NetworkManager on a non-recognised distro : dhcp problem

[Timothée Lecomte <timothee lecomte ens fr>]

Dear NetworkManager specialists,

I am desperate to make NetworkManager work on my machine, as I move my 
laptop daily between three locations where I have different network 
setups (one is wired, and two are wireless).

The problems come with my distribution : Sourcemage 
(http://www.sourcemage.org) which is not supported by default.

I managed to compile successfully NetworkManager 0.6.3 with the option 
--with-distro=debian --without-gnome.
I have also compiled :
   - dhcdbd 1.14
   - dhcp-3.0.4 with the patch "dhcp-3.0.3-x-option.patch" provided on 
http://people.redhat.com/jvdias/dhcdbd.
   - iproute2 for /sbin/ip
   - knetworkmanager from svn

I also have the wireless-tools and wpa_supplicant, and my wireless 
connections are working nicely by hand (using nidswrapper for a Netgear 
WG511 softmac card).

I have not dealt with the init scripts, I will take care of them later. 
To make all of these components working together, I just add to symlink 
/sbin/ip to /usr/sbin/ip, and to copy the dbus files installed by NM 
from /usr/etc/dbus-1 to /etc/dubs-1.

Now, NetworkManager is starting without complain, seems to talk nicely 
with knetworkmanager. Even wpa_supplicant is authentifying properly.
But, the DHCP part is not working, neither for wireless nor for wired 
connections.

A simple 'dhclient eth0' outside of NM would work instantaneously, but 
when I start NM, I get the following output, when my ethernet card is 
wired :

Jul  5 20:25:32 sourcemage NetworkManager: <information>        starting...
Jul  5 20:25:32 sourcemage NetworkManager: <information>        eth0: 
Device is fully-supported using driver 'eepro100'.
Jul  5 20:25:32 sourcemage NetworkManager: <information>        
nm_device_init(): waiting for device's worker thread to start
Jul  5 20:25:33 sourcemage NetworkManager: <information>        
nm_device_init(): device's worker thread started, continuing.
Jul  5 20:25:33 sourcemage NetworkManager: <information>        Now 
managing wired Ethernet (802.3) device 'eth0'.
Jul  5 20:25:33 sourcemage NetworkManager: <information>        
Deactivating device eth0.
Jul  5 20:25:33 sourcemage dhcdbd: message_handler: message handler not 
found under /com/redhat/dhcp/eth0 for sub-path eth0.dbus.get.reason
Jul  5 20:25:33 sourcemage dhcdbd: message_handler: message handler not 
found under /com/redhat/dhcp/eth0 for sub-path eth0.dbus.get.reason
Jul  5 20:25:33 sourcemage NetworkManager: <information>        Will 
activate wired connection 'eth0' because it now has a link.
Jul  5 20:25:33 sourcemage NetworkManager: <information>        SWITCH: 
no current connection, found better connection 'eth0'.
Jul  5 20:25:33 sourcemage NetworkManager: <information>        Will 
activate connection 'eth0'.
Jul  5 20:25:33 sourcemage NetworkManager: <information>        Device 
eth0 activation scheduled...
Jul  5 20:25:33 sourcemage NetworkManager: <information>        
Activation (eth0) started...
Jul  5 20:25:33 sourcemage NetworkManager: <information>        
Activation (eth0) Stage 1 of 5 (Device Prepare) scheduled...
Jul  5 20:25:33 sourcemage NetworkManager: <information>        
Activation (eth0) Stage 1 of 5 (Device Prepare) started...
Jul  5 20:25:33 sourcemage NetworkManager: <information>        
Activation (eth0) Stage 2 of 5 (Device Configure) scheduled...
Jul  5 20:25:33 sourcemage NetworkManager: <information>        
Activation (eth0) Stage 1 of 5 (Device Prepare) complete.
Jul  5 20:25:33 sourcemage NetworkManager: <information>        
Activation (eth0) Stage 2 of 5 (Device Configure) starting...
Jul  5 20:25:33 sourcemage NetworkManager: <information>        
Activation (eth0) Stage 2 of 5 (Device Configure) successful.
Jul  5 20:25:33 sourcemage NetworkManager: <information>        
Activation (eth0) Stage 3 of 5 (IP Configure Start) scheduled.
Jul  5 20:25:33 sourcemage NetworkManager: <information>        
Activation (eth0) Stage 2 of 5 (Device Configure) complete.
Jul  5 20:25:33 sourcemage NetworkManager: <information>        
Activation (eth0) Stage 3 of 5 (IP Configure Start) started...
Jul  5 20:25:34 sourcemage NetworkManager: <information>        
Activation (eth0) Beginning DHCP transaction.
Jul  5 20:25:34 sourcemage NetworkManager: <information>        DHCP 
daemon state is now 12 (successfully started) for interface eth0
Jul  5 20:25:34 sourcemage NetworkManager: <information>        
Activation (eth0) Stage 3 of 5 (IP Configure Start) complete.
Jul  5 20:25:34 sourcemage dhclient: Internet Systems Consortium DHCP 
Client V3.0.4
Jul  5 20:25:34 sourcemage dhcdbd: Unrequested down ?:3
Jul  5 20:25:34 sourcemage NetworkManager: <information>        DHCP 
daemon state is now 14 (normal exit) for interface eth0
Jul  5 20:25:34 sourcemage dhclient: Copyright 2004-2006 Internet 
Systems Consortium.
Jul  5 20:25:34 sourcemage dhclient: All rights reserved.
Jul  5 20:25:34 sourcemage dhclient: For info, please visit 
http://www.isc.org/sw/dhcp/
Jul  5 20:25:53 sourcemage NetworkManager: <information>        Updating 
allowed wireless network lists.
Jul  5 20:26:04 sourcemage NetworkManager: <information>        Old 
device 'eth0' activating, won't change.
Jul  5 20:26:19 sourcemage NetworkManager: <information>        Device 
'eth0' DHCP transaction took too long (>45s), stopping it.
Jul  5 20:26:19 sourcemage NetworkManager: <information>        
Activation (eth0) Stage 4 of 5 (IP Configure Timeout) scheduled...
Jul  5 20:26:19 sourcemage NetworkManager: <information>        
Activation (eth0) Stage 4 of 5 (IP Configure Timeout) started...
Jul  5 20:26:19 sourcemage NetworkManager: <information>        No DHCP 
reply received.  Automatically obtaining IP via Zeroconf.

Etc. and it fails.

Apart from the "dhcdbd: Unrequested down ?:3" that I don't understand, I 
can't see any obvious error. dhcdbd seems to start dhclient properly, 
but does not talk with it. Do I miss some other patch for dhclient or 
something else ?

Thank you for help.

Timoth�