How to use my wired networked printer? (Solved)

Problems and successes with specific brands/models of networking hardware.
Post Reply
Message
Author
TheNH813
Posts: 62
Joined: Wed 13 Nov 2013, 19:27

How to use my wired networked printer? (Solved)

#1 Post by TheNH813 »

So, I have this crossover cable, a printer, and a Ethernet card. I have assigned the printer a IP from setup, and the adaptor a IP. Puppy Linux keeps disabling the network card as soon as I connect the WiFi. How do I stop this and have two networks at once?

I have done this with XP, Ubuntu and a few others flawlessly in the past, but the network manager on Puppy Linux seems a bit touchy. I'v modified the config files for dhcpd and the similar configs but they are overwritten by Network Wizard each boot when it's tray icon loads Is it impossible without complete manual configuration?. How exactly would I go about doing this?

If your wondering "why would you connect a printer using it's Ethernet jack?" then may I mention that I have no free USB ports, and don't want the printer plugged into the hub in front of my PC. Plus, Ethernet is WAAAAAY faster at loading up high resolution prints (like 8500x11000) and is very convenient for me as I have two adaptors installed.

I will provide additional info on the printer if asked, but this is a network issue, the printer works fine over USB and WiFi (which I do not want to use either).
Last edited by TheNH813 on Sun 25 Jan 2015, 06:37, edited 1 time in total.

stemsee

#2 Post by stemsee »

which puppy distro are you using???

User avatar
rcrsn51
Posts: 13096
Joined: Tue 05 Sep 2006, 13:50
Location: Stratford, Ontario

#3 Post by rcrsn51 »

This should be possible using PWF.

Set up PWF as your default network manager.

Open the Ethernet tab and set the ethernet card for static IP. Put it on the same subnet as the printer, which must be different from your WiFi network. Leave the Gateway blank.

Reboot to bring up the card.

Now connect your WiFi. The Ethernet interface should be untouched.

TheNH813
Posts: 62
Joined: Wed 13 Nov 2013, 19:27

Distro info, suggestion reply.

#4 Post by TheNH813 »

@stemsee
The version of Puppy Linux is 5.2.8, but I have recompiled from source and updated a lot of libraries over a few years. The kernel and main system libraries are untouched though, but stuff like libz, libpng, libtiff, libjack and libsdl have been upgraded to newer versions. It is highly customized and contains close to 30 applications built in, and I used my flash drive to hard install it to a 500GB SATA3 internal HDD. In terms of library versions, it is more similar to the newest Slacko or Precise, and most .pets made for those work fine.

@rcrsn51
I will download that and try it, it looks very configurable, which I like.

User avatar
rcrsn51
Posts: 13096
Joined: Tue 05 Sep 2006, 13:50
Location: Stratford, Ontario

#5 Post by rcrsn51 »

@TheNH813: I tried your setup with PWF and it worked fine, once I figured out that you shouldn't put two different interfaces on the same subnet. :wink:

TheNH813
Posts: 62
Joined: Wed 13 Nov 2013, 19:27

Um, this is not working as expected.

#6 Post by TheNH813 »

@rcrsn51
So, I set up the Ethernet, entering all the details and press connect/reconnect. Suddenly, the mouse is jittery and can barely be moved, and although the display looks fine the keyboard is clearly indicating a crash with blinking LEDs. Then I realized I selected the wrong ethernet adaptor, the onboard one which I disabled in BIOS quite some time ago. How it detected that is beyond me, no other tool, not even iwconfig can find it. That is very interesting.

After selecting the right card, the wired connection connected and works fine, I will set up the printer later. However, the WiFi connection does NOT work with it for some reason. Maybe the 64 digit hexidecimal WiFi password, being on channel 13 which not all devices support and having a very strict MAC address filtering policy all at once caused this.

The default connection program I used once again worked great. I figured out both network managers can run at once, as long as they are on different networks. Network Wizard detects the connection to Ethernet made by PWF, showing wlan0 and eth1 active, and even gives up/down statistics. It appears that this will work.

I am going to remove one of the Ethernet cards and reenable the integrated one for the printer. I had disabled it for troubleshooting once and forgot about it. One less card is easier on the MB's power circuitry anyway, as I had 4 other cards + AGP GPU installed. Gotta love those massive MBs. 6xPCI + 1xAGP form factor boards with serial (additional serial header too), integrated VGA (disabled now for GPU), surround sound (Mic In / Line can be outputs), parallel (a parallel header too), 4 rear USB and and a Ethernet, with three USB headers and a firewire header. It has a dual core 3.4GHZ Pentium D. Don't wanna know how much it cost in 2007ish when it was new. Very nice for a freebie I got, even though I needed to repair it heavily (mainly capacitors and regulator replacement).

Will report back afterwards.

User avatar
rcrsn51
Posts: 13096
Joined: Tue 05 Sep 2006, 13:50
Location: Stratford, Ontario

Re: Um, this is not working as expected.

#7 Post by rcrsn51 »

TheNH813 wrote:However, the WiFi connection does NOT work with it for some reason. Maybe the 64 digit hexidecimal WiFi password, being on channel 13 which not all devices support and having a very strict MAC address filtering policy all at once caused this.
Did you enter the 64-digit password into the Passphrase box? Click Profile > Check and open the profile in a text editor. Remove the quotes around the psk value.

TheNH813
Posts: 62
Joined: Wed 13 Nov 2013, 19:27

Re: Um, this is not working as expected.

#8 Post by TheNH813 »

rcrsn51 wrote:Did you enter the 64-digit password into the Passphrase box? Click Profile > Check and open the profile in a text editor. Remove the quotes around the psk value.
Yes, I entered the password. I tried removing the quotes as you said but it made no difference. I would like to be able to use only PWF, but it refuses to access anything even if it reports success. I tried to ping the router when it said it was connected, but all I got was this:

Code: Select all

PING 192.168.2.1 (192.168.2.1): 56 data bytes
--- 192.168.2.1 ping statistics ---
100 packets transmitted, 0 packets received, 100% packet loss
I let it try quite some time. I also tried to ping the modem with no success:

Code: Select all

PING 192.168.0.1 (192.168.2.1): 56 data bytes
--- 192.168.0.1 ping statistics ---
100 packets transmitted, 0 packets received, 100% packet loss
The router uses a wierd sub address of 192.168.2.X, is that a problem? Does it only accept 192.168.1.X addresses to be assigned? I have to use Network Wizard to connect while posting right now. I wonder why it just refuses to work, it's like it dosent even try to contact the DNS server.

User avatar
rcrsn51
Posts: 13096
Joined: Tue 05 Sep 2006, 13:50
Location: Stratford, Ontario

#9 Post by rcrsn51 »

What IP address are you getting?

TheNH813
Posts: 62
Joined: Wed 13 Nov 2013, 19:27

#10 Post by TheNH813 »

rcrsn51 wrote:What IP address are you getting?
Right now, a static IP I set, that is 192.168.2.45, which I chose at random.
Auto DCHP on Network Wizard assigns 192.168.2.4 which also works.
PWF assigns no IP at all, so it seems to be unable to request one.

Can I force a static IP for WiFi on PWF? It only shows that for Ethernet.

EDIT: Found a config file for that. Entered my desired IP, and it worked.
Now all I have to do is get the printer set up. Thanks for helping me!

User avatar
rcrsn51
Posts: 13096
Joined: Tue 05 Sep 2006, 13:50
Location: Stratford, Ontario

#11 Post by rcrsn51 »

Removing the quotes should have made a big difference. With them, you would get "No Connection". Without them, you would get "Connection".

Running two connection managers is guaranteed to mess up your routing table. Are you sure that you are using PWF as the default manager? There are two steps - rename rc.network.pwf as rc.network and set /usr/local/bin/defaultconnect to connectwizard.

Reboot to clear the routing table.

Run "ifconfig" and verify that eth0 has the static IP. Check its profile. Make sure that there is no gateway.

Connect your wifi. Does it connect?

Run the "route" command. You should see entries for lo, eth0 and wlan0. There should be ONE gateway line.
Last edited by rcrsn51 on Fri 23 Jan 2015, 11:10, edited 2 times in total.

User avatar
rcrsn51
Posts: 13096
Joined: Tue 05 Sep 2006, 13:50
Location: Stratford, Ontario

#12 Post by rcrsn51 »

From the command line, run: dhcpcd wlan0

Will this get an IP address for wlan0?

User avatar
rcrsn51
Posts: 13096
Joined: Tue 05 Sep 2006, 13:50
Location: Stratford, Ontario

#13 Post by rcrsn51 »

@TheNH813: No reply? I did a bunch of tests with PWF v3.4 using your setup - static eth0 to the printer and DHCP wlan0.

This worked correctly, provided that eth0 was on a different subnet with no gateway. Your best friend here is the "route" command. It should show four lines - lo, eth0, wlan0 and default gateway.

If this is set up correctly, I cannot see why you would need static wlan0.

Also, machines with multiple ethernet cards can be tricky if you are not sure which card is getting which interface name.

TheNH813
Posts: 62
Joined: Wed 13 Nov 2013, 19:27

#14 Post by TheNH813 »

@rcrsn51
@rcrsn51
Sorry, I was busy today. I had to be done for yesterday with my last post.
I thought I had finished yesterday, the WiFi and Ethernet worked and I was gonna report back in the morning. It failed miserably today after a reconnect. I changed the router to use 192.168.1.X as the subnet, which enabled the WiFi to work in PWF. The routing table is a mess, and not even worth posting, everything is wrong.

I noticed the WiFi has no gateway, even when I clearly specified it multiple times. There is a entry called default that redirects to 127.0.0.1. Both hardware interfaces have unexistant addresses as destinations, and null for a gateway. That is a big red flag.

I tried what you posted, disabling the other manager completely and rebooting. I was actually just coming here to ask how to do that. But, it did not work. In fact, after connecting the Ethernet and going to connent the WiFi with PWF, it kernel panics every time. I can do either seperate, but not together. I believe my OS might be corrupt, and I should update it anyway. I will try everything again from the beginning after upgrading my OS.

Routing table, just incase you really need it:

Code: Select all

Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags Metric Ref    Use Iface
192.168.3.0     *               255.255.255.0   U     0      0        0 eth0
192.168.1.0     *               255.255.255.0   U     0      0        0 wlan0
default         pc2             0.0.0.0         UG    0      0        0 wlan0
null            0.0.0.0         0.0.0.0         U     0      0        0 *
unknown         127.0.0.1       0.0.0.0         U     0      0        0 *
pc2             127.0.0.1       127.0.0.1       U     0      0        0 lo
Also, I had to revert to NetworkWizard alone to connect again.

TheNH813
Posts: 62
Joined: Wed 13 Nov 2013, 19:27

Fixed.

#15 Post by TheNH813 »

Ok, the OS was corrupt, not sure what, but it definitely was. I got it finished now, and all is running well. I decided to keep the OS as is, and just reinstall everything in /usr. I also reset all things in /etc to default. PWF still does not work right, but I just installed Frisbee which can handle multiple connections easily. I honestly think PWF did not like my hardware at all, despite you having success with a test under a similar setup. I have a Realtek Ethernet card (for printer) a Linksys card that is used to FTP files between PCs and a Linksys P54 USB adaptor. Probabally should have said that sooner incase you were wondering. The firmware for the P54 did not come with the OS and I ripped it out of a .sys manually with a hex editor.

Here is the current routing table. The printer prints fine and the WiFi connection is stable. The Ethernet does not show up here, but is definitely connected, because the printer works.

Code: Select all

Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags Metric Ref    Use Iface
192.168.1.1     *               255.255.255.0   U     303    0        0 wlan0
default         dslrouter.netge 0.0.0.0         UG    303    0        0 wlan0
That routing table looks right now too. Thanks for helping me and giving me advice. You gave me suggestions I could not have come up with myself. I will check back for a reply, incase you have any other suggestions.

User avatar
rcrsn51
Posts: 13096
Joined: Tue 05 Sep 2006, 13:50
Location: Stratford, Ontario

#16 Post by rcrsn51 »

That's good news. PWF issues a basic dhcpcd command to get an IP address. But I suspect that your DHCP server needs something else and Frisbee can provide it. The PWF config file has an Options line, but it would take some experimentation to figure out what those options would be.

Post Reply