dhcpcd loosing carrier on wifi

[Moriah]

I am experiencing dhcp drop outs:

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Mar 17 07:00:51 onesimus dhcpcd[12946]: wlan0: carrier lost
Mar 17 08:00:52 onesimus dhcpcd[12946]: wlan0: carrier lost
Mar 17 09:00:52 onesimus dhcpcd[12946]: wlan0: carrier lost
Mar 17 09:36:59 onesimus dhcpcd[12946]: wlan0: carrier lost
Mar 17 10:07:53 onesimus dhcpcd[12946]: wlan0: carrier lost
Mar 17 10:08:49 onesimus dhcpcd[12946]: wlan0: carrier lost
Mar 17 10:37:53 onesimus dhcpcd[12946]: wlan0: carrier lost
Mar 17 11:12:03 onesimus dhcpcd[12946]: wlan0: carrier lost
Mar 17 11:37:53 onesimus dhcpcd[12946]: wlan0: carrier lost

Here is an example of the sequence as shown in /var/log/messages:

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Mar 17 11:37:53 onesimus dhcpcd[12946]: wlan0: carrier lost
Mar 17 11:37:53 onesimus kernel: wlan0: deauthenticated from 50:eb:f6:12:05:90 (Reason: 2=PREV_AUTH_NOT_VALID)
Mar 17 11:37:53 onesimus dhcpcd[12946]: wlan0: deleting route to 192.168.50.0/24
Mar 17 11:37:53 onesimus dhcpcd[12946]: wlan0: deleting default route via 192.168.50.1
Mar 17 11:37:53 onesimus kernel: wlan0: authenticate with 50:eb:f6:12:05:90
Mar 17 11:37:53 onesimus kernel: wlan0: send auth to 50:eb:f6:12:05:90 (try 1/3)
Mar 17 11:37:53 onesimus kernel: wlan0: authenticated
Mar 17 11:37:53 onesimus kernel: wlan0: waiting for beacon from 50:eb:f6:12:05:90
Mar 17 11:37:53 onesimus kernel: wlan0: associate with 50:eb:f6:12:05:90 (try 1/3)
Mar 17 11:37:53 onesimus kernel: wlan0: RX AssocResp from 50:eb:f6:12:05:90 (capab=0x1411 status=0 aid=25)
Mar 17 11:37:53 onesimus kernel: wlan0: associated
Mar 17 11:37:53 onesimus dhcpcd[12946]: wlan0: carrier acquired
Mar 17 11:37:53 onesimus dhcpcd[12946]: wlan0: IAID 31:2d:84:a0
Mar 17 11:37:53 onesimus kernel: wlan0: Limiting TX power to 23 (23 - 0) dBm as advertised by 50:eb:f6:12:05:90
Mar 17 11:37:55 onesimus dhcpcd[12946]: wlan0: rebinding lease of 192.168.50.130
Mar 17 11:38:00 onesimus dhcpcd[12946]: wlan0: probing address 192.168.50.130/24
Mar 17 11:38:05 onesimus dhcpcd[12946]: wlan0: leased 192.168.50.130 for 86400 seconds
Mar 17 11:38:05 onesimus dhcpcd[12946]: wlan0: adding route to 192.168.50.0/24
Mar 17 11:38:05 onesimus dhcpcd[12946]: wlan0: adding default route via 192.168.50.1

Here is the same sequence from the wifi router log:

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Mar 17 11:37:54 wlceventd: wlceventd_proc_event(491): eth2: Deauth_ind E0:9D:31:2D:84:A0, status: 0, reason: Deauthenticated because sending station is leaving (or has left) IBSS or ESS (3), rssi:-78
Mar 17 11:37:54 wlceventd: wlceventd_proc_event(491): eth2: Deauth_ind E0:9D:31:2D:84:A0, status: 0, reason: Unspecified reason (1), rssi:0
Mar 17 11:37:54 wlceventd: wlceventd_proc_event(527): eth2: Auth E0:9D:31:2D:84:A0, status: Successful (0), rssi:0
Mar 17 11:37:54 wlceventd: wlceventd_proc_event(556): eth2: Assoc E0:9D:31:2D:84:A0, status: Successful (0), rssi:-80

So the client is saying it looses the carrier, but the server is saying the client has left. Sounds like a finger pointing war to me.

It seems that other [windows 10 & 11] machines are ok, but I'm not sure about that, as I don't use them nearly as much. This makes me suspect something is amiss in either the configuration of wpa_supplicant, or of dhcpcd.

Here is an excerpt from /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf:

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# The below line not be changed otherwise we refuse to work
ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant

# Ensure that only root can read the WPA configuration
ctrl_interface_group=0

# Let wpa_supplicant take care of scanning and AP selection
ap_scan=1

network={
  ssid="eliwifi2"
  scan_ssid=1
  key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
  psk="***REDACTED***"
  priority=5
}

Here is /etc/dhcpcd.conf:

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# A sample configuration for dhcpcd.
# See dhcpcd.conf(5) for details.

# Allow users of this group to interact with dhcpcd via the control socket.
#controlgroup wheel

# Inform the DHCP server of our hostname for DDNS.
#hostname

# Use the hardware address of the interface for the Client ID.
#clientid
# or
# Use the same DUID + IAID as set in DHCPv6 for DHCPv4 ClientID as per RFC4361.
# Some non-RFC compliant DHCP servers do not reply with this set.
# In this case, comment out duid and enable clientid above.
duid

# Persist interface configuration when dhcpcd exits.
persistent

# vendorclassid is set to blank to avoid sending the default of
# dhcpcd-<version>:<os>:<machine>:<platform>
vendorclassid

# A list of options to request from the DHCP server.
option domain_name_servers, domain_name, domain_search
option classless_static_routes
# Respect the network MTU. This is applied to DHCP routes.
option interface_mtu

# Request a hostname from the network
option host_name

# Most distributions have NTP support.
#option ntp_servers

# Rapid commit support.
# Safe to enable by default because it requires the equivalent option set
# on the server to actually work.
option rapid_commit

# A ServerID is required by RFC2131.
require dhcp_server_identifier

# Generate SLAAC address using the Hardware Address of the interface
#slaac hwaddr
# OR generate Stable Private IPv6 Addresses based from the DUID
slaac private

Can anybody suggest what I can do to fix this? It is very annoying.

[miket]

I suppose you followed the man pages for wpa_supplicant and wpa_supplicant.conf--this is to say that you have Read The (ahem) Friendly Manual. I'm sad to report that in this case it's more like Reference The Forgetful Manual. It seems to be not quite up to date.

I refer to the network block of your /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf:

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network={
  ssid="eliwifi2"
  scan_ssid=1
  key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
  psk="***REDACTED***"
  priority=5
}

Maybe it's an exercise in cargo-culting, but I always end up with more entries in my network blocks. There are a couple more lines that I always include.

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  proto=RSN
  auth_alg=OPEN

It's telling that the Gentoo Wiki page for WPA Supplicant also includes these settings. (The Wiki page also indicates the addition of

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  pairwise=CCMP TKIP

but if you do that, you're better leaving off the TKIP protocol because is not very secure.)

Also, you can leave off the priority line unless you would ever have your laptop in range of multiple networks that are listed in your configuration file and you'd like to prefer one of them over the other.


So this is what I'd suggest for that entry in your wpa_supplicant.conf file:

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network={
  ssid="eliwifi2"
  scan_ssid=1
  key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
  psk="***REDACTED***"
  proto=RSN
  auth_alg=OPEN
  pairwise=CCMP
}

So Philemon, I hope this is useful.

[Moriah]

I tried the above suggestion, but it did not help. I am sorry I am slow to respond, but after I tried it (soon after it was posted), I let it run for awhile, but got involved with my main work, and forgot to reply.