Improved Network Wizard (and rc.network)

[Dougal]

I am using the 8185 and the version included with puppy seems does not support the level of encryption on my home network. That's why I posted, because nothing in previous posts seemed to help.

There is no "8185" module. As far as I know, the two Realtech wifi drivers are rtl8180 and rtl8187, one of which (probably 8187) supports the 8185 chip, too.
In the first Wizard window, where it lists the available interfaces, it shows which module supports each interface.
If it is, indeed, one of the above two, then the solution to your problem is the same as posted by someone in the previous page and is already implemented in the latest version of the wizard (which I attached to the first post of this thread).

Signal Strength is 36" from 100mw running through dual 9db gain antenna. Not sure what that works out to but probably pretty good. SO that's not it.

I meant the signal as it is detected: when you run a wireless scan in the wizard, it gives you a window with a list of available networks and hovering the mouse cursor over each gives you a tooltip with info, such as the signal strength.
Since a lot of the Linux drivers are the result of reverse-engineering, they're not perfect and in some cases will not be as good as the Windows driver, hence the received signal might not be as strong as you will have on Windows (on when using the Windows driver with Ndiswrapper).

And yes, I have tried puppy's version of ndiswrapper. Also fails. But what perplexes me is ndiswrapper, an xp driver (not vista ), the pci version of the 8185 and my son's desktop running kanotix works just fine with my encryption. The only workaround was that I had to un-mask the ssid.

Kanotix is most likely using and older version of wpa_supplicant. I think there were some reports of the new version (found in the latest Puppies) having some problems with Ndiswrapper.

[mrd]

Is this fix in 4.11? I posted about a wifi problem I'm having on MacPup yesterday and it sure sounds like some of the isssues mentioned in this thread.

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 5&start=30

[tempestuous]

As far as I know, the two Realtech wifi drivers are rtl8180 and rtl8187, one of which (probably 8187) supports the 8185 chip, too.

Not quite.
The Realtek PCI/Cardbus chipsets are RTL8180 and RTL8185, both are support by the rtl8180 module.
The Realtek USB chipset is RTL8187, supported by the rtl8187 module.

To confuse the issue somewhat, there is now a miniPCI variant of the RTL8187 chipset, supported only by a proprietary Realtek module. See here
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 747#237747

[h4yn0nnym0u5e]

Sad to say, it's not fixed - looks as if the hex key is being generated from a PSK string with the backslashes left in, i.e. NOT absorbed by being interpreted as escape characters! For example, if PSK="bla\$BLA" the hex is generated from bla\$BLA, not bla$BLA

Ok, I think I fixed it.
Let me know if it works.

Hi Dougal

Yay! You've cracked it! It now works perfectly for me, the $ signs can be typed in, the passphrase appears correctly in the dialogue field, and the network connects.

I haven't tested the use of quote characters, as I don't use them in my network.

Thanks very much - greatly appreciated

Jonathan

[mrd]

Just an FYI...

I have the same problem as I mentioned earlier in puppy411 as in MacPup411f. The network does not seem to load the saved wifi profile after a reboot.

[edoc]

Just an FYI...

I have the same problem as I mentioned earlier in puppy411 as in MacPup411f. The network does not seem to load the saved wifi profile after a reboot.

If you mean does it automatically reload I always have to reload the wifi on reboot, sure would be nice if it either a)reloaded at reboot or b)reloaded when Seamonkey is opened

[mrd]

Well it seems to load the profile half way. By that I mean in my /var/log/messages, it shows attempts to get a dhcp address. I posted an excerpt a few replies up in this thread. In other versions of puppy, it just works. When I reboot, my previously configured and saved wifi config gets an address and I'm up and running.

[plaircpa]

Just installed 4.1.2 and still had the same problem as 4.1.1 with my configured network not connecting at bootup. I can right click on the connect desktop icon and run the autoconnect script. This works fine.
I noticed that when I run through the connect dialog, load my profile and autodhcp it also works. Also noticed that when I do a scan in the connect dialog, my network is not listed. Hitting cancel, and running it again and I get a lot more listed including my own. So, I changed rc.network and put a sleep 2 and ran iwlist scan again and so far - 3 times in a row the system connected at bootup. I am using a Belkin pcmcia. This card works with the ath_pci driver. I believe that puppy does not see this as a pcmcia card so none of the pcmcia specific code is getting run in the rc.network script.

Thought this might help debugging this issue and hopefully 4.2 will not have the same issue.

Love puppy by the way - makes my 750mhz compaq laptop run great!

thanks

scott

[Dougal]

So, I changed rc.network and put a sleep 2 and ran iwlist scan again and so far - 3 times in a row the system connected at bootup. I am using a Belkin pcmcia. This card works with the ath_pci driver. I believe that puppy does not see this as a pcmcia card so none of the pcmcia specific code is getting run in the rc.network script.

Thought this might help debugging this issue and hopefully 4.2 will not have the same issue.

Where exactly did you add the "sleep 2"?

I think there's a problem with all pcmcia devices, due to how the init process
in puppy4 works:
In /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit, rc.network is started in the background and immediately
after it rc.services is also run in the background.
Now, rc.services starts by sleeping for 3 seconds, then handles alsa startup,
then starts the service scripts in /etc/init.d, which means cups and then pcmcia.
So what happens is that, only something like 4 seconds after rc.network has
started, pcmcia-socket-startup is run (what exactly it does I don't know).

I don't know if this actually changes anything but the fact is that, if the
interface is visible before pcmcia-socket-startup is run, we will be
trying to use it before/during the time pcmcia-socket-startup is run...

I tried to add something a while ago that I hoped will help, but I don't know if
it actually works, since I have no way of testing it...
If someone could post the output of

Code: Select all

cat /sys/class/net/*/device/modalias

in such a case, it could help (even better would be the output of that command
when inserted above the line that uses it in rc.network...).

[kglade]

When I type cat /sys/class/net/*/device/modalias in a console, I get the following output:

• # cat /sys/class/net/*/device/modalias
  pcmcia:m0274c1613f06fn00pfn00paA5F472C2pb590EB502pcC9049A39pd57A66194
  pcmcia:m0274c1613f06fn00pfn00paA5F472C2pb590EB502pcC9049A39pd57A66194

I edited rc.network to put the same "cat..." line in the line above the one that uses modalias, like this:

Code: Select all

  # add an extra wait for pcmcia NICs to initialize
  cat /sys/class/net/*/device/modalias
  case "$(cat /sys/class/net/*/device/modalias)" in *pcmcia:*) sleep 10 ;; esac
fi # if [ "$ACTION" = "restart" ] ; then

however, I get no output anywhere that I can see when I run the "autoconnect to ethernet wireless networks" menu choice under right-clicking the connect icon. I am very new to linux so if there is a way to see the output, please let me know.

Ken

[PaulBx1]

I have two network interfaces, one wireless (wlan0, 192.168.1.15) and one ethernet (eth0, 192.168.1.14). It was my intention to use eth0 for a LAN and wlan0 (connected to my wireless router which is 192.168.1.1) for the internet, using static ip addresses. For some reason, eth0 always has the router address 192.168.1.1 as a gateway. This comes from the iproute command in the script, I guess. I attempted to set the eth0 gateway to 0.0.0.0, and set the wlan0 gateway to 192.168.1.1 (which is the router), but the network wizard would never let me (complaining the "route add" command didn't work because "SIOCADDRT: file exists"). After some struggles, when I finally did "ifconfig eth0 down" in a console window, THEN set its gateway to 0.0.0.0, it finally allowed me to set the gateway properly for wlan0, and I could then access the internet. But when I reboot it is back again to the condition where eth0 has the 192.168.1.1 gateway which means wlan0 can't have it, and my internet accesses don't work.

I notice the file that has the mac address in the name, /etc/network-wizard/wireless/profiles/ "macaddressthingy".WPA.conf has multiple copies of my various tries of attempting some static IP address in it. That doesn't seem right. And the corresponding thing for the ethernet interface, /etc/network-wizard/network/interfaces/"macaddressthingy".conf has the same sort of IP address stuff in it (one copy only) except it is missing the gateway address for some reason.

This is a standard 4.1.2 Puppy by the way.

<later>
There is a comment in the network wizard code, "#411 BK hack to remove..." that applies to ethernet but apparently not wireless? Or is that a mistake?

Maybe I'm doing something wrong. If an internal LAN without any gateway except eth0 itself, am I supposed to put gateway as 0.0.0.0, or nothing? Or, if the internal LAN is supposed to get to the internet through eth0, then should I put 192.168.1.14 as my gateway for eth0 even though it itself is 192.168.1.14? Or even put the other thing, wlan0, 192.168.1.15 as my eth0 gateway?

[Dougal]

I edited rc.network to put the same "cat..." line in the line above the one that uses modalias, like this:

Code: Select all

  # add an extra wait for pcmcia NICs to initialize
  cat /sys/class/net/*/device/modalias
  case "$(cat /sys/class/net/*/device/modalias)" in *pcmcia:*) sleep 10 ;; esac
fi # if [ "$ACTION" = "restart" ] ; then

however, I get no output anywhere that I can see when I run the "autoconnect to ethernet wireless networks" menu choice under right-clicking the connect icon. I am very new to linux so if there is a way to see the output, please let me know.

That bit of code doesn't run when you do the "autoconnect" thing, only when booting.
The output should be in /tmp/bootsysinit.log.

[kglade]

The output should be in /tmp/bootsysinit.log.

Here is the output:

PERSONAL BOOT SCRIPT
............
cat: /sys/class/net/*/device/modalias: No such file or directory
cat: /sys/class/net/*/device/modalias: No such file or directory
cups: started scheduler.
Starting PCMCIA services:

[Dougal]

Here is the output:

PERSONAL BOOT SCRIPT
............
cat: /sys/class/net/*/device/modalias: No such file or directory
cat: /sys/class/net/*/device/modalias: No such file or directory
cups: started scheduler.
Starting PCMCIA services:

Well, that explains why my extra sleep for pcmcia didn't work...
The question is why the hell don't we have anything in /sys/class/net?

Anyway, this means we need to find another way to know to add the extra sleep for pcmcia devices. I'll try and see if I can find something, but any suggestions are welcome.

BTW, note that the above quote confirms what I wrote a few days ago: the pcmcia services thing is started after we try to use the network interfaces...

[kglade]

FWIW, in /sys/class/net I have only three items, each a symbolic link.

• lo 'a link to /sys/devies/virtual/net/lo
  wifi0 'a link to /sys/devices/pci0000:00/0001/1.0/net/wifi0
  wlan0 'a link to /sys/devices/pci0000:00/0001/1.0/net/wlan0

[edited to add information]

One other thing I noticed on my machine is that if I try the autoconnect twice in a row, I get a successful connection the second time. This supports your theory, I think, since the pcmcia services are started before the second autoconnect.

Ken

[xandas]

I am using a HP laptop, Pavilion DV9000, and trying to WIFI connect . It has the ugly Broadcom bcm43xx.
Until serie 4.11 all was OK, sometimes directly, sometimes using ndiswrapper and W$ inf files.
But with 4.12 series it does not connect. I try the plain Barry´s version, the 4.12 NOP , BoxPup 4.12 and MiPup2.16/4.12 with the same odd result.
Somebody knows what to do?. My papers are burnt.
Xan

[tempestuous]

I am using a HP laptop, Pavilion DV9000, and trying to WIFI connect . It has the ugly Broadcom bcm43xx.

See here
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 942#251942

[xandas]

tempestuous:
I installed the wl broadcom module, as you suggests.
Then I reboot. Next, I run the Network Wizard obtaining the following message:

The following new module has been loaded: wl
No new interfaces were detected
Click the Unload button to unload the new module...

I am speaking of several 4.12 versions.
The 4.11 series work ok from iso.

Some idea?.

Xan

[gyro]

I have two network interfaces, one wireless (wlan0, 192.168.1.15) and one ethernet (eth0, 192.168.1.14).

Normally each interface is in a different network. Configure eth0 to be 192.168.2.1.

It was my intention to use eth0 for a LAN and wlan0 (connected to my wireless router which is 192.168.1.1) for the internet, using static ip addresses.

Strongly encourage you to use dhcp on wlan0. Not only does it automatically get you a valid IP address but also the IP address of your upstream router/gateway (192.168.1.1 in your case), but also the IP addresses of valid DNS servers. These can change. and if they do the change is automatically passed on by dhcp.

For some reason, eth0 always has the router address 192.168.1.1 as a gateway. This comes from the iproute command in the script, I guess. I attempted to set the eth0 gateway to 0.0.0.0, and set the wlan0 gateway to 192.168.1.1 (which is the router), but the network wizard would never let me (complaining the "route add" command didn't work because "SIOCADDRT: file exists"). After some struggles, when I finally did "ifconfig eth0 down" in a console window, THEN set its gateway to 0.0.0.0, it finally allowed me to set the gateway properly for wlan0, and I could then access the internet.

Effectively you've been attempting to define the same network twice, and defining the same default gateway twice.

But when I reboot it is back again to the condition where eth0 has the 192.168.1.1 gateway which means wlan0 can't have it, and my internet accesses don't work.

Puppy configures multiple interfaces in alphabetic order, so eth0 is always configured before wlan0.

Maybe I'm doing something wrong. If an internal LAN without any gateway except eth0 itself, am I supposed to put gateway as 0.0.0.0, or nothing? Or, if the internal LAN is supposed to get to the internet through eth0, then should I put 192.168.1.14 as my gateway for eth0 even though it itself is 192.168.1.14? Or even put the other thing, wlan0, 192.168.1.15 as my eth0 gateway?

Each machine only needs one default gateway. This is where it sends packets that have a destination address that does not match any of the defined local networks. And must be within one of the already defined local networks. (Usually each interface defines a separate local network.)

It's not clear what you want to achieve with eth0. If you want to attach other machines to it and have traffic pass through your Puppy machine to the internet, then you are trying to make your Puppy machine a router and there are quite a few more considerations. How do you intend to pass on the DNS addresses and you eth0 address as their gateway, (will you run a dhcp server on your Puppy machine). How is the upstream router 192.168.1.1 going to know about the network that is beyond your Puppy machine, (will you run a NAT firewall on your Puppy machine).

On the other hand if you really only want to use one at once, then you need to find a way to disable the other, including when your are configuring them. Unplugging the ethernet cable will disable eth0. On some machines it is easy to disable the wireless interface, and on some it's not.

gyro

[gyro]

In the last few days I've re-gained access to an old Sony Vaio laptop. So old, it came with Windows 98SE installed.
This machine has no inbuilt network interfaces, so it now has a D-Link DWL-G630 pcmcia wireless card and a Linksys EtherFast PCM200 pcmcia ethernet card.
I did a frugal install of Puppy 4.1.2 on this machine, and configured the wireless card (D-Link DWL-G630) using the Wizard. Worked. Rebooted, still worked. Shutdown the machine and turned it back on, still worked. (It did not work at all in Puppy 4.0.0.)
So pulled out the D-Link and put in the Linksys, and again it just worked. Thank you.
So some pcmcia cards work, no problem. (Oh, always use dhcp.)

Observation: While the network wizard stores the configuration for both devices, Puppy ever only attempts to use one of the configurations, since on any boot only one of the cards is inserted. Many of the problems folk seem to be having with the wizard are in situations where Puppy attempts to use multiple configurations at once.

gyro