<solved> "mode" needs to be reset for every connection

[InTheWoods]

For some reason my router reverted back to it's default settings and started calling itself D-Link something or other. No problem just reset the router and settings and maybe a new password for good measure....right?

Wrong!!!

After spending several hours re-reading and re-doing everything in Eauster's How To on wireless networking, I chanced upon an inexplicable solution for one of the five machines in the house.

When I came to the part where "mode" is configured as "Managed" I tried some other values. When I went from "Ad-hoc" to "managed" my wavelan indicator in the panel would go green. Now I had been able to scan the network before but not associate with my router.

I can now connect with my router but only if I set the mode to "Ad-hoc" then back to "Managed". I cannot go straight to "Managed" and connect to the Internet. So the question is why?

new  /etc/rc.d/rc.local note that "Ad-hoc" has to precede "Managed"

Code:

iwconfig eth1 key s:xxxxxxxxxxxxx
iwconfig eth1 essid "name"
iwconfig eth1 mode Ad-hoc
iwconfig eth1 mode Managed
iwconfig eth1 channel 6
iwconfig eth1 ap any
dhcpcd -t 10 -d eth1

This does not work on the other Linux box.

[InTheWoods]

I can live with not knowing why I have to set the mode to "Ad-hoc" and then back to "Managed". It works well even if I don't understand why. But if anyone knows please enlighten me. I spent several hours and the solution was arrived at by random thrashing about.

The router is now playing nicely with two Macintosh's, a Windows laptop, my Linux laptop and a Nintendo Wii. I can therefore presume I have resolved my router issues.
However I can connect the Linux desktop only after issueing the command

Code:

service ifplugd restart

I am still using Vector 5.8 Standard on this machine. Ifplugd seems to start on boot up. I see this in the boot messages and I hear the same number of beeps as before (3). Further the Wavelan plugin in the XFCE panel shows me as connected. However on restart of ifplugd I get an indication that it has not started at all!

Code:

service ifplugd restart
Stopping Network Interface Plugging Daemon:Failed to kill daemon. (No such file or directory)
 eth0 wlan0.
Starting Network Interface Plugging Daemon: eth0 wlan0.

The /etc/ifplugd/ifplugd.conf file shows the proper interfaces

Code:

INTERFACES="eth0 wlan0"

And my /etc/rc.d/rc.local looks okay.

Code:

iwconfig wlan0 key s:<myKey>
iwconfig wlan0 essid "name"
iwconfig wlan0 mode Managed
iwconfig wlan0 ap any
sleep 1
dhcpcd -t 25 -d wlan0

How do I start the Network Interface Plugging Daemon on boot up?

[InTheWoods]

Upon further thrashing around I tried

Code:

ifplug -h

and discovered additional arguments for ifplugd.

In /etc/ifplugd/ifplugd.conf there is a section for "Additional parameters"

Code:

# Additional parameters for ifplugd.
# (Run "ifplugd -h" for further information.)
#ARGS="-fwI -u0 -d5 -pql"
ARGS="-fwI -t2 -u0 -d10"

With a little reading and some trial and error I discovered that the second set of ARGS should be uncommented as above. It appears that in my thrashing around, before I fixed the underlying problem (I had to re-install ndiswrapper), I commented out the required ARGS.

Thats right I did it to myself.