[Solved] netctl problems

LincolnPowell · 2013-09-05 07:20:59

Here's the deal. Been using arch for a while now and trying to figure out if I'm muffing up my profiles or something else.

I never have problems with WiFi on a new install until I add a second profile. I'm not really getting it. It'll connect to the second profile in that session but then when I get back to my home router I strike a problem. I have conky running which says I have connected to my home router but I can't do anything web related.

I use wifi-menu to generate my profiles if that makes a difference.

Last edited by LincolnPowell (2013-09-06 21:36:30)

rufus · 2013-09-05 08:02:30

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Netctl
no doubt about it netctl and systemd in general is picky and very literal.Go over the wiki line by line...
you do need to stop and/or disable the default protocol and switch. use the default as a guide and try this that.
I commend your braveness of using netctl. Youll get it good luck.
We'd need much more info to be of more help.

Last edited by rufus (2013-09-05 08:06:05)

LincolnPowell · 2013-09-06 01:41:48

never mind. I gave up and set up wicd. Looking at most of the posts regarding netctl it seems like that's a common occurrence. It's not baaaad. Just a little too finicky in a few places. It also seems as though the wiki page for netctl has a few holes that leave a lot up for interpretation.

Thanks for the help rufus. I wish I could have sorted out the actual problem but I'd rather get a work laptop up and running instead of troubleshooting it. I'll sit down this weekend and test it out again and see if I can get more of an idea of why it wasn't working.

rufus · 2013-09-06 01:59:30

there you go its a learning process. Its a highly developmental system and systemd is young. The nature of Arch makes it impossible
to keep the wiki right on the mark all the time. Perhaps as you fiddle with netctl and learn it you can edit the wiki as needed and contribute.
if yur still around you might wanna edit the first posts subject Solved. tally ho!

Edit: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=169323 check out the link and look out below!!!!!!!!!

Last edited by rufus (2013-09-06 02:04:12)

WonderWoofy · 2013-09-06 02:27:40

Netctl is actually pretty awesome. I think what you were looking for (in case you are still interested) is proper roaming support. This means that you can move from one connection to another and have the machine connect to whatever it has loaded profiles for. So for example, if I am at home I obviously have a profile. But if you go to a coffee shop regularly, you can add that profile. Having both those profiles included will allow you to use either, without stoping and starting the netctl daemon.

To do this you would need netctl-auto and the wpa_actiond package. It is listed in the optional dependencies. So instead of starting and/or enabling a given profile, you would just do either netctl-auto start wlan0 (assuming your wireless interface is called wlan0). If you wanted to enable it, you would need to use the systemd service file, so in that case you would do systemctl enable netctl-auto@wlan0.service to have it start up on boot.

rufus · 2013-09-06 02:47:16

that's a good call woofy. I looked and its in the wiki, so I reneg the edit suggestion.
Hope my readability is better Wonderman, sorry for confusion.

WonderWoofy · 2013-09-06 02:56:22

@rufus, punctuation is a great thing! No worries about the confusion. I was just trying to tell you before that the readability of your posts will typically correlate pretty strongly with the effectiveness of your posts. Its much better now though!

LincolnPowell · 2013-09-06 21:51:08

actually I had netctl-auto and actiond installed. As I said it worked perfectly when it was first setup. Yet after adding a second profile it had a bunch of problems. It's just an assumption but I'm thinking it had to do with timing since I've opted to manually connect using wicd instead of having the service start automatically. I only say this because while watching conky in my status bar it would still technically be connected to my router yet there was no internet.It even showed download and upload a few bits a second.

As I watched netctl connect and wicd connect I can say it takes a little longer for wicd to connect. Maybe I'm completely wrong but it seemed like netctl was rushing through the connection and not establishing everything. Hence a confused computer that was outputting that there a was connection yet there was none.

I'm just going to go with wicd for now on unless I choose to use netctl manually.

Arch Linux

#1 2013-09-05 07:20:59

[Solved] netctl problems

#2 2013-09-05 08:02:30

Re: [Solved] netctl problems

#3 2013-09-06 01:41:48

Re: [Solved] netctl problems

#4 2013-09-06 01:59:30

Re: [Solved] netctl problems

#5 2013-09-06 02:27:40

Re: [Solved] netctl problems

#6 2013-09-06 02:47:16

Re: [Solved] netctl problems

#7 2013-09-06 02:56:22

Re: [Solved] netctl problems

#8 2013-09-06 21:51:08

Re: [Solved] netctl problems

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