Re: A couple of minor issues with NM

["Darren Albers" <dalbers gmail com>]

On 12/22/06, Timothy Murphy <tim birdsnest maths tcd ie> wrote:

> I read your FAQ, and deleted the entries in .gconf/system/networking/wireless/
> relating to the network I did not want to connect to.
> But this didn't appear to have the slightest effect;
> when I re-booted the deleted network still came up.
> Evidently the data is kept somewhere else as well.
>
> I should say that I am using KDE rather than Gnome.
> It seems that NetworkManager leans fairly heavily towards Gnome.
> Maybe it is not a good choice for KDE users?

Oops, I forgot that you are running KDE, I am not sure where
knetworkmanager stores the profiles.  I think there is a mailing list
devoted to this on kde.org or maybe a Knetworkmanager user here can
tell you.  I vaguely remember something about the KDE wallet?

> I'm afraid I do blame the Linux WiFi developers.
> For some reason the whole setup is in an appalling mess,
> with files all over the place, as I said.
> There is nothing wrong with the orinoco_cs driver;
> once I get connected it works perfectly.

This is off topic for this list but I still have no idea what this:
"with files all over the place" means.... On my system they are in the
location I expect them to be.


> I take it by "the normal Network-Admin tool"
> you mean system-config-network and the GUI variants of this?
> I find these very bad, but in a different way to NM.
> They simply don't work, in my experience.
> The only reasonably certain way of setting up WiFi in my experience
> is to edit the files in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts one's self

> > Have you checked your systems logs to see if it reports why the
> > association is being stopped?
>
> Yes, repeatedly -
> when it doesn't work it says the delay was too long:
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
> Dec 23 00:44:42 martha NetworkManager: <information>    Activation (eth0)
> started...
> Dec 23 00:44:42 martha NetworkManager: <information>    Activation (eth0)
> Stage 1 of 5 (Device Prepare) scheduled...
> Dec 23 00:44:42 martha NetworkManager: <information>    Activation (eth0)
> Stage 1 of 5 (Device Prepare) started...
> Dec 23 00:44:42 martha NetworkManager: <information>    Activation (eth0)
> Stage 2 of 5 (Device Configure) scheduled...
> Dec 23 00:44:42 martha NetworkManager: <information>    Activation (eth0)
> Stage 1 of 5 (Device Prepare) complete.
> Dec 23 00:44:42 martha NetworkManager: <information>    Activation (eth0)
> Stage 2 of 5 (Device Configure) starting...
> Dec 23 00:44:42 martha NetworkManager: <information>    Activation
> (eth0/wireless): access point 'dd-wrt' is unencrypted, n
> o key needed.
> Dec 23 00:44:43 martha NetworkManager: <information>    SUP: sending
> command 'INTERFACE_ADD eth0                wext    /va
> r/run/wpa_supplicant '
> Dec 23 00:44:43 martha NetworkManager: <information>    SUP: response was 'OK'
> Dec 23 00:44:43 martha NetworkManager: <information>    SUP: sending
> command 'AP_SCAN 2'
> Dec 23 00:44:43 martha NetworkManager: <information>    SUP: response was 'OK'
> Dec 23 00:44:43 martha NetworkManager: <information>    SUP: sending
> command 'ADD_NETWORK'
> Dec 23 00:44:43 martha NetworkManager: <information>    SUP: response was '0'
> Dec 23 00:44:43 martha NetworkManager: <information>    SUP: sending
> command 'SET_NETWORK 0 ssid 64642d777274'
> Dec 23 00:44:43 martha NetworkManager: <information>    SUP: response was 'OK'
> Dec 23 00:44:43 martha NetworkManager: <information>    SUP: sending
> command 'SET_NETWORK 0 key_mgmt NONE'
> Dec 23 00:44:43 martha NetworkManager: <information>    SUP: response was 'OK'
> Dec 23 00:44:43 martha NetworkManager: <information>    SUP: sending
> command 'ENABLE_NETWORK 0'
> Dec 23 00:44:43 martha NetworkManager: <information>    SUP: response was 'OK'
> Dec 23 00:44:43 martha kernel: eth0: New link status: Disconnected (0002)
> Dec 23 00:44:43 martha NetworkManager: <information>    Activation (eth0)
> Stage 2 of 5 (Device Configure) complete.
> Dec 23 00:44:51 martha NetworkManager: <information>    eth0: link timed out.
> Dec 23 00:45:03 martha NetworkManager: <information>    Activation
> (eth0/wireless): association took too long (>20s), faili
> ng activation.
> Dec 23 00:45:03 martha NetworkManager: <information>    Activation (eth0)
> failure scheduled...
> Dec 23 00:45:03 martha NetworkManager: <information>    Activation (eth0)
> failed for access point (dd-wrt)
> Dec 23 00:45:03 martha NetworkManager: <information>    Activation (eth0)
> failed.
> Dec 23 00:45:03 martha NetworkManager: <information>    Deactivating device
> eth0.
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
>
> However, the next time I re-boot NM works fine,
> completing the whole operation in less than a second.

But there is nothing to indicate why the connection suddenly fails?
What you are seeing there is it failing to associate but what causes
it to fail initially?

> > > What is more, after failing to accept my key
> > > NM said it could not find any wireless networks,
> > > where previously it saw two of them.
> > >
> > > Has anyone else had problems getting NM to accept a WEP key?
> >
> > No, but is it a hex or ascii key?   I just tried it on my system and I
> > was able to enter the passphrase and connect right away.
>
> What passphrase?
> I don't have any such phrase - just a network key (hex)
> which seems to work perfectly well in Windows.
> Actually, it works perfectly well in the usual WiFi setup in Linux,
> when entered as key=... in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 .

Are you adding the 0x in front of the key?   I have also heard of some
people having problems when their AP is set to shared instead of open.