Re: [gentoo] NetworkManager and conf.d files

[Frederic Detienne <fd cisco com>]

On Wed, 2006-12-06 at 08:07 -0500, Dan Williams wrote:
> On Wed, 2006-12-06 at 08:26 +0100, Frederic Detienne wrote:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > I have been running NetworkManager and wpa_supplicant quite successfully
> > for a while now. I am experiencing fine tuning issues which I think are
> > relevant to this mailing list.
> > 
> > I have the gentopia overlay installed and run NM 0.6.4-r1:
> > 
> > * net-misc/networkmanager
> >      Available versions:  [M]0.6.4_pre20061028 [M]0.6.4_pre20061028-r1
> > [M]0.6.4[1]  [M]0.6.4-r1[1]
> >      Installed:           0.6.4-r1
> >      Homepage:            http://people.redhat.com/dcbw/NetworkManager/
> >      Description:         Network configuration and management in an
> > easy way. Desktop env independent
> > 
> > 
> > There are actually two issues linked to the configuration
> > of /etc/conf.d/net or /etc/conf.d/wireless. My understanding is that
> > since NetworkManager and dhcdbd will take care of the wireless part of
> > the configuration (association and authentication), /etc/conf.d/wireless
> > is mostly useless and can be disabled through a setting in conf.d/net:
> > 
> > modules=( "!iwconfig" "!wpa_supplicant" )
> > 
> > 
> > Problem 1 -- Bringing the wireless interface fully up (ipw2200)
> > ---------
> > 
> > if, for some reason, the wireless interface is shut down then brought
> > back up, the interface radio is not brought up (radio off,
> > Tx-Power=off). The only way I found to bring the radio back up is to
> > issue a manual command:
> > 
> > iwconfig eth1 txpower auto
> > 
> > Notice that when the computer reboots, the interface radio is up.
> > 
> > Also notice that as long as the radio is off, no scanning is possible
> > (iwlist eth1 scan returns nothing).
> > 
> > I found a conf.d/net related parameter that should help:
> > 
> > iwconfig_eth1="txpower auto"
> > 
> > but this command never seems executed while bringing eth1 up through
> > "/etc/init.d/net.eth1 start" or while starting NetworkManager.
> > 
> > Odd. This may be a pure gentoo issue but since NetworkManager has such
> > strong interactions with the net config, I thought I'd mention it here.
> 
> Smells like a driver issue?  What kernel version, what version of the
> ipw2200 driver, and what version of the ieee80211 stack?  I've got an
> ipw2200 on my Thinkpad and I have _never_ had to do anything with
> txpower.  I'm using 2.6.18.
> 
> ipw2200: Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2200/2915 Network Driver, 1.1.2kmprq
> ieee80211: 802.11 data/management/control stack, git-1.1.13

could be a drive issue, indeed. I have:

ipw2200: Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2200/2915 Network Driver, 1.1.3mprq
ieee80211: 802.11 data/management/control stack, 1.1.13


> > I also believe this issue accounts for a number of scanning related
> > issues I have seen while googling for my problems.
> 
> I also haven't had problems scanning... can you provide a few more
> details?

Well, the interface appears up but the radio is just off and iwlist just
returns an empty AP list. If this happens, just look at the radio
settings of the interface:

sauron conf.d # iwconfig eth1
eth1      radio off  ESSID:""
          Mode:Managed  Channel:0  Access Point: Not-Associated
          Bit Rate:0 kb/s   Tx-Power=off   Sensitivity=8/0
          Retry limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality:0  Signal level:0  Noise level:0
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:4  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

however, the interface seems up: 

sauron conf.d # ifconfig eth1
eth1      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:13:CE:CC:BA:B4
          UP BROADCAST NOTRAILERS MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:118 errors:4 dropped:4 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:94 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:1
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:3911640145 (3730.4 Mb)  TX bytes:100586693 (95.9 Mb)
          Interrupt:11 Base address:0xc000 Memory:c0210000-c0210fff

I can't exactly tell when the radio goes off but it happened several
times while I was trying to configure NM. I had to shut down the
interface to simulate reboot conditions.

When the radio is off, scanning is "disabled":

sauron conf.d # iwlist eth1 scan
eth1      No scan results

After issuing "iwconfig eth1 txpower auto" and checking the radio is
back on, iwlist works again and returns a list of AP's.

This is a minor problem to me but it'd be nice if NM provided a way to
control the interface parameters and set them to an adequate level.
Radio should be on, power saving mode set to an adequate value, role set
to managed (vs. ad-hoc) etc. All things that need to be set somewhere
anyway.

thanks,

	fred

> Dan