[SOLVED]Can't get a DHCP lease with Verizon 327W wifi router

[GJones]

I'm trying to connect to this router using WEP authentication. Wicd says that the passphrase is good, as well it should be - I know it's the correct one. But the DHCP client fails to connect every single time, be it dhcpcd or dhclient - both absolutely fail to connect.

Last time I used this router (with the same netbook, running Zenwalk 7.0) DHCP worked fine.

What am I doing wrong?

[GJones]

Update: I can't seem to get DHCP on any wireless network. At all. I would try static IPs, but Wicd requires me to specify DNS stuff (which I don't know) for that.

Help?

[Shador]

Usually just your router's ip is fine for DNS.

[GJones]

Usually just your router's ip is fine for DNS.

Ah, thanks. Unfortunately that doesn't work either. No idea what's up; I tried a different Linux distro and still can't connect to anything nearby. So I'm guessing the problem is the router (and the nearby open wifi networks are just too weak). But I can't figure out what's wrong with the router...

Actually, to make matters worse, the router appears to have been hacked at some point; the administration password I set a couple months back has been changed without anyone knowing, and I've no idea what the new password is. It looks like I may have to do a factory reset on it.

[GJones]

Update: yes, the router had been hacked. Resetting it to factory defaults fixed the issue.

[thenktor]

Don't use WEP encryption anymore! It's not secure in any way. You need at least WPA or better WPA2.

[GJones]

I know... Unfortunately the router does not support WPA or WPA2. This time I have set a stronger password on the router's control panel, and enabled its firewall (which had been disabled by default!), so it should be harder to hack into.

(For various reasons I'm not too concerned about people wardriving in the vicinity. More concerned about remote attacks against the router, which is what appeared to have happened.)