howto ignore rfkill switch

[Jim Cromie <jim cromie gmail com>]

My rfkill switch is defective; I bumped it one day,
and now I cannot turn it back on.  The LED right next to the switch
formerly lit up, now it doesnt.

The switch (stuck in off position) disables all WIFI;
not just the built-in one, but also pcmcia and usb wlan devices Ive plugged in.

I googled, and found the thread (below) from July 09,
but it talked more about the poor design (pre-31)
and blacklisting (or not) than the OPs problem (a bad switch).

Im running Fedora 12 with latest kernel 2.6.32,
ie after the pre-31 API problems.

#> udevadm monitor
shows the card insertion, removal working sensibly (ie looks right)

#> tail -f /var/log/messages
then plugging in the USB wifi, shows:

Apr 21 15:39:40 harpo kernel: usb 1-1: new high speed USB device using
ehci_hcd and address 5
Apr 21 15:39:40 harpo kernel: usb 1-1: New USB device found,
idVendor=0846, idProduct=6a00
Apr 21 15:39:40 harpo kernel: usb 1-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1,
Product=2, SerialNumber=3
Apr 21 15:39:40 harpo kernel: usb 1-1: Product: NETGEAR WG111v2
Apr 21 15:39:40 harpo kernel: usb 1-1: Manufacturer: NETGEAR WG111v2
Apr 21 15:39:40 harpo kernel: usb 1-1: SerialNumber: 00146C6644CB
Apr 21 15:39:40 harpo kernel: usb 1-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
Apr 21 15:39:41 harpo kernel: phy4: hwaddr 00:14:6c:66:44:cb,
RTL8187vB (default) V1 + rtl8225, rfkill mask 2
Apr 21 15:39:41 harpo kernel: rtl8187: Customer ID is 0xFF
Apr 21 15:39:41 harpo kernel: Registered led device: rtl8187-phy4::tx
Apr 21 15:39:41 harpo kernel: Registered led device: rtl8187-phy4::rx
Apr 21 15:39:41 harpo kernel: rtl8187: wireless switch is on
Apr 21 15:39:41 harpo kernel: udev: renamed network interface wlan0 to wlan1
Apr 21 15:39:41 harpo NetworkManager: <info>  (wlan1): driver supports
SSID scans (scan_capa 0x01).
Apr 21 15:39:41 harpo NetworkManager: <info>  (wlan1): new 802.11 WiFi
device (driver: 'rtl8187')
Apr 21 15:39:41 harpo NetworkManager: <info>  (wlan1): exported as
/org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/Devices/6
Apr 21 15:39:41 harpo NetworkManager: <info>  (wlan1): now managed
Apr 21 15:39:41 harpo NetworkManager: <info>  (wlan1): device state
change: 1 -> 2 (reason 2)
Apr 21 15:39:41 harpo NetworkManager: <info>  (wlan1): bringing up device.
Apr 21 15:39:41 harpo NetworkManager: <info>  (wlan1): deactivating
device (reason: 2).
Apr 21 15:39:41 harpo NetworkManager: <info>  Found wlan radio
killswitch rfkill4 (at
/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.7/usb1/1-1/1-1:1.0/ieee80211/phy4/rfkill4)
(driver <unknown>)


the last 4 entries appear to be the crux of the problem;
NM is managing it, changes its state: 1 -> 2 (reason 2)
then deactivates it (reason: 2)

What is reason 2 ?
What is reason 36 (also saw this, unmanaged device ??)

Are the state(s) 1,2 related to the driver's
parm:           master_switch_mode:SW_RFKILL_ALL ON should: 0=do
nothing (only unlock); 1=restore; 2=unblock all (uint)

FWIW, Ive got these module options :
options rfkill master_switch_mode=1 ( also tried =2)
options rfkill default_state=1


I also tried manually enabling the built-in wifi:
~]$ sudo ifup eth0
Error for wireless request "Set Mode" (8B06) :
    SET failed on device eth0 ; Invalid argument.

Determining IP information for eth0... failed; no link present.  Check cable?

Unsurprising really, but when I tried it w/o wired ethernet,
I got an error like:
  RTNETLINK error 32





Someone (Dan Williams iirc) mentioned
crafting a udev rule to handle it, this sounded like
something to trap the rfkill event and do nothing with it,
but Id think the event is toggling the switch, which I cant do.

Im including the monitor output anyway, as Im likely missing something.


KERNEL[1271886396.149123] add
/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.7/usb1/1-1 (usb)
KERNEL[1271886396.153177] add
/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.7/usb1/1-1/1-1:1.0 (usb)
KERNEL[1271886396.353311] add
/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.7/usb1/1-1/1-1:1.0/ieee80211/phy6
(ieee80211)
KERNEL[1271886396.353416] add
/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.7/usb1/1-1/1-1:1.0/ieee80211/phy6/rfkill6
(rfkill)
KERNEL[1271886396.355061] change
/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.7/usb1/1-1/1-1:1.0/ieee80211/phy6/rfkill6
(rfkill)
KERNEL[1271886396.359586] add
/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.7/usb1/1-1/1-1:1.0/net/wlan0 (net)
KERNEL[1271886396.377038] add
/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.7/usb1/1-1/leds/rtl8187-phy6::tx (leds)
KERNEL[1271886396.377079] add
/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.7/usb1/1-1/leds/rtl8187-phy6::rx (leds)
UDEV  [1271886396.401110] add
/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.7/usb1/1-1 (usb)
UDEV  [1271886396.402991] add
/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.7/usb1/1-1/leds/rtl8187-phy6::tx (leds)
UDEV  [1271886396.406966] add
/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.7/usb1/1-1/1-1:1.0 (usb)
UDEV  [1271886396.410597] add
/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.7/usb1/1-1/leds/rtl8187-phy6::rx (leds)
KERNEL[1271886396.462719] move
/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.7/usb1/1-1/1-1:1.0/net/wlan1 (net)
UDEV  [1271886396.473525] add
/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.7/usb1/1-1/1-1:1.0/net/wlan1 (net)
UDEV  [1271886396.493383] move
/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.7/usb1/1-1/1-1:1.0/net/wlan1 (net)
UDEV  [1271886396.516463] add
/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.7/usb1/1-1/1-1:1.0/ieee80211/phy6
(ieee80211)
UDEV  [1271886396.517573] add
/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.7/usb1/1-1/1-1:1.0/ieee80211/phy6/rfkill6
(rfkill)
UDEV  [1271886396.518076] change
/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.7/usb1/1-1/1-1:1.0/ieee80211/phy6/rfkill6
(rfkill)




Re: howto ignore rfkill switch
________________________________
From: Dan Williams <dcbw redhat com>
To: Marcel Holtmann <marcel holtmann org>
Cc: networkmanager-list gnome org
Subject: Re: howto ignore rfkill switch
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 2009 09:10:44 -0400





Im willing to disable the rfkill code thats shutting things down,
but would appreciate advice on how to do so, or whether theres
a simpler approach that avoids code changes (my hope).

tia