AWUS036H connected to ap but web surfing not working

[marthafocker]

My same AP that I am connecting to and works fine on my windows xp comp and windows 7 comp, I am not able to surf the internet on backtrack 4. It says that I am connected on the wicd manager. I can monitor internet activity with wireshark and sometimes nmap works, but I have to be really close to my router to get internet with this "long range" adapter on BT4. All of the aircrack-ng features work fine [B]except for deauthentication[B]. Airdrop -ng fails miserably with my Linksys WUSB54GC performing better as well aireplay-ng 0 sporadically working. I am using the pre-booted driver BT4 automatically assigns rtl8187 and have not many any modications. I have tried adjusting the txpower settings but they have not changed anything. I mean I literally have to be just a few feet from my router to work to be able to browse, and green LED light on the AWUS036H is not lit up. When running on windows it is constantly lit up and can browse internet easily with me being about a half-mile away from my ap on the golf course.

Any suggestions? Is your led on your alfa usually lit up when browsing in backtrack.

[MartinBishop]

Hi,

i use the same alfa and i have the same problem. i can easily inject, i can easily connect to the AP but i cant do anything else. i cant connect to the AP, i cant surf the web etc.

and no, the LED is not on....

btw, you can max. your tx by typing:

iw reg set BO
iwconfig wlan0 txpower 30

[LCF]

Well, if you're actually connected to your AP, the problem shouldn't be the wifi device since it's linking what it should, right ?

So,
1) either you've got a problem with your driver (unstable ?)
2) or you did not manage to reach your dns server
3) or both of them
4) or you're to close !

Have you try to ping your router ?

[TheLaw]

Try:

iwconfig

and see if your wlan adapter is in managed mode and does it say your associated with the ap?

Make sure you have input the correct wep code (iwconfig --help for more details)

if your using wpa you will have to use wpa_supplicant

Once all that is correct try start-network or use dhclient to get an ip address from your router

my awus036H LED is always off in managed or monitor mode using the RTL8187 driver

[marthafocker]

Well, if you're actually connected to your AP, the problem shouldn't be the wifi device since it's linking what it should, right ?

So,
1) either you've got a problem with your driver (unstable ?)
2) or you did not manage to reach your dns server
3) or both of them
4) or you're to close !

Have you try to ping your router ?

Im wondering if the driver is unstable. the rtl8187 is supposed to be the best for internet though. Tons of networks show up on wicd with very high connections most above 70. I tried using airdriver-ng and loading the r8187 driver but all of the networks came up at 0% and no connection could be made.

Answering Law: Sometimes I am able to ping the router or perform a simple nmap of the lan and other times it drops out showing no hosts and no router. Also, yes I do have iwconfig in manged.

here is print out while it is unassociated:

IEEE 802.11bg  ESSID:""
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.412 GHz  Access Point: Not-Associated
          Tx-Power=27 dBm
          Retry min limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality:0  Signal level:0  Noise level:0
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

And here is a print out associated with my network when it works

wlan0 IEEE 802.11bg  ESSID:"*******"
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.437 GHz  Access Point:*********
          Bit Rate=9 Mb/s   Tx-Power=27 dBm
          Retry min limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:**********   Security mode:open
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=54/70  Signal level=-56 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

And here is the iwconfig when the pages will not load when I'm further from my router but runs perfectly on windows.

IEEE 802.11bg  ESSID:********
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.412 GHz  Access Point: ***********
          Bit Rate=48 Mb/s   Tx-Power=27 dBm
          Retry min limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:******   Security mode:open
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=44/70  Signal level=-66 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

Thanks for your help guys

[TheLaw]

What commands are you using with iwconfig?

are you using : iwconfig wlan0 ap ************

if so, try without that and see does it associate?

How far away from the router are you? in metres

[marthafocker]

It works when I'm about 20 meters away and fails any further than that. What concerns me though, is the fact that apparently a windows driver can get internet perfectly at the exact same spot that backtrack cannot. And I'm not even that far when it stops working in my backyars about maybe 50 yards away across the swimming pool. With the windows driver I can get wifi from the golf course. I thought I read somewhere on that the windows drivers were crap. They are certainly outperforming the backtrack drivers. I use wicd to associate to the AP.

[gunrunr]

martha, when you check ifconfig and iwconfig do you get an ip address from the router, if dhclient works correctly you should get dhcp offer and a dhcp acknowledgment from the router. on both of your code excepts there is no ip listed for your interface on the network. basically looks like you are associated with the ap but not you havent gotten a dhcp lease yet.
try to connect wif iwconfig and watch the screen, in the terminal you can actually see the offers being sent and acknowledged like this

root@hax:~# dhclient eth0

Internet Systems Consortium DHCP Client V3.1.1
Copyright 2004-2008 Internet Systems Consortium.
All rights reserved.
For info, please visit http://www.isc.org/sw/dhcp/

Listening on LPF/eth0/00:0c:29:05:24:cc
Sending on   LPF/eth0/00:0c:29:05:24:cc
Sending on   Socket/fallback
DHCPREQUEST of 192.168.85.129 on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67
DHCPACK of 192.168.85.129 from 192.168.85.254
bound to 192.168.85.129 -- renewal in 857 seconds.

after running dhclient like that run ifconfig and it should look like

root@hax:~# ifconfig eth0
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:0c:29:05:24:cc
          inet addr:192.168.85.129  Bcast:192.168.85.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:69 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:85 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:33823 (33.8 KB)  TX bytes:7729 (7.7 KB)
          Interrupt:19 Base address:0x2000

with the ip address set!

[george8]

Note: I have the exact same Alpha and went through the just what you are ---- BUT --- now I connect like lightning EVERY single time.

I shared your experiences. I could run aircrack and most penetration software fine, but when it came time to connect and surf the web I got nothing. It Was so frustrating. I read as much as I could here from these fine folks' posts. Let me share what worked and is 100% working for me as I type this.

For me many of my issues came from trying to make BT/Linux work like windows. I tried using the "GUI" approach as a crutch wherever I could. I also read around at several other sites that are pure Linux forums. I quickly became convinced that command lines through consoles is the way to go. Next I learned to do stuff through those command lines. I have learned so much in the past two months.

Regarding connecting to the AP here is how I configured it:

One time requirment: Start BT4 (I am in a VM but that shouldn't matter if you are not). Then once booted I use the commands below to start networking and wicd. Two seperate command lines run in a console. Once networking is started and then you have started wicd (from command line below NOT the GUI method) your BT4 is now ready to connect. Before you connect I would run the two update command lines I have placed below. This will take your configurations and permanently update the network and wicd as active automatically when you boot BT4.



/etc/init.d/networking start

/etc/init.d/wicd start

After running and you want to SAVE your settings:


update-rc.d networking defaults

update-rc.d wicd defaults


You will not have to repeat the steps above because now when you boot UP it will all happen automatically. Nice!!




Assuming you done the above you are now UP and ready to boot into any AP within range (should be yours of course) for which you have the keys. Just use these three command lines below and you will be instantly connected with a solid stable handshake connectivity (it always works perfectly for me). I use this method because I have several friends and family that allow me to experiment with their AP's. I don't do anything "stupid" and they know I am just learning basic linux stuff. When I use the three command lines below I connect in a flash and its solid as can be on any and all the AP's I have the credentials for.


A key is running the third dhclient command because it makes sure that the client connects properly.




iwconfig wlan0 mode managed key [WEP key]

iwconfig wlan0 essid "AP Name"

dhclient wlan0




Well this is what worked for me after beating my head on a wall for a long time. If you are only going to use your system on ONE AP then you should run update-rc after you connect and are surfing. This would mean you can auto-connect completely every time. I am learning and using 3 AP's so I just prefer to manually connect to the specific AP. This also keeps my command line skills sharper.


I actually have TWO seperate VM's. One for internet surfing, and one for penetration testing (networking is inactive and mon0 mode up). By saving the configurations I go to either mode with the click of a button by selecting the VM to run.


I am sure I will read this post in a few months and see tons of "newbie" stuff in it. This is a great site to read and learn from. Thanks for hosting this for me.

[marthafocker]

Interesting. When I do that and type dhclient wlan0

I get receive_packet failed on wlan0: Network is down

When it is requesting the ip address even though ifconfig says that it is associated with an ip address of 192.168.1.7. Anything I can do to fix this?