Link-local IP address, I think it is a software bug...
 

My 770 WLAN works fine at work where it is granted a public IP address upon connection. But at home where my router assigns private IP addresses, it always say the IP is "Link-local" and the browser or music player refuse to connect to the internet (even the connection manager always show both gateway and DNS servers addresses are acquired).

I went deeper into probing the problem by setting up a web server on a computer on the same "local" subnet. I used the 770 browser to visit the local web server, and it works fine. This confirms to me that it is not a hardware issue - neither the wifi signal is bad, nor the router being incompatible.

Then I noticed in advances settings on the 770, one can set up "proxy" for a connection. So, I think, becuase 770 seems to only talk to local machines, how about set up a local proxy?

I installed tinyproxy on a local machine, and set my 770 to use that proxy, and guess what... everything works again... the brower, music player are all able to connect to the internet via the local proxy...

My guess is that, there may be a bug in the connection managing software, when the ethernet interface is assigned a local ip address (even if by DHCP), it always thinks acquiring IP has failed, and did not set up proper default routing (even if a getway is provided).


Here is my configurations in detail:

A. No Proxy, refuse to connect to Internet:

Router / Gateway: 169.254.32.32
DNS: 169.254.32.32
770 IP: 169.254.32.15

(770 "sees" all above configurations, but cries "Link-local" and does even try to use the gateway...)



B. With proxy, Internet works:

Router / Gateway: 169.254.32.32
DNS: 169.254.32.32
770 IP: 169.254.32.15
Proxy Machine: 169.254.32.16

Re: Link-local IP address, I think it is a software bug...
 

Three things:

1) Are you running the most recent firmware update on your N770? If not, upgrade it now. Search in here and over at nokia's site for the latest firmware. If I were you I would search around for "2007HE", the 2007 Hacker Edition firmware for the N770.

2) Posting here isn't going to help you if it's a real bug. https://bugs.maemo.org/

3) Considering Nokia isn't really working on the N770 all that much anymore, if it is a real bug then I wouldn't expect a fix any time soon.

Now that all that is out of the way, I'm thinking it's a problem with your wi-fi router setup and not the IT. I've seen it before where sometimes the SSID of the router has to be set to broadcast or WPA2 "dumbed down" to just WPA, or sometimes the router is in b/g mixed-mode and for some odd reason THAT is causing the problem and it needs to be set to G-only. It can also be a problem if your router is using a wi-fi channel/freq that is subject to heavy interference in the area you're in. An engineering friend of mine once built a handheld 2.4Ghz wi-fi jammer as an experiment and would routinely walk around the local wi-fi-enabled park dropping people off the net within a 60 foot radius around him just for sick, twisted kicks.
Or your router is setup for MAC-address filtering or something like that. Many, many things to look at and since we don't see where you've stated that any other wi-fi devices work flawlessly or what the router's settings are, we can't really help you.

Re: Link-local IP address, I think it is a software bug...
 

Adam - I'm confused... why are you using link-local IP addresses on your LAN? This is surely wrong, even if you have managed to make it work. :)

You talk about issuing private IP addresses on your home LAN - by this do you mean 192.168.x.x or 10.x.x.x type addresses, and do you have a working DHCP server operating within your home LAN?

You actually seem to have assigned a link-local address to your router, which may be fooling your 770 into thinking it's picked up a link-local address!

I would recommend you reconfigure your router/gateway on a 192.168.x.x subnet (eg. 192.168.0.1) and ensure your DHCP server is giving out addresses within the same subnet and see if the situation improves thereafter.

Re: Link-local IP address, I think it is a software bug...
 

To iball:

Thanks for your advice, I am using the latest "official" OS 2006, freshly flashed in yesterday. I will report the bug, but as I also know, 770 is kind of "off support" now, so I hope some hacker here can make a quick hack... ^_^

I really don't think it is the router's problem becuase 1. the OS successfully acquired IP, gateway, as well as DNS information; 2. the tablet can connect directly to machines on the same subnet. 3. the tablet can use the local DNS to resolve domain names. These means the encryption works fine and radio signal is within acceptable range. (I actually tried *ALL* security configurations including no security, it shows the same sympton)

It seems the problem is that there is no "default" route setup for non-local IP addresses, so any Internet connection attempt result in error.


To Milhouse:

I have many equipments that share a single internet connection, so I have to use local IP addresses on them. I have a D-Link router that performs DHCP, as well as NAT.

I don't know why I use 169.254.x.x, honestly... :P Maybe I shouldn't, but it worked on every computer that I have (or have used), Windows, Linux (well, except the 770 OS, at least works for Redhat and SUSE). I see no reason it should not work... even if it is a link local address, if a getway is provided, why shouldn't the OS used it?

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> I would recommend you reconfigure your router/gateway on a
> 192.168.x.x subnet...

Yeah, I would like to try that. But I will save it for the weekend, becuase on some machines I have hand coded host files that also has to be changed...

Re: Link-local IP address, I think it is a software bug...
 

169.254.x.x is usually referred to as the APIPA range (Automatic Private IP Address) and is considered a DHCP failover option on many, many devices which is why the N800 is saying "Link-Local" because it recognizes that the IP address fed to it from the DHCP server is from the APIPA range.
In other words, you've misconfigured your router to use an IP range used for when there is not a DHCP server present.
No one should run a local subnet on that range as it's super-easy for an attacker to get in on it and is usually a sign of a lazy network admin.
As already suggested, jump your DHCP scope to somewhere in the 192.168.x.x range, but do NOT use the Linksys - and many other routers - default range of 192.168.1.x.

Hosts files? It's a lot easier to run a fairly secure mini-DNS system on your local subnet that would make things a lot easier.

Re: Link-local IP address, I think it is a software bug...
 

I have a similar problem occasionally with my 800.... Ill connect to an open wifi signal and on some connections it will connect right away, sometimes it comes up link local and sometimes if i lose a signal i was connected to and i reconnect it comes up link local

Re: Link-local IP address, I think it is a software bug...
 

I usually find that if the wi-fi router has DHCP disabled, which some skiddiot (script kiddie idiot) wannabes do to open routers with factory logins in an effort to seem "cool".
Other *****s do it because they think it somehow "protects" them from attack or other people using wi-fi access.

Re: Link-local IP address, I think it is a software bug...
 

Hmm, I thought hackers would assume everyone uses 192.168.x.x ... Maybe that is why I picked this werido net range at the very beginning ... but that was a couple of years ago, can't remember exactly why... :D

The thing is, I am hosting some service for my personal daily use (internet radio, web, etc) and I have a domain name associated to my cable modem's IP, so I can always refer service by name instead of IP address. This is great, but the problem is when I am actually within the subnet, the name resolution would not work... what I can see are two solutions: 1. Host file; 2. Set up a small internal DNS.

I chose 1 becuase it is quick and dirty, for using method 2, I would also have to turn off the DHCP on my router, and set up a customizable DHCP server to push the internal DNS to the client, so that any machines connected to this net knows to first try the internal DNS. I admit #2 is the right thing to do, but #1 is a big time saver...

BTW, if you don't know what I'm talking about, there is my problem in detail with "pictures":

Suppose I am running music cast service on machine 3, and I have set up proper port forwarding in the router and cable modem. My blog has a link refering to this service using name http://music.name.com:1234

* When I am outside of this network, I click on the link, everything works;

* But when I am inside, on machine 1, I click on the link, it would not work, becuase the name resolves to the modem's public IP, but it really should be Machine 3's internal IP. So the packet got lost wondering around... >_<

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Maybe this weekend I would spend some time to apply solution #2 when I make the change to net range...

One thing you are absolutely right: I am a lazy admin... :P

Re: Link-local IP address, I think it is a software bug...
 

Provided you are behind a NAT router you can use any IP address range you like, even public IP addresses can be used on your internal LAN however you've chosen a specific range with a specific purpose and it's probably the worst range/purpose you could choose! :) I know a public Class C address that's not being used right now... 161.15.191.x which happened to belong to a defunct US investment bank, or just make one up (but check it doesn't have any special purpose first!) :)

Re: Link-local IP address, I think it is a software bug...
 

Even when you are inside your LAN, if the machine name resolves to a public IP address you should connect to you modem and from there connect to your internal machine. Granted it means you are going out onto the public internet and back into your own network which will involve a few miliseconds more latency (and add to your download limit if you have a capped connection) but in general it should work.

If it doesn't work, it's most likely because the loopback interface is not enabled on your router which is preventing internal connections from being routed back into your internal network via the WAN interface. If your router supports a loopback interface enable it and see if you can access your internal workstation via it's hostname (without using /etc/hosts).