Reboot killed wlan0, net-setup

Dodec · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 09 Jul 2012 Posts: 115

After finalizing my Gentoo installation, I rebooted my system and was trying to install the Xorg server software package in order to use a graphical desktop environment when I began getting "unable to resolve host address" errors that aborted the operation. After sending a few test pings and running ifconfig, I determined that the wlan0 connection I had established during the setup process was no longer in existence. Trying to run net-setup to get it back only resulted in the error "-bash: net-setup: command not found", and running iwconfig did the same thing. I attempted to emerge wpa_supplicant in order to reconfigure the network, but could not because I received the same "unable to resolve host address" errors that had plagued my Xorg emerge attempt. If anyone knows a way to get my network back, please let me know...thanks!

khayyam · Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2012 3:28 pm Post subject:

ashlyw42 ...

firstly, changes made while booting the CD are not contiguious with your install, everything required for networking after reboot needs to be installed/configured within the 'chroot'. Secondly, 'net-setup' is part of the CD, its not included in your install.

So, if you need wpa_supplicant, dhcpcd, or what-have-you, to configure the network these should be installed prior to rebooting. You can resolve this by booting again from the CD, run net-setup, mounting the HD, chrooting, and emerging whatever packages are needed.

best ... khay

Dodec · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 09 Jul 2012 Posts: 115

Khayyam: Thank you for clarifying. Now I must ask what are probably two extremely stupid questions: how do I chroot? And will I have to do the rest of the installation process all over again, or does the chroot make it so I don't?

Dodec · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 09 Jul 2012 Posts: 115

I chrooted into the installation CD with the command "chroot /mnt/gentoo /bin/bash" after mounting my root and boot partitions, ran ifconfig, and the only thing that showed up was lo along with the message "Warning: cannot open /proc/net/dev (No such file or directory). Limited output." When I tried net-setup, it told me the command wasn't found, same thing with iwconfig. When I tried ifconfig with eth0 or wlan0, I got the warning from the first time I tried it with no parameters. Did I chroot wrong or skip a step or something? What's going on here?

khayyam · Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2012 5:35 pm Post subject:

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2012 5:39 pm Post subject:

ashlyw42,

You skipped some steps and did others in the wrong order. Understand that chroot does what its full name means. It changes the root filesystem for everything 'inside' the changed root.
Outside, the root filessytem is provided by the CD inside its your budding Gentoo install. Things inside the chroot cannot reach outside. You may hear of spplications being run ina chroot 'jail'.

During your instll some things are needed both inside and outside the chroot. The things that re needed in both places you must make available inside the chroot every time you boot the CD. There is no persistance.

Refer to the Gentoo Handbook

Boot the CD and run net-setup if you need to. net-setup is not in the chroot.
Do the Copy DNS Info in Code Listing 1.3, this provides net
Continue with Mounting the necessary Filesystems Code Listing 1.4, this makes /proc available inside the chroot. Notice its mounted at /mnt/gentoo/proc, which becomes /proc inside the chroot.

Finally follow Code Listing 1.5 to chroot and set the environament. These commands should be in your back buffer as you are in the chroot now. Type a few letters of each line and press PageUp.
If the wrong command is found, press page up repeatedly.

You are now back in the chroot as if you has never left and your network should work too.

Oh, there are no stupid questions - except the one you don't ask. Be on your guard for stupid answers though.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

Dodec · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 09 Jul 2012 Posts: 115

Thank you both for your help, but I mounted the filesystems, ran net-setup, copied the DNS info, chrooted into the system, emerged wpa_supplicant, and rebooted twice, and got the same result. Is there anything else I might be doing wrong that could be causing this? (On the plus side, I finally got my system to boot without typing a multitude of commands I could never remember--turns out my computer is one of the ones that doesn't work with GRUB.)

khayyam · Posted: Tue Jul 24, 2012 3:30 am Post subject:

Dodec · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 09 Jul 2012 Posts: 115

khayyam: I followed your instructions to modify the config file and create the link, and everything went smoothly until I tried to start net.wlan0, which gave me this:

khayyam · Posted: Tue Jul 24, 2012 3:41 pm Post subject:

ashlyw42 ...

the 'WARNING' is not fatal ... its just saying that the initscript is not waiting for dhcp, or what-have-you, to return success. Normally the dhcp negociation will take some seconds, so you should normally give it a little time before attempting to ping.

Now, when you say that "ifconfig showed that wlan0 existed and was working just fine" did you mean that interface had an IP asigned? For example:

Dodec · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 09 Jul 2012 Posts: 115

khayyam: the ping still doesn't work, and when I ran awk '/wlan0/' <(dmesg) I got a screen full of nothing but this over and over again:

khayyam · Posted: Tue Jul 24, 2012 4:54 pm Post subject:

Dodec · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 09 Jul 2012 Posts: 115

The router supports WPA, WPA2, and WEP. My network is WEP, and when I run net-setup it gives me a screen saying "Interface name: wlan0 MAC address: 00:19:d2:b9:5f:79 Driver: iwl3945 Is this the interface you want to configure? " To which I reply yes, then when it prompts for the network settings I choose "My network is wireless" , then I enter the ssid. When asked whether the network uses encryption, I say yes, then indicate thay the key is in HEX. I enter my passphrase, then select "Use DCHP to auto-detect my network settings", after which it goes back to the command line with the prompt "Type "ifconfig" to make sure the interface was configured correctly."
Here's my /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf, if it's any help:

Ant P. · Watchman Joined: 18 Apr 2009 Posts: 6920

Should be wep_key0, not wep_key1.

khayyam · Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2012 2:10 am Post subject:

ashlyw42 ...

Ant P. is correct it should be wep_key0= ... incidently, if your AP supports WPA and WPA2, why use WEP?

best ... khay

Dodec · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 09 Jul 2012 Posts: 115

I changed wep_key1 to wep_key0, saved the config file, and while everything was loading after rebooting, I noticed that there was an error saying that wpa_supplicant had failed to start. The system brought up the eth0 connection and that timed out, and sure enough, when I logged in again and sent a test ping, it failed and I ran ifconfig, which told me that my wlan0 had disappeared once more. Should I chroot again and add wpa_supplicant to the default runlevel, or would that do anything since it appears that it alread tried to start and failed?

khayyam · Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2012 3:10 am Post subject:

ashlyw42 ...

no, infact remove wpa_supplicant from the default runlevel. If you followed the instructions above then net.wlan0 is responcible for starting wpa_supplicant.

Now, disapearing interfaces ... I can't even begin to debug that.

best ... khay

Odward · n00b Joined: 21 Mar 2012 Posts: 65

khayyam · Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2012 4:44 am Post subject:

Odward · n00b Joined: 21 Mar 2012 Posts: 65

Sorry about that, I got the environments confused. Thought that set of configuration steps was occuring in the chroot, and using
the kernel from the CD. Wasn't sure if a wlan0 ever existed in the real boot.

Dodec · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 09 Jul 2012 Posts: 115

This time, when I tried to run awk '/wlan0' <(dmesg) from inside the chroot it gave me this:

khayyam · Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2012 1:30 pm Post subject:

ashlyw42 ...

no, its becuase you haven't terminated the regular expression '/wlan0/' not '/wlan0' ... but why are we back in the chroot?

best ... khay

Dodec · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 09 Jul 2012 Posts: 115

khayyam: Oh. Whoops....anyway, I'm in the chroot because that's the only way I can get the network to do anything at this point. When I run awk '/wlan0/' <(dmesg) in the chroot it gives me an IP address now that I'm using the right command, but outside the CD environment it doesn't even do anything, and ifconfig only shows eth0 and lo, neither of which work because I don't use a wired connection. When I tried to run /etc/init.d/net.wlan0 start outside the CD, it told me the service didn't exist, and that I should check that I had the right kernel module enabled for my hardware, which I'm almost positive I do. I went back into the chroot and enabled whatever else looked like it might work, and noticed in the help section on one that firmware would needed...maybe Odward was on to something with the firmware suggestion? Although that doesn't really explain how the interface would be acting like it is, or at least it's not clicking in my tiny technologically incompetent brain...

Any other ideas, anyone?

khayyam · Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2012 1:26 am Post subject:

ashlyw42 ...

this is news to me ... what am I supposed to think when you post "wlan0: authentication with 08:86:3b:15:3a:a0 timed out", obviously, that you have a wlan0 and the issue is authentication ... to double the confusion when booted from the CD we know that networking is available, so if you write "ifconfig showed that wlan0 existed and was working just fine" but that you were unable to ping, then the obvious conclusion is that your booted from the install as, again, we know that networking is available when booted from the CD ... what a merry dance. Now, should I need to ask "is the computer plugged in to the power socket?" ... because it seems I've been working on false assumptions from the beginning.

So, to start over "[w]hat your failing to understand is the chroot is the install and the CD is the means of installation", so all the information you provide should focus on information related to networking when booted from the install. As I understand it now, you have no wlan0 device ... so, this is either due to your missing the driver, and/or firmware, for your network card. So, as Odward suggested ... please check your kernel configuration for the iwl3945 driver and emerge the iwl3945-ucode firmware.

best ... khay

Dodec · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 09 Jul 2012 Posts: 115

khayyam: actually, I can go for about 10 minutes with the computer unplugged, but after that I need to plug it in or else the battery dies.

In all seriousness, though, I believe we may have a new problem...I have just attempted to boot the CD in order to chroot three times, and each time my computer has lingered at the BIOS screen where I choose the boot options, thought about doing what I told it to, and then decided to completely ignore the CD and go straight to the LILO boot screen. And, needless to say, when it makes it into my install, wlan0 is still missing, and the ping still doesn't work. I don't suppose there's any way I can coerce the computer into accepting the existence of my wireless card without booting from the CD and chrooting...?