AirMac trouble :-(

[Harvey]

I was in the airport today ready to try my AirMac Card for the first time, but ran into some trouble.

When I enter the network settings dialog, and select AirMac, I can see that the AirMac card is on, and that it is detecting the airports network.

The signal level is shown as a bar graph, and is about 75% full. The base station ID is also clearly shown.

When I do a ifconfig -a I can see that en1 has an ip address fo 169.254.11.81. Seems okay.

However, when I try to ping any Domain Names I get unknown host. When I try to ping an IP that I know... I get

PING 216.92.103.130 (216.92.103.130): 56 data bytes
ping: sendto: Host is down

I tried the usual 'I don't know what I'm doing remedies', such as rebooting, and turning the card on and off.

I didn't have any look. Does anyone have an idea of what could be causing this?

Thanks for any help!

[dlloyd]

No, but do you know what Network Protocol the network you are trying to join is using? (i.e. DHCP or BootP).
Try messing around with those settings. If you find the correct setting, then when you click Apply, the 'IP' field should be populated by an IP address "Supplied by the Server".

[kenny]

The base station is not leasing a DHCP address to you. The 169.254.x.y address is a special condition that modern DHCP clients will use as a "last resort" if they're unable to get an address. As dlloyd says, though, make sure that it's set for DHCP, and not bootp, and it should work. The fact that you're getting a 169 address indicates that it's not.

Is the wireless access meant to be completely open, though? Could there be a requirement to register your network card (for an access-control list) with them (whoever "them" happens to be)? Are you meant to pay for access (a la T-Mobile@Starbucks)?

Unfortunately, the only thing to do would be to get with whomever runs the wireless network to seek assistance, unless you have control over the access point (I gather that you don't).

[Harvey]

Thanks for the tips guys. Where do I check to see if it is in bootp or dhcp mode?

I'll try that next time I'm around a hotspot.

I'm pretty sure the site was supposed to be totally open.

Thanks!

[dlloyd]

Do to System Preferences, open Networking, and from the 'Show' drop-down menu, select 'Airport'.
Then under the 'Configure' menu you can select the protocol you want to use.

Good Luck!