wpa_supplicant fails at startup[SOLVED]

nadi · Apprentice Joined: 06 Aug 2004 Posts: 280 Location: Norway

Hei gentooers!

I am starting this thread, as a desperate attempt to get my wireless network to go up at startup. I tried wireless_tools, but with no success (http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-446968.html ).

I cannot get my wpa_supplicant with madwifi to start at boot. I CAN get it to work manually, using the following command:

msalerno · Posted: Tue Mar 28, 2006 6:22 pm Post subject:

Check out
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-437101-highlight-wpasupplicant.html

In short: set wpa_timeout_ath0=90 in /etc/conf.d/net
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nadi · Apprentice Joined: 06 Aug 2004 Posts: 280 Location: Norway

thanks msalerno, but alas, i does not work. I tried 90 sec, it still time out.
I dont understand why it times out when using init.t/net.ath0 restart, but not if I do it manually,

opopanax · Posted: Tue Mar 28, 2006 9:38 pm Post subject:

From what I've heard, and look on some posts 'round here, later versions of wpa_supplicant and madwifi don't play. I had a card that worked with madwifi just fine, but wpa was out of the question. However, I was able to use ndiswrapper--that may be a (less elegant) solution for you as well.
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nadi · Apprentice Joined: 06 Aug 2004 Posts: 280 Location: Norway

thanks.

Again, I dont see any reason why wpa_suplpicant will work from the command line, and NOT from boot. wpa_supplicant is working, but DHCP does not bring up the network regardless of the timeout value.
dhcp DOES bting up the network if, after giving the command

braindead0 · Posted: Thu Mar 30, 2006 2:43 pm Post subject:

Just chiming in here with the same problem.

My guess is that for some reason the init script isn't seeing that the interface is 'up' so it doesn't continue with dhcp and the like. When I turned on debugging of wpa_supplicant, the last line that came out was 'Daemon' (or something similar). From there the script simply times out.

That of course doesn't answer why it will start from as console prompt, but pretty much nowhere else.

I tried starting it in local.start, no luck there. I tried starting when I login to bash, no luck there. I even put it in my icewm startup script, again that didn't work.

This is very very odd methinks.
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nadi · Apprentice Joined: 06 Aug 2004 Posts: 280 Location: Norway

I have a small irritating solution: put the two lines above (wpa_supplicant and dhcpcd) in local.start. Then by doing init.d/local restart, you get the network, and at boot, it will start anyway local, so you get a network.

But this is really only a painkiller to a bad desease, not a cure....

Nadi

braindead0 · Posted: Thu Mar 30, 2006 4:05 pm Post subject:

After reading your post earlier, I thought about that.. then I thought I'd try something else... I changed the settings on ath0 to a static IP address.

Not sure if it worked or not yet as this system is at home... although it does seem to be dead at this point (ssh'd into another box).. I may have messed up the configuration in net.

If that doesn't work, I'll go your suggested route just to get the darned thing to startup.

Now if I can figure out why it goes down.. I've got safetynet monitoring it and it appears that wpa_supplicant crashes at least on occassion. I'll know more of course when I can see how often it happens..
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braindead0 · Posted: Mon Apr 03, 2006 12:37 pm Post subject:

Just a follow up, I tried setting my IP to static just to see if it's an issue with DHCP. That didn't help.

I worked around this with the irritating solution noted by nadi ;-)

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Bombs14 · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 03 Sep 2003 Posts: 140

I have the same problem, and it seems to not only connect to the access point if the access point needs an authentication key. If I remove the key needed to connect to the access point, the wireless card will connect to the access point on startup.

braindead0 · Posted: Fri Apr 07, 2006 3:28 pm Post subject:

I'm going to try and debug this problem, as best I can tell the likely problem is in /lib/rcscripts/net.modules.d/wpa_supplicant.

The 'wpa_supplicant_pre_start()' function in that file might be what's timing out. Why it works from command line I'm not sure. If I find the problem I'll report back here of course.
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WackyDoo · n00b Joined: 16 Mar 2004 Posts: 42 Location: Ottawa

salivian · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 15 Sep 2002 Posts: 91

I recently encounter a similar problem ...

are you using bash 3.1 or 3.0 ?

John-Boy · Posted: Sat Apr 15, 2006 9:30 pm Post subject:

Rüpel · Posted: Sat Apr 15, 2006 11:03 pm Post subject:

I just wanted to say "Hello, here's another one with the same problem."

I'm using ndiswrapper ( :twisted:

) and I tried both, dhcp and fixed setup. set up manually everything works. set up via conf.d/net and started via init.d/net.wlan0 I also get the unfriendly "timed out !!" message.

Did someone already file a bug on that issue?
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salivian · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 15 Sep 2002 Posts: 91

if you are running bash 3.1 and have a similar problem with wpa_supplicant.

please take a look at my answer at ...

http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-3259998.html#3259998

I think someone can fix it better than my adhoc solution

braindead0 · Posted: Fri Apr 21, 2006 12:14 pm Post subject:

I tried the solution from that thread, still failed. The interesting this was after adding net.ath0 back to default, and shutting down my local startup of the nic.. running rc started up net.ath0 (which is better than I had before).

After rebooting though, it still times out...arg...

Now if I can just figure out why my card drops connection every now and again...hopefully I can fix that by moving my wap around or something (link quality runs around 35/94.. probably not good)
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nadi · Apprentice Joined: 06 Aug 2004 Posts: 280 Location: Norway

Hei, braindead0, I have the same thing here. we have problably the same bug AND my connection drops every now and then, I did not find any consistency.
I actually gave up and when back to my good stable 2.6.12, everyhting is working fine, though I dont have suspend2 there.
Nadi

fennex · Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2006 2:20 pm Post subject:

Just a quick note:

Working fine here with:

braindead0 · Posted: Mon Apr 24, 2006 12:20 pm Post subject:

nadi · Apprentice Joined: 06 Aug 2004 Posts: 280 Location: Norway

well, it always worked for me at kernel 2.6.12-r6, both wpa_supplicant and iwconfig methods. BUT, I am using suspend2 patches to kernel 2.6.15-r8 and I did not find patches for 2.6.12 kernels. I really need this suspend2 staff, it is SO much easier with laptop to just close the lid or suspend to disk and then re-initiate in no-time. It is just that the wireless network is broken for 2.6.15.

Oh well, let us hope it will be fixed in 2.6.16. If I could contribute in a way, but I am not a programmer...

N
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braindead0 · Posted: Mon Apr 24, 2006 9:07 pm Post subject:

I'm about to try out 2.6.16-r3, I'll not know the results until I get home tonight, and of course I'll not know for sure if the wireless dropping out is fixed for a while. But I should be able to try out the startup problem.
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braindead0 · Posted: Tue Apr 25, 2006 12:31 pm Post subject:

Well that idea failed miserably... Well, nvidia kernel driver wouldn't load on that kernel (something about the license tainting the kernel) and I couldn't get the wifi to startup at all.

The really weird thing now is that I went back to the old kernel, rebuilt madwifi/wpa/nvidia/alsa..etc..etc....

And now the wifi doesn't work at all, running wpa_supplicant with -dd gives me lots of info, it starts and then stop for a bit at:
<EDIT>

Found what broke there, in an attempt to get madwifi to work with the later kernel, I used ~x86 keyword, took that out of package.keywords and badabing, back where I was before.. at least it appears to work..
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braindead0 · Posted: Tue Apr 25, 2006 1:56 pm Post subject:

Okay, figured what the heck and added ~x86 to baselayout.. now it appears that starting up ath0 via the normal rc_scripts it working fine.

I'll have to monitor it to see if the dropouts go away.. I have a feeling that this particular NIC may not be so good. My link quality now is Link Quality=49/94, I'd expect better with the WAP sitting about 8' away in the same room.. I know the WAP is good as my laptop and pocket PC both show really high signal strength.. or perhaps the 'link quality' isn't the same measurement...
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braindead0 · Posted: Tue Apr 25, 2006 11:10 pm Post subject:

Still dropping the interface, but at least now I can simply restart net.ath0.

One caveat, baselayout 1.12 forks the init of interfaces off into the background so in this case it doesn't finish starting up when ntp-client starts for example, I'm sure this could cause other problems but that's the only one I'm having at this time.

edit: turns out that dhcpcd runs for a short bit and seems to die when booting up.. I don't get an addy at that point.. restart of net.ath0 gets an addy and everything is fine.. perhaps now I need to tweak the timeout (I think I've got it set to 10 or something)....

arg...
;-)

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