Macintosh cannot connect to WiFi LAN

A colleague is visiting my house,
and cannot connect his Macintosh to my LinkSys WRT54GL access point.
He gives the correct ESSID and WEP key
but there is absolutely no response from my LAN.
The WiFi icon on his Macintosh shows no sign that it sees the AP
(or any AP).
I have added the WiFi MAC address to my /etc/dhcpd.conf;
but there is no indication on the /var/log/messages on my desktop.

Any suggestions gratefully received.

Timothy Murphy wrote:

> A colleague is visiting my house,
> and cannot connect his Macintosh to my LinkSys WRT54GL access point.
> He gives the correct ESSID and WEP key
Are you really using the WEP key ( hexadecimal number) or do you use a
passphrase ? There might be different methods to convert a passphrase into
a key used by Apple and Linksys.

On 2007-12-02, Timothy Murphy <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> A colleague is visiting my house,
> and cannot connect his Macintosh to my LinkSys WRT54GL access point.

Unless your WRT54GL is running linux, this is not really a linux
question. You should consider posting in a linksys or OS X newsgroup
instead.

> I have added the WiFi MAC address to my /etc/dhcpd.conf;
> but there is no indication on the /var/log/messages on my desktop.

....and if you *do* have linux on your WRT54GL, you should check the logs
there, unless you specifically have logging enabled from the Linksys to
your desktop (and have verified that it's working). Your desktop would
not receive any useful information about this problem under normal
circumstances.

--keith

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Keith Keller wrote:

>> A colleague is visiting my house,
>> and cannot connect his Macintosh to my LinkSys WRT54GL access point.
>
> Unless your WRT54GL is running linux, this is not really a linux
> question. You should consider posting in a linksys or OS X newsgroup
> instead.

As it happens the WRT54GL _is_ running Linux, dd-wrt.

>> I have added the WiFi MAC address to my /etc/dhcpd.conf;
>> but there is no indication on the /var/log/messages on my desktop.
>
> ...and if you *do* have linux on your WRT54GL, you should check the logs
> there, unless you specifically have logging enabled from the Linksys to
> your desktop (and have verified that it's working). Your desktop would
> not receive any useful information about this problem under normal
> circumstances.

There is no log kept on the WRT54GL router -
it only has a flash disk, with very little space.
As far as I can see, it keeps no records at all.
(I can access it, either by logging in with telnet,
or over the web.)

More to the point, the whole network is Linux.
dhcpd is running on the desktop,
and this gets a record (in /var/log/messages)
of all applications to join the network.

On Sun, 02 Dec 2007 19:10:32 +0000, Timothy Murphy rearranged some
electrons to say:

> A colleague is visiting my house,
> and cannot connect his Macintosh to my LinkSys WRT54GL access point. He
> gives the correct ESSID and WEP key but there is absolutely no response
> from my LAN. The WiFi icon on his Macintosh shows no sign that it sees
> the AP (or any AP).
> I have added the WiFi MAC address to my /etc/dhcpd.conf; but there is no
> indication on the /var/log/messages on my desktop.
>
> Any suggestions gratefully received.

I assume you verified that dhcpd is actually running...

On 2007-12-03, Timothy Murphy <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
> There is no log kept on the WRT54GL router -
> it only has a flash disk, with very little space.
> As far as I can see, it keeps no records at all.

Well, if you run syslog and direct all logging to another host, you
could get around the space issue. But if you haven't, then you wouldn't
see log entries.

> More to the point, the whole network is Linux.
> dhcpd is running on the desktop,
> and this gets a record (in /var/log/messages)
> of all applications to join the network.

Hmm, you're running dhcpd on a host behind the wifi? Do you have other
wifi hosts on your network that work? It's slightly unusual (though not
unheard of--I've done it) to run the dhcpd server not on the WAP.

What are the other access settings on the WRT54GL like? Are you
allowing access to all MACs, or do you have access control on? If it's
on, you'll need to grant access to the new MAC there in addition to your
dhcpd. You might also use iwconfig on the WRT54GL to determine the hex
WEP password, and be sure to use that on the Mac; I have had problems
with OS X converting cleartext passwords to hex passwords the WAP can
understand.

The other suggestion I could make is to temporarily turn off all
wireless security, and see if your friend's box can connect. You could
also turn on remote logging, so that you could see on your desktop's
logs what a successful connection looks like.

--keith

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Timothy Murphy wrote:

> There is no log kept on the WRT54GL router -
> it only has a flash disk, with very little space.
> As far as I can see, it keeps no records at all.
> (I can access it, either by logging in with telnet,
> or over the web.)

I run a WRT54GL router running openwrt and it uses a circular memory buffer
(around 15k in size) to store the most recent log messages. It is accessed
with the command "logread".

Maybe dd-wrt does something similar.

--
Regards,

Gregory.
Gentoo Linux - Penguin Power

Gregory Shearman wrote:

>> There is no log kept on the WRT54GL router -
>> it only has a flash disk, with very little space.
>> As far as I can see, it keeps no records at all.
>> (I can access it, either by logging in with telnet,
>> or over the web.)
>
> I run a WRT54GL router running openwrt and it uses a circular memory
> buffer (around 15k in size) to store the most recent log messages. It is
> accessed with the command "logread".
>
> Maybe dd-wrt does something similar.

Thanks for the suggestion.
The router does indeed have a function logread,
but running it gives:

~ # logread
Can't find circular buffer: No such file or directory

Keith Keller wrote:

>> There is no log kept on the WRT54GL router -
>> it only has a flash disk, with very little space.
>> As far as I can see, it keeps no records at all.
>
> Well, if you run syslog and direct all logging to another host, you
> could get around the space issue. But if you haven't, then you wouldn't
> see log entries.

Thanks, that is an interesting idea.
But as far as I can see, syslog is not running on the router:
---------------------------
~ # ps aux
PID Uid VmSize Stat Command
1 root 476 S /sbin/init noinitrd
2 root SW [keventd]
3 root SWN [ksoftirqd_CPU0]
4 root SW [kswapd]
5 root SW [bdflush]
6 root SW [kupdated]
11 root SW [mtdblockd]
71 root 324 S resetbutton
104 root 192 S /usr/sbin/telnetd
107 root 748 S httpd
111 root 272 S udhcpd /tmp/udhcpd.conf
115 root 564 S dnsmasq --conf-file /tmp/dnsmasq.conf
120 root 292 S /sbin/wland
164 root 280 S /usr/sbin/cron
176 root 264 S udhcpc -i
vlan1 -p /var/run/udhcpc.pid -s /tmp/udhcpc
373 root 376 S process_monitor
26174 root 644 S -sh
26228 root 464 R ps aux
---------------------------

>> More to the point, the whole network is Linux.
>> dhcpd is running on the desktop,
>> and this gets a record (in /var/log/messages)
>> of all applications to join the network.
>
> Hmm, you're running dhcpd on a host behind the wifi? Do you have other
> wifi hosts on your network that work? It's slightly unusual (though not
> unheard of--I've done it) to run the dhcpd server not on the WAP.

I'm justing using the WRT54GL as a WiFi access point.
I think that is fairly standard.

> What are the other access settings on the WRT54GL like? Are you
> allowing access to all MACs, or do you have access control on? If it's
> on, you'll need to grant access to the new MAC there in addition to your
> dhcpd. You might also use iwconfig on the WRT54GL to determine the hex
> WEP password, and be sure to use that on the Mac; I have had problems
> with OS X converting cleartext passwords to hex passwords the WAP can
> understand.

There is no access control on the router;
iwconfig does not run on the router,
but I have several other computers linking with the same WEP key.

> The other suggestion I could make is to temporarily turn off all
> wireless security, and see if your friend's box can connect. You could
> also turn on remote logging, so that you could see on your desktop's
> logs what a successful connection looks like.

I did try disabling WEP, but that did not help.
I'll look into your suggestion of remote logging.

Thanks very much for your help.

The visitor actually connected by Ethernet,
so the lack of a WiFi link wasn't a disaster.

On 2007-12-03, Timothy Murphy <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> Keith Keller wrote:
>
>> Well, if you run syslog and direct all logging to another host, you
>> could get around the space issue. But if you haven't, then you wouldn't
>> see log entries.
>
> Thanks, that is an interesting idea.
> But as far as I can see, syslog is not running on the router:

Probably not; you'd have to install it yourself. Openwrt has a way to
add software easily; I would guess that dd-wrt does too.

> There is no access control on the router;
> iwconfig does not run on the router,

Try /sbin/iwconfig ? I don't see how iwconfig can't exist, but if it
doesn't, there must be some docs for dd-wrt that describe what command
to use in its place.

--keith

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