivity to the
> > DWL-2100AP over the link and will eliminate any involvement of your
> > unspecified model router. The internet could die completely, and you
> > would still show a connection.
> >
> > Then, try to determine where the internet stop responding. Try
> > pinging the IP address of the router. If that stays up but the
> > internet is still going up and down, try pinging your ISP's gateway IP
> > address. At some point, something will show packet loss. That's
> > where the problem is buried.
> >
> > One catch is that it's difficult to spot lost packets with Microsloth
> > ping. That's because they don't number their packets. Find, download
> > and use instead "fping", which properly numbers the packets.
> > http://www.snapfiles.com/get/fping.html
> >
> > >The fact that I can browse internet and log into vnc on remote computer
> > >makes me think bridge is set up correctly.
> >
> > Good assumption. Now prove it with ping.
> >
> > >Other setup guides talk about the
> > >difference between LAN Mac address and wireless. The only Mac address I
> can
> > >find seems to be the one for both LAN AND wireless...surely this
doesn't
> > >make sense but it does seem to work.
> >
> > Try:
> > apr -a
> > to see the MAC addresses your computer knows about. You may have to
> > ping the device first in order to populate the arp cache and display
> > the MAC addresses. On a bridged system, you'll see the MAC address of
> > every device that has an IP address. Therefore, you'll see both your
> > DWL-2100AP bridges, your unspecified router, and nothing else.
> >
> > >I am connecting into an ADSL router, I've heard there can be issues
there
> > >with multiple connections.
> >
> > Any reason to not disclose the make and model? Such "issues" tend to
> > follow specific models.
> >
> > >Anyone offer some thoughts?
> >
> > --
> > Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
> > 150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
> > Santa Cruz CA 95060 AE6KS 831-336-2558
>
>