Problem setting up wired networking

[Anne Wilson]

On Friday 14 November 2008 17:00:49 Chuck Anderson 
wrote:

> Try repeating "iwlist scanning" a few times in a row--
sometimes it
> takes a few tries for results to appear.
>
No joy.

> But, this seems like a kernel driver issue then, nothing 
to do with
> wpa_supplicant or NetworkManager.  To be sure, could 
you temporarily
> turn those off, reboot, and repeat those steps above?
>
> chkconfig --level 2345 NetworkManager off
>
> (wpa_supplicant should always be off by default 
anyway, but in case:
> chkconfig --level 2345 wpa_supplicant off
> don't turn it back on again after testing since it is 
launched
> automatically as needed by NM)
>
> After testing, you can turn NetworkManager back on:
>
> chkconfig --level 2345 NetworkManager on
>
> This will help by eliminating NetworkManager or 
wpa_supplicant as the
> cause of "no scan results".
>
> Remeber to try "iwlist scanning" a few times in a row.
>
Again, none of this made any difference.

> > Wow - some progress, if only small.  In view of what
> > appears above I renamed ifcfg-wlan0 and created a 
new
> > one.  I immediately got a popup saying that I am 
now
> > connected to myESSID.  BUT, the icon shows a very 
weak
> > signal, and ifconfig shows that it has the address
> > 10.42.44.1, while my network is a 192.168.0.x LAN.
>
> Strange.
>
> > This is the situation I reached a couple of days ago, 
and
> > I'm comopletely foxed by it.
> >
> > Running iwconfig wlan0 again I now get
> >
> > wlan0     IEEE 802.11bg  ESSID:"myESSID"
> >           Mode:Ad-Hoc  Frequency:2.412 GHz  Cell:
> > 36:8F:3A:45:3F:BC
> >           Tx-Power=27 dBm
> >           Retry min limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment 
thr=2352
> > B
> >           Power Management:off
> >           Link Quality:0  Signal level:0  Noise level:0
> >           Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx 
invalid
> > frag:0
> >           Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed
> > beacon:0
> >
> > I tried changing the setup from ad-hoc to 
Infrastructure,
> > but that breaks things - I can no longer connect.
>
> ad-hoc should only be for computer-to-computer 
connections, not
> computer-to-accesspoint.
>
That's why I tried to change it - without success.

> > FWIW, my router does not list this netbook as a
> > connected device.
>
> I'm guessing that you really didn't connect anywhere--
you just created
> a new ad-hoc connection so that other computers 
could have connected
> to you on an ad-hoc basis.
>
> Beyond the debugging of "scanning" above, you could 
ignore scanning
> and try to manually connect to a specific network.  
With
> NetworkManager disabled:
>
> iwconfig wlan0 essid myESSID
> iwconfig wlan0 mode Managed
> ifconfig wlan0 up
>
> Now check a few times to see if it eventually associates 
to the AP:
>
> iwconfig wlan0
>
> Eventually, you should see it say "associated".  

I can't get an association.  At the end of all this I get

wlan0     IEEE 802.11bg  ESSID:"myESSID"
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.412 GHz  Access 
Point: Not-Associated
          Tx-Power=27 dBm
          Retry min limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr=2352 
B
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality:0  Signal level:0  Noise level:0
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid 
frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed 
beacon:0

> If that happens, you
> could try to get an IP address configured by manually 
starting the
> dhcp client:
>
> dhclient wlan0
>
Although I hadn't got an association, I tried it anyway.  It 
said dhclient was already running, and exited.
>
> If you can repeatably connect fine using this method, 
then there is
> probably a problem with the kernel driver scanning for 
networks.
> NetworkManager won't work well if scanning doesn't 
work.
>
>
> Some SELinux notes:
>
> The above tests might work best with SELinux in 
permissive mode.
>
I have already changed to permissive mode.

> If you run in permissive mode for a while, your system 
may no longer
> have correct file labels.  After testing in permissive 
mode, when you
> are ready to switch back to enforcing mode, it is a 
good idea to:
>
> touch /.autorelabel
> reboot
>
> To fix the labels on the entire system.

OK - I'll try to remember that :-)

Anne