Re: pppd kills eth0 - follow up; a "work around".

Horton heard a Who named Moe Trin saying:
On Sun, 16 Sep 2007, in the Usenet newsgroup alt.os.linux, in article
<A-udnYQJS6CdFHDbnZ2dnUVZ_gydnZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxx>, sk8r-365 wrote:

Had the DNS and gateway showing up in the Palm Networking Log, yet was
unable to "surf" the Net. Still do not know where the failure happened;
was it the Palm, bluetooth device or a set up issue?

Can't say.

Sorry, that was meant as a rhetorical question.


Normally, I use a packet sniffer on the "router" to see
what the packets are saying when you try. It can be a bit much if
you aren't used to looking at IP, but there's only a limited amount
of information needed. On the Palm, try to surf. On the router, do
you see the Palm make a DNS request? Is it trying to ask a working
name server? Does _something_ respond? If it's a DNS server, does the
response look functional (is it returning a usable answer)? Does the
Palm then try to initiate a connection? Does any response occur? What?


I'm done. Over cooked - no more messing with it. But, to your question: I didn't
check the router logs; only reviewed /var/log/* and what showed up on the Palm,
ran ifconfig, route -n, cat /etc/resolv.conf, /etc/init.d/networking
{stop/start/restart}, plus the same for /etc/init.d/bluetooth and
/etc/init.d/dhcp3-server, vim you-name-the-file ... like, 50 million times.


Had one problem setting up the security tho'. What was needed is to
use WPA-PSK instead of WEP at the router (WPA Personal) set up page
and in the Palm TX (WPA-PSK).

WEP is barely one step above running plain-text authentication with
dictionary words. WEP can literally be cracked in seconds. Really
bad idea to try to use it for anything. WPA-PSK (PSK = Pre-Shared
Key) is orders of magnitude better. Assuming a non-dictionary key
of "enough bits", you need to call in the Three Letter Agency to
crack it.

I knew WPA-PSK is better than WEP, but was unaware of the poor state of WEP.
Thanks, I'll keep that in mind for future set ups.

Additionally, I added the "MAC-only" address for this specific Palm,
thereby having two security measures in place.

MAC addresses are trivial to snoop, and trivial to spoof. For the
Ethernet equivalent, look at the 'ifconfig' man page, and the 'hw'
option.

Thanks for mentioning this, as well; it's news to me.

Also, the WiFi has a better range than the bluetooth; the bluetooth
didn't reach the front room, where I wanted to do the work, and Wifi
does.

Radio propagation can be a form of Black Magic. Sometimes putting
something like a pie plate _behind_ the antenna (forward being the
direction you want to have - look at a flashlight, and see the
bulb and the parabolic reflector behind the bulb to reflect the
light into a desired direction) can help.


So true. I moved the wireless up 8" to bring it above a massive
printer/FAX we have and can go to the other side of the house (about
90') and use the Palm just fine.

Have a good day.
--
sk8r-365
The only way to make Windows "secure":
1) go to http://goodbye-microsoft.com
2) replace existing operating system.
.

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