My WRT54G v2.2  has whiterussian rc3 on it.

Here is the problem, I am behind an OpenBSD based soekris firewall.  For some reason, when I plug a cat cable into my WRT54G from the OpenBSD router/firewall, it does not sense the cables presence.  So, long and short, no ability to connect through the WRT54G to the outside world.

Running the command "udhcpc -i vlan1 -b -p /tmp/dhcp-wan.pid" gets me the following output:
info, udhcpc (v0.9.9-pre) started
debug, Sending discover...
debug, Sending discover...
debug, Sending discover...
info, No lease, forking to background.

Trying to set the WAN ip manually does not work either.

Any ideas?

Is your cable cross or straight ? what about forcing the negociation to 100Mb FD or less ?

I have tried both straight and cross over.  Neither seem to be detected.  I will how to force a mode on the WRT54g.  Hopefully that will straighten this out.

Aight, I got robocfg and tried setting it to 10HD...100FD to no effect.   The problem has something to do with the physical wiring or something.  I know this isn't what this forum is for,  but I'm beating my brains out now.  Here is the actual network topography:

dsl modem -> soekris OpenBSD router -> 24 port switch -> WRT54G

I can use a cross over cable into the back of the soekris, and it works.   But something about the switch is causing the WRT54G not to see the link (either straight or crossover).   I do  not believe that this is in any way related to OpenWRT, but, any help would be appreciated.

I read (on wikipedia) that crossover cables are used between two pieces of equipment on the same OSI level ( ie hub-hub, router - router, pc -pc).  The switch is a step down from the soekris, because that uses straight lines.  So how do I go from the switch to the WRT54G?  It should, by my thinking, be a straight as well...but it is not working.   Any hints would be very helpful...

A straight cable should be use actually. Is your switch manageable ? understanding 802.1x ? or mac authentication as well ?

No, it does not do any of those things.  It does learn MAC addresses to speed up switching (I do not remember what this is called), but that is all.  Neither the switch or the WRT54G are seeing the link when I plug it in (that is, the pretty lights don't light up on either :-D )

The linksys is autodetect on X so should work with either straight or crosssover. But I've seen cases before where one ethernet IF just won't connect to a certain brand but will to another - eg a linksys card wouldn't talk to a netgear router or vice versa. I think most of these problems have disappeared in the last few years, how old is the ethernet card in your OpenBSD router?

- DL

The WRT54G will actually talk to the OpenBSD router directly via a crossover cable.  It just will not talk to the switch that has to be in between.  As for the age of the switch, I do not know.   It is an older KTI, so a few years at least...grrr...hope this doesn't mean I'll need to buy a newer switch.  *searches ebay for cheap switch*

Is it a 10Mbps switch and autonegotiation is not working properly? Have you tried forcing your WRT interface to 10 full or 10 half (robocfg can do it)?