Arch Linux

fiod

Member

Registered: 2007-04-02

Posts: 205

Permissions problem with broadcom-wl?

Hi,

I have some sort of a permissions problem:

When typing 'iwconfig' as a user, I get:

lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

eth1      IEEE 802.11  Nickname:""
          Access Point: Not-Associated

And only when typing iwconfig as root I get:

[root@delltux fio]# iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

eth1      IEEE 802.11abgn  ESSID:"AAAA"  Nickname:""
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.437 GHz  Access Point: 00:1F:1F:16:3B:9E
          Bit Rate=54 Mb/s   Tx-Power:32 dBm
          Retry min limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Power Managementmode:All packets received
          Link Quality=5/5  Signal level=-39 dBm  Noise level=-92 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:22  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

Plus, when trying to change the essid manually as root ('iwconfig eth1 essid BBBB'),
it often doesn't work, and I have to remove the wl module, and reload it (and even then, it sometimes doesn't work...)

And - when trying to connect with Wicd, I often get connection problems (it takes forever to connect, only after about 10 tries). If the ssid is set correctly (if I manage to set it...) then commandline dhcp works with no problems.

Does anybody have a suggestion?

Thanks
Fiod

miguimon

Member

From: Sydney

Registered: 2008-02-28

Posts: 37

Website

Re: Permissions problem with broadcom-wl?

Hey fiod,

I'm using the broadcom-wl + wicd on my MacBook and it works quite well. About the permissions it doesn't have nothing to do with your problem, only root can do that

For example, in my case sometimes at the public library, the frequency change and jump constantly to 5GHz making almost impossible to connect. I had similar problems yeah.. after a reboot when I tried to connect the first time take ages and the only way was rebooting the access point. Try to reinstall broadcom-wl and see how it goes.

darose

Member

Registered: 2004-04-13

Posts: 158

Re: Permissions problem with broadcom-wl?

Hi,

I have some sort of a permissions problem:

When typing 'iwconfig' as a user, I get:

lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

eth1      IEEE 802.11  Nickname:""
          Access Point: Not-Associated

And only when typing iwconfig as root I get:

[root@delltux fio]# iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

eth1      IEEE 802.11abgn  ESSID:"AAAA"  Nickname:""
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.437 GHz  Access Point: 00:1F:1F:16:3B:9E
          Bit Rate=54 Mb/s   Tx-Power:32 dBm
          Retry min limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Power Managementmode:All packets received
          Link Quality=5/5  Signal level=-39 dBm  Noise level=-92 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:22  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

I'm seeing the exact same issue.  I'd think this is a bug and that non-root users should be able to query the interface for connection info.  The failure of being able to do this is also causing my network monitoring tools (kwifimanager and knemo) to show missing and/or erroneous data.

Anyone know how to fix this?

piroflip

Member

Registered: 2008-09-09

Posts: 5

Re: Permissions problem with broadcom-wl?

latest AUR PKGBUILD includes patch to avoid this issue.

darose

Member

Registered: 2004-04-13

Posts: 158

Re: Permissions problem with broadcom-wl?

Thanks.  But it includes the patch that I submitted (on the AUR page) which I'm not sure is correct.  Can someone review it?

I'm not sure its correct for ALL ioctl calls to automatically be allowed through without permission checking.  We really only want to just allow *queries* to go through - i.e., get ESSID, etc. - but not modifications (i.e., set ESSID).  Is there some way to change the patch to limit it in this way?

andrew123456

Member

Registered: 2008-08-31

Posts: 32

Re: Permissions problem with broadcom-wl?

i'd like to point out that i'm still getting this issue with my dell mini. i can't connect to any networks with it, and as far as the normal user is concerned, it's not connected (running apps as root doesn't make it work either though)

i'm running the latest AUR build. the only wierd thing i could think of it that i'm using gcc from the install disk, so it's a few months old. (25mb on dialup is a big deal to update atm)

nawitus

Member

Registered: 2009-05-11

Posts: 112

Re: Permissions problem with broadcom-wl?

I have this issue. However, there should be some kind of patch here ( http://aur.archlinux.org/packages/broad … 6.35.patch ), but the file is missing.

Inxsible

Forum Fellow

From: Chicago

Registered: 2008-06-09

Posts: 9,183

Re: Permissions problem with broadcom-wl?

Please don't necro-bump old threads.

Closing...

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