Re: Trouble running 0.7

[Dan Williams <dcbw redhat com>]

On Tue, 2008-11-18 at 07:08 -0500, Geoff Buchan wrote:
> I've been trying to run NetworkManager 0.7, as well as nm-applet 0.7,
> but I've not been able to get it to connect to or even see any wireless
> networks.
> 
> The programs seem to start and run, but with error messages. When I run
> nm-applet, I see:
> WARNING **: Could not retrieve dbus connections: Launch helper exited with unknown return code 1.

That means the system settings service is incorrectly installed, or the
D-Bus permissions aren't correct for your distro.  You'll  need to talk
to the distro maintainer for NM to figure out what the correct
permissions are.  I've tried to get both the Ubuntu maintainer and the
Debian maintainer to tell me what the correct dbus conf files should be,
so that I can add them to NM upstream, but haven't had luck on that
count.

> The applet appears in my panel, but the menu choices for Wired Network,
> Auto Ethernet, and Wireless Networks are all grey and not selectable.

Auto Ethernet will not be selectable unless you have a cable plugged in.
If that doesn't work, what's the output of of 'sudo /sbin/ethtool eth0'
or 'mii-tool eth0'?  If the card doesn't support link detection, the
driver is simply broken.  I'm almost positive e1000 supports link
detection, since I'm using it right now.

> When I first start NetworkManager, I see the following
> in /var/log/syslog:
> Nov 18 06:49:13 durufle NetworkManager: <info>  Trying to start the supplicant... 
> Nov 18 06:49:13 durufle NetworkManager: <info>  Trying to start the system settings daemon... 
> Nov 18 06:49:13 durufle NetworkManager: <WARN>  killswitch_getpower_reply(): Error getting killswitch power: hal-ipw-killswitch-linu
> x returned 255. 
> Nov 18 06:49:13 durufle NetworkManager: <info>  Waking up... 
> Nov 18 06:49:13 durufle NetworkManager: <info>  eth0: driver is 'e1000'. 
> Nov 18 06:49:13 durufle NetworkManager: <info>  Found new Ethernet device 'eth0'. 
> Nov 18 06:49:13 durufle NetworkManager: <info>  (eth0): exported as /org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/net_00_16_d3_c6_ce_f1 
> Nov 18 06:49:13 durufle NetworkManager: <info>  wlan0: driver is 'iwl3945'. 
> Nov 18 06:49:13 durufle NetworkManager: <info>  wlan0: driver does not support SSID scans (scan_capa 0x00). 

^^^^^ your driver does not support scan capabilities, you'll want to
smack your distro's kernel maintainer upside the head and tell them to
use a recent driver from the upstream kernel.  Scan capabilities were
added on 2007-12-12 in commit 374fdfbc to
net/mac80211/ieee80211_ioctl.c.  There's really no excuse for this not
being there.

Lack of probe-scanning will have an adverse affect on the performance of
NetworkManager.  If you're using Ubuntu 8.04, the scan capability patch
is a good one to suggest that the kernel maintainer backport, as it is
completely advisory and has zero behavioral impact on applications that
don't specifically look for it.

> Nov 18 06:49:13 durufle NetworkManager: <info>  Found new 802.11 WiFi device 'wlan0'. 
> Nov 18 06:49:13 durufle NetworkManager: <info>  (wlan0): exported as /org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/net_00_1c_bf_2d_3a_9a_0 
> Nov 18 06:49:17 durufle NetworkManager: <info>  (eth0): device state change: 1 -> 2 
> Nov 18 06:49:17 durufle NetworkManager: <info>  (eth0): bringing up device. 
> Nov 18 06:49:17 durufle NetworkManager: <info>  (eth0): preparing device. 
> Nov 18 06:49:17 durufle NetworkManager: <info>  (eth0): deactivating device (reason: 2). 
> Nov 18 06:49:17 durufle NetworkManager: <info>  (wlan0): device state change: 1 -> 2 
> Nov 18 06:49:17 durufle NetworkManager: <info>  (wlan0): bringing up device. 
> Nov 18 06:49:17 durufle NetworkManager: <info>  (wlan0): preparing device. 
> Nov 18 06:49:17 durufle NetworkManager: <info>  (wlan0): deactivating device (reason: 2). 
> Nov 18 06:49:17 durufle NetworkManager: supplicant_interface_acquire: assertion `mgr_state == NM_SUPPLICANT_MANAGER_STATE_IDLE' failed
> 
> While the system stays up, every two minutes these two lines recur in the sylog:
> Nov 18 07:01:13 durufle NetworkManager: <info>  Trying to start the supplicant... 
> Nov 18 07:01:13 durufle NetworkManager: <info>  Trying to start the system settings daemon...

Right, the dbus permissions issue from above.

Dan

> I'm using the iwl3945 driver for an Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG card with
> a recent kernel:
> Linux version 2.6.24-21-generic (buildd palmer) (gcc version 4.2.3 (Ubuntu 4.2.3-2ubuntu7)) #1 SMP Tue Oct 21 23:43:45 UTC 2008
> 
> I'm guessing there may be some sort of configuration problem. If I
> reinstall the old Debian wireless packages, then I would be able to see
> networks in the scan, and I could manually enter a network I wanted to
> connect to.
> 
> Any suggestions about what the problem may be?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Geoff Buchan
> 
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