8.04 networking seems awfully broken.

[Grant Edwards]

On 2008-07-24, Derek Broughton <news at pointerstop.ca> wrote:
> Grant Edwards wrote:
>
>> On 2008-07-24, Derek Broughton <news at pointerstop.ca> wrote:
>> 
>>>> Perhaps that's true, but on my Gentoo systems the DHCP client
>>>> isn't started until the link is up.
>>>
>>> The link is "up" as far as the O/S knows when the wireless
>>> interface is active.
>> 
>> I watched the syslog, and the DHCP client was attempting to
>> send requests on eth0 while the link was still down and was
>> attempting to send requests on wlan0 when it was down (not yet
>> associated).
>> 
>> When I did a "ps" I could see that the DHCP client was running
>> on wlan0, but wpa_supplicant wasn't, so the DHCP client was
>> timing out before the wireless adapter had was associated with
>> a WAP and was capable of transmitting a packet.
>> 
>> That just doesn't seem like the right thing to do.
>
> It's not - but it's also not what I've ever seen.  What do you have
> in /etc/network/interfaces?

I never looked (the machine's been packed up to be shipped
back).  I assumed that the network manager was supposed to take
care of that stuff.

>>> Sure you have.  Find a windows system, connect it to a network
>>> with no DHCP server - you'll get a 169.*.*.* address.
>> 
>> My point was that I've never been on a network where that's how
>> things were supposed to work (despite what Windows does).  
>
> And my point is that you have, if you've ever been on a
> Windows network.

I guess I've never been on a Windows network.

> I know that, but it ISN"T YOUR PROBLEM!  Zeroconf is purely a
> fallback for the situation where there is no DHCP available.

But I didn't want it to do the zeroconf thing.  I'm not on a
"windows network".  If there's no DHCP server, I want the
interface to stay down.  On my networks, coming up with some
192.168.x.* address is simply not the right thing to do.

>> So everytime you boot, you've got to bring up the network
>> manager and manually start-up wireless networking?  
>
> No, _now_ we're trying to debug the fact that you've
> thoroughly b0rked your networking.

What did I do to "b0rk" my networking?  All I did was install
from the CD, and then copy the wifi chipset firmware into
/lib/modules.  After 3-4 hours of not being able to get wan0 to
associate without running wpa_cli, I got desperate and removed
the autoipd daemon, but it made no difference other than it
keeps from fooling the system into thinking it's attached to a
wired network when it isn't.

>> I expected the network manager save the configuration anywhere
>> so that the next time you boot, it would start the interface
>> using the previous configuration.
>
> As it does...  Occasionally, it fails to associate on my
> system, but generally it associates with any network I've
> previously told it to connect to.

In a previous posting I was told that to get wpa_supplicant
started you have to run the network manager config program. How
can wan0 associate with a WAP if wpa_supplicant isn't started
when the system boots?

>> One of my guesses is that the network manager either can't
>> handle passwords containing spaces, 
>
> possibly - but it seems doubtful]
>
>> or it can't handle long passwords (20+ characters).  
>
> It certainly can

I guess something else is wrong with the network manager, then.

-- 
Grant Edwards                   grante             Yow! Hmmm ... an arrogant
                                  at               bouquet with a subtle
                               visi.com            suggestion of POLYVINYL
                                                   CHLORIDE ...