Improved Network Wizard (and rc.network)

[jt1734]

I think hayagix has found a bug. I'm trying rc 409 with the new wireless wizard because I've been having trouble loading wireless modules.

Got ndiswrapper to work once in Muppy 8.4 but would fail on retry after opera crash.

I have got my wife's machine connected but only after trying to reload the anthros5x driver that auto detects. This unloaded the module and allowed me to load the next driver anthros_pci and it worked.

Is it possible to put in an unload module button? I have two pci wireless cards that autodetect modules that do not work. Unloading and trying a different module has worked but I only stumbled upon this.

Updated instructions should also be included with any unload module button. When trying the other modules I assumed the loaded one would uninstall.

[hayagix]

Not sure I would call it a bug. Maybe a bonus or shortcut.

Puppy has the easy-to-use bootmanager to manage/blacklist modules.

[PaulBx1]

Here's a feature request. When you do a scan, and find nothing, even with a retry, you end up scratching your head for a while. The window that reports no results found might suggest turning on the wireless switch on the computer when it finds nothing.

[Keef]

I've tried the new Network Wizard on MeanPup, but it wouldn't launch.

Running net-setup.sh gives me:

line 1531: elspci: command not found
line 85: gtkdialog3: command not found

- this last line repeats endlessly.

The reason I tried it is that the version in MeanPup won't recognise the Lindy USB Hub which has an ethernet connector (lacking on my laptop). This is picked up under the recent alpha releases, so I assumed updating the wizard would work. Is this just a problem with MeanPup?

____________________________________
Armada 3500
192MB
300mhz
CF in IDE adapter

[Dougal]

I have both wlan0 and eth0 on my machine. I'm not sure how to set this up with static IP; should both have the same address, or should they be different addresses? Anyway, I assumed different, and when trying to configure eth0 as static I get this message: "Could not set default route through 192.168.1.1 [that's my router IP addr] Please try again. Note that Puppy has tried to do this: route add -net default gw 192.168.1.1 dev eth0"

What kind of error message do you get if you run that command manually?
The wizard originally used that command without the "dev eth0" at the end, but then I saw that a script Tempestuous posted a while ago used that option and I figured it would be a good idea to use, with the hope of preventing the interfaces from tripping over eachother.
Tempestuous also used it without the "-net" option, so all this is still a little experimental -- we need to figure out exactly all the things that will cause problems if more than one interface is used at once.

Note also that if you have one interface working with dhcpcd and the other static, you should probably configure the static one with no DNS nameservers, since all the interfaces use /etc/resolve.conf, so when the static interface is configured it will just overwrite what dhcpcd wrote with what the static one uses (if you don't specify them the static one won't touch resolve.conf).

Are both able to be running at the same time (at least theoretically)? So internet traffic could come either way?

I really don't know...

Oh, one other thing. I noticed, when I use static IP on my eth0, the gateway IP is not retained over boots. All the other fields are ok.

What have you got in the config file for eth0 (in /etc/network-wizard/network/interfaces/)? What about error messages in /tmp/bootsysinit.log?

[Dougal]

If I return to the beginning after the first scan, and even if I restart xwin, a new scanning effort creates a pop-up claiming that there are no networks. I need to reboot to try again.

Well, I need a little more info to try and figure out what might cause that... if you run the wizard from a terminal (net-setup.sh -d) and see if there are any interesting messages, maybe also looking if anything interesting appears in the output of dmesg while the wizard is running...

I must ask what does "restricted" signify: only selected MAC, only encrypted, both of these? Or vice versa: open signifies .... Pls consider selecting a bit more-to-the-point captions for untrained users.

"open" and "restricted" refer to the key encryption. They are parameters used with iwconfig while running it with the "key" command and giving the key.
The iwconfig man page has a bunch of info on it.
Also, "managed" and "ad-hoc" are wifi modes. I don't think anyone uses ad-hoc (it's something where the card finds a AP automatically, I think), while managed is what you use when connecting to your AP (which is itself an interface running in "master" mode). That's also in the iwconfig man page, under "mode".
The reason for lack of more detailed info is that gtkdialog (used to create those gui dialogs) does not support tooltips... and just adding text boxes would make the gui even bigger than it already is (the way it is now, with the "advanced" fields it is already too high for 7" screens...). Also one has to be able to come up with a concise and clear explanation to use...

When I returned to Xp to write this, BS was not responding, as if it had been mixed up by the trials with Puppy. I had to poweroff the WLAN BS

If anything, it's probably the Broadcomm card. Maybe configuring it changes some kind of permanent setting? Again, some debug info is needed to figure out something like that (and maybe getting Tempestuous over here...).

[Dougal]

Is it possible to put in an unload module button? I have two pci wireless cards that autodetect modules that do not work.

Done.


Do we still need the "Auto-probe" button? Now that Puppy has udev, it's much less likely that modules will be missed and trying to load them all by brute force... not very nice.
Maybe I can write a function to look for NICs that haven't got modules loaded for them and give the user the info, so they can figure out which module to load?

[Dougal]

Here's a feature request. When you do a scan, and find nothing, even with a retry, you end up scratching your head for a while. The window that reports no results found might suggest turning on the wireless switch on the computer when it finds nothing.

Done (albeit somewhat awkwardly...).

[Béèm]

Dougal,

Is he wizard in the 409 the latest?

I have now no eth2 detected for the FireWire interface.
The eth1394 didn't load, while it did load before with the eth2 device available.

Bernard

[paulh177]

Puppy 4.1rc ... Note that this has Dougal's latest Network Wizard, dated September 25. Posted on 26 Sep 2008, 18:56 -

[Béèm]

Puppy 4.1rc ... Note that this has Dougal's latest Network Wizard, dated September 25. Posted on 26 Sep 2008, 18:56 -

Thank you for that info, but I was testing with Dougal off line for the detection and configuration of the FireWire device which is eth2 in my PC.

Hence my question to Dougal.

[Dougal]

I have now no eth2 detected for the FireWire interface.
The eth1394 didn't load, while it did load before with the eth2 device available.

Isn't the loading of the module something that happens at boot? The wizard only handles the available interfaces, it does not load any modules.

[tempestuous]

Dougal,
I can report some strange results with the "restart" function of the Wizard.
I have been helping forum member jakfish get the function buttons on the ASUS Eee working for wifi on/off. This is a hardware function, where the device is completely switched off by triggering a particular pin on the miniPCI bus.
When the wifi device is switched back on, the network settings are messed up. We can re-establish the network settings in 4.1beta1 with this command

Code: Select all

/etc/rc.d/rc.network restart

but in 4.1rc this fails on most attempts. Since we are properly taking down the interface and unloading all wifi modules, the solution is to just run rc.network without the "restart". But I thought you might be interested to know this.
Of course, switching a wifi device on while Puppy is fully booted is not very common, but there are quite a few laptops these days with wifi hardware switches, so this information might be useful to you.

[Dougal]

We can re-establish the network settings in 4.1beta1 with this command

Code: Select all

/etc/rc.d/rc.network restart

but in 4.1rc this fails on most attempts.
Since we are properly taking down the interface and unloading all wifi modules, the solution is to just run rc.network without the "restart".

Well, the difference between versions is mainly that the "clean up" code is now run at the start, rather than each interface in its turn, to prevent it messing up already configured interfaces.
The thing that seems to me most likely to cause the problem in your case is that you reload the modules, so you need to wait before running rc.network! when it runs at boot it has the loop that waits for interfaces to be initialized, but when the user just wants to reconnect, there's no reason to delay them (the loop will wait 12 seconds if there's a configured interface that's missing -- say from another machine, or a removable NIC).
So you simply need to wait a few seconds between reloading the modules and running rc.network.

[nic2109]

Of course, switching a wifi device on while Puppy is fully booted is not very common, but there are quite a few laptops these days with wifi hardware switches, so this information might be useful to you.

Definitely! PLEASE give us the option to activate/de-activate WiFi withing Puppy.

Dell laptops for example invariably have a combination of keys (typically Fn + F2) which is designed to toggle WiFi on/off and which works just fine in Windows.

I have more than once been in the position of having WiFi switched off in 'doze, booted into puppy, discovered that WiFi is disabled and had to reboot 'doze just to switch it on again so I can reboot again and use wireless in Puppy!

In case you're wondering why I sup with The Devil, it's a work laptop which is wired Windows for work but which I boot into Puppy from a USB flash drive at home.

[zgp152]

Thanks for advice.

If I return to the beginning after the first scan, and even if I restart xwin, a new scanning effort creates a pop-up claiming that there are no networks. I need to reboot to try again.

Well, I need a little more info to try and figure out what might cause that... if you run the wizard from a terminal (net-setup.sh -d) and see if there are any interesting messages ...

I tested again using CL as adviced. As soon as I click "Scan" button, the console window displays :

Error for wireless request " Set frequency" (8B04): SET failed on device eth1; Invalid argument

Perhaps this message is not normal? The wizard should get the frequency in the first place but is not obtaining it or storing it correctly? If I insert the frequency manually, it may help ? By the way, the channel appearing in the window is 1, which may be WRONG (I can check it if relevant for diagnosis).

If I continue using the wizard ignoring the error, with the results of scanning in its window, the same error message is displayed again and some further ones as well, probably irrelevant. If you advice me how to save the console window content into a txt file, I can report in more detail.

I wonder also, why isn't the error echoed in the window mode, just on CL. A design "feature" (compromise)?

Rgds, zgp152

Appendix Tuesday 30.
-------------------------
I had succeeded once to get into network and had saved the profile with presumably correct values. As I load this saved profile, ignoring the Scan, it seems that the default "Open" value is selected and not the "Restricted" as I presume having selected before storing. If I try with the saved profile (skipping Scan), setting eth1 fails some 20 times, regardless of what is the selection Open/Restricted is. If I select Back after loading the profile, I get a message that claims "no networks found".

A further but minor question. As my saved profile is based on WEP, as the profile is loaded, WPA selections are grey showing that they are not viable choices. Why isn't "Open" button in the same row also grey since there is an encryption key value in its field?

[Dougal]

Dell laptops for example invariably have a combination of keys (typically Fn + F2) which is designed to toggle WiFi on/off and which works just fine in Windows.

I have more than once been in the position of having WiFi switched off in 'doze, booted into puppy, discovered that WiFi is disabled and had to reboot 'doze just to switch it on again so I can reboot again and use wireless in Puppy!

What kind of wireless is it, Intel?

[Dougal]

Error for wireless request " Set frequency" (8B04): SET failed on device eth1; Invalid argument

Perhaps this message is not normal? The wizard should get the frequency in the first place but is not obtaining it or storing it correctly? If I insert the frequency manually, it may help ? By the way, the channel appearing in the window is 1, which may be WRONG (I can check it if relevant for diagnosis).

That message shouldn't be critical: the wizard takes the info from the wireless scan and tries to set the different parameters, but not all drivers support setting all parameters... and it doesn't necessarily matter, since it you're setting the ESSID and AP MAC address, it will probably figure out the rest.
However, there is a slight chance that maybe the frequency it tried to set was wrong: maybe there's a problem with the way the scan output is processed. To check that, you should run the wizard, have it scan and then compare the frequency given in the scan window with what you see when you run in a terminal:

Code: Select all

iwlist eth1 scan

If you advice me how to save the console window content into a txt file, I can report in more detail.

You can do that by running

Code: Select all

net-setup.sh -d >filename.txt 2>&1

I wonder also, why isn't the error echoed in the window mode, just on CL. A design "feature" (compromise)?

Most of the errors seen are non-critical and not interesting usually and those that are, it's just the way the wizard was originally written.
I have started adding some error in for in new code, but it could be a lot of work going over everything and doing it -- and not necessarily important (i.e. will it really help the user?).

Appendix Tuesday 30.
-------------------------
I had succeeded once to get into network and had saved the profile with presumably correct values. As I load this saved profile, ignoring the Scan, it seems that the default "Open" value is selected and not the "Restricted" as I presume having selected before storing.

I don't know... if you look at the profile (in /etc/network-wizard/wireless/profiles/), what does the SECURE parameter show?

If I try with the saved profile (skipping Scan), setting eth1 fails some 20 times, regardless of what is the selection Open/Restricted is.

That would indicate that it's having a problem connecting to it, again... you need to try and find out what was different the one time you managed to connect. It would seem like there was something (external?) different at the time. I really don't know what might be the cause -- you might want to see if tempestuous has any ideas.

A further but minor question. As my saved profile is based on WEP, as the profile is loaded, WPA selections are grey showing that they are not viable choices. Why isn't "Open" button in the same row also grey since there is an encryption key value in its field?

I think the "Open" button is just never grayed out...

[Dougal]

A further but minor question. As my saved profile is based on WEP, as the profile is loaded, WPA selections are grey showing that they are not viable choices. Why isn't "Open" button in the same row also grey since there is an encryption key value in its field?

I looked this up and it actually gave me a hint for more info you can provide:
The only buttons that get grayed out are the WPA buttons, which happens when the driver for your device does not support WPA... which raises a question: which driver is it that supports your NIC? Didn't you say it was a Broadcom device? That seems odd, since all the Broadcom drivers I'm aware of (bcm43xx, b43legacy and b43) support WPA, so it seems strange that your WPA buttons are grayed out...

[zgp152]

A further but minor question. As my saved profile is based on WEP, as the profile is loaded, WPA selections are grey showing that they are not viable choices. Why isn't "Open" button in the same row also grey since there is an encryption key value in its field?

I looked this up and it actually gave me a hint for more info you can provide:
The only buttons that get grayed out are the WPA buttons, which happens when the driver for your device does not support WPA... which raises a question: which driver is it that supports your NIC? Didn't you say it was a Broadcom device? That seems odd, since all the Broadcom drivers I'm aware of (bcm43xx, b43legacy and b43) support WPA, so it seems strange that your WPA buttons are grayed out...

My WLAN does not support WPA, possibly causing the greying-out effect. Assuming that WPA were supported, possibly all 4 selection buttons would be normal (active). However if there is a key in the window after profile loading, the wizard should be aware of the encryption mode, and not display all the buttons. So it seems to me that the wizard still has shortcomings in a number of areas, and the GUI design could be improved.

Have you seen this?
http://salis.sutteryuba.com/WiFi.php?ac ... PupVer=All
Some of the provided tweaking advices might be successful. I have not tried any of them. But if they do work, the delays or whatever should be added in the driver code permanently and the driver should then be launched the usual way.

Another victim of problematic Broadcom:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 103#236103

I have hoped that as a last resort I could try ndiswrapper but it seems problematic as well. My circuitry is 4311 rev01, requiring B43 according to one internet source on ndiswrapper. XP driver is BCMWL5.SYS. Driver info file is also accessible but I am not used to work on CL, so I have postponed working with ndiswrapper.

Thanks for your support and rgds,
Timo