"wireless disabled in software"

[Timothy Murphy]

Craig White wrote:

>> I have found many times that I am not connected to the internet on my
>> laptop BECAUSE NM has deleted the entries in /etc/resolv.conf ,
>> and that when I install the proper entries
>> (I keep them in /etc/resolv.conf.opendns for this purpose)
>> I am immediately connected.
>> (I do not need to enter my IP address manually.)
> ----
> If NM deletes the contents of /etc/resolv.conf WHILE you have a network
> device that is functional, that would be a bug and you should report it.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by functional.
Eg last night I was on my laptop in my bed-room,
which may be near the limiting distance from my WiFi router.
I guess the laptop lost connection,
and when it came back I found resolv.conf had been gutted.
So the device was not functional (briefly)
in the sense that it had lost the connection.

>> I recently had the experience that NM deleted the HWADDR address
>> in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-wlan0 .
>> Why?
> ----
> HWADDR might have changed - that's not really a problem anyway.

Can the HWADDR of a device change in the real world?
I imagine it might in the virtual world, 
but I'm not into that sort of thing.

When you say it isn't really a problem,
does dhcpd have another way of recognising the device?
I see NM (maybe dhclient?) has taken to writing a UUID in ifcfg-* ,
I'm not sure why as I don't think my dhcpd server
knows anything about it.

In my case, I put the HWADDR back,
and probably had to restore resolv.conf,
and the connection came back,
but I don't know which change was responsible.

>> I find the logic of NM completely incomprehensible,
>> and I haven't found any simple explanation of it anywhere.
> ----
> Feel free to contribute documentation

I genuinely don't know NM's modus operandi,
so any documentation written by me would be completely useless,
in fact worse than useless, dangerous.

All I know is that if NM stops working there are about 6 things I can do -
look at resolv.conf, look at /var/log/messages, look at ifcfg-wlan0,
look at lsmod, google "Fedora NM <card> <driver>",
google <last NM message in /var/log/messages>.
One of these usually gives a hint.

>> What exactly is its train of thought if it sees a single AP visible?
>> Wouldn't any normal person try to connect to that?
>> And if it found some key was needed, why not just ask for it?
>> More or less what Windows does, in fact.
> ----
> always seemed to work well enough for my laptop but it did require that
> I interact with the 'widget' (whatever it is called in KDE) that listed
> available wireless networks and allowed me to instigate a connection.

I'm not sure what you mean by "instigate a connection".
If I right-click on the slightly odd NM icon (like the sound icon
rotated 90%) then I can go to Network Management Settings
(where I also get to less directly if I left click on the icon).
Very occasionally - maybe one time in twenty -
I actually see a label "Connect" which I can click.
But usually there is no action I can take
apart from editing the data which in fact is never necessary.

The only action I've found likely to work at this point is re-booting.

> In
> a general sense, I think Windows automatically joining a wireless
> network is a real security concern but I suspect that at some point,
> there will be enough users who just want things to work automatically
> and are incapable of applying their needs to an interface.

I wouldn't mind in the slightest if NM gave me a choice of APs,
and asked me to click the one I want.
But it doesn't tell me anything,
even though "iwlist scan" tells me there is an AP staring in its face.

>> Recently, a new nightmare has occurred;
>> a window comes up called Secret, or something like that,
>> with a space for a password, in which it is impossible to write.
>> Admittedly closing the window does not seem to leave matters
>> any worse than before.
> ----
> haven't a clue what you are getting at here

I've never seen it before.
It is a small window entitled Secret which appears in the middle of the 
screen, with a space denoted "Password" in which I cannot in fact write.
(I wouldn't know what to write even if I could.)
I take it that it has something to do with NM,
since I know NM is very fond of the word "secret".
This phenomenon has only occurred about 5 times, in the last day or two,
so I assume it comes from a new version of NM,
or possibly some other application.
Has no-one else seen this?

>> To put it bluntly, NM is very bad if there is a problem.
>> It does not give any helpful advice,
>> and the entries in /var/log/messages are more or less meaningless,
>> eg "deactivating device (reason: 2)".
> ----
> yeah but things were much worse before NM so either make bug reports for
> the behaviors you believe are wrong/problematic, suffer or use another
> OS because those really are you choices. Whining to the list may prove
> to be sufficiently cathartic for you to continue on suffering I suppose.

I agree that the network service under Fedora was even worse.
I have actually communicated with Dan Williams on occasion,
and he has always gone out of his way to help, or try to help.
But I've always had the impression that he has his own way
of doing things, and is not very open to suggestion.
Eg I suggested some time ago that "reason: 3" is not very helpful
in an error or warning message,
but his response was to tell me where I could find what it means.

Incidentally, system-config-network seems to have become completely useless.
It comes up with a blue screen, with 2 apparent options in the middle:
Device configuration, and DNS configuration.
The first only lists em1, my ethernet controller, which I am not using.
And as far as I can see, there is no change I could make
even if I wanted to.

And there seem no entries in the f-menu allowing me
to run something like a GUI version of system-config-network,
as there used to be.


-- 
Timothy Murphy  
e-mail: gayleard /at/ eircom.net
tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland