[solved] Wireless blocked by RF-kill even though it's not installed

marmistrz · 2016-03-05 11:55:02

I've installed Arch Linux recently, came back home where I have only wireless connection.
To my surprise, the wireless doesn't work for me. I tried diagnosing the cause with ip link `set wlp3s0 up` but what I get is

Operation not possible due to RF-kill

To my further surprise, rfkill is not installed at all.

What the heck is going on? Why does rfkill block something when it's not installed at all? A bug or a feature?
I have Internet access only on my Linux Mint install. My Arch is completely offline, since I have no ethernet access at home.

Last edited by marmistrz (2016-03-11 10:40:19)

Docbroke · 2016-03-05 12:11:19

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Wi … ill_caveat

marmistrz · 2016-03-05 12:46:54

Docbroke wrote:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Wi … ill_caveat

Rather a soft kill, since the flight mode button on my laptop does nothing. And the internet works on a parallel Mint install.
Why does it happen only under Arch?

Trilby · 2016-03-05 12:56:10

marmistrz wrote:

Why does rfkill block something when it's not installed at all?

rfkill is a kernel module. The package rfkill which provides the binary rfkill is just a userspace tool to interact with the kernel module.

marmistrz · 2016-03-05 15:15:34

First of all: why does the kernel block WiFi only in Arch?
Second: So how can I install rfkill if my Arch installation is completely offline (I'm writing from my Mint installation)
It's why wiki is of little use to me.

What's interesting, there's nothing /var/lib/NetworkManager, and some post (can't find it right now) said it was enough to edit NetworkManager.state here.
Moreover, the Network Manager applet from the Cinnamon desktop doesn't even ask me for the password, similar to this one. https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=185742
The question remains: how to install anything without a working Internet connection on Arch.

Last edited by marmistrz (2016-03-05 15:20:37)

Trilby · 2016-03-05 15:49:59

marmistrz wrote:

First of all: why does the kernel block WiFi only in Arch?

It's hard to speculate on an isolated incident. But there are two likely possibilities: as described in the wiki, most hardware swtiches toggle both the hardblock and the softblock. But of course only the running OS can register the softblock. So if you toggled the switch to off while in arch, the hard and softblock would be engaged: the latter might be saved for the next reboot of the same system until disengaged.

It is a frustrating but real quirk of rfkill on a wide variety of hardware that a hardware switch will toggle both the hard and soft block to be on, but when toggled back will only remove the hard block.

The second likely possibility is that - as described in that wiki link - there are different kernel configurations for rfkill that one can use. As arch and Mint use different kernels and different configurations, it is not surprising that the rfkill module behaves differently.

marmistrz wrote:

The question remains: how to install anything without a working Internet connection on Arch.

Either find an ethernet cable and temporarily plug in to install rfkill, or chroot into your arch system from the working Mint system (or live media as necessary) and install rfkill, or get the rfkill package on a flash drive and transfer it to your arch system and install with `pacman -U`.

marmistrz · 2016-03-05 15:53:07

Either find an ethernet cable and temporarily plug in to install rfkill, or chroot into your arch system from the working Mint system (or live media as necessary) and install rfkill, or get the rfkill package on a flash drive and transfer it to your arch system and install with `pacman -U`.

Ethernet is completely broken in my router

There's a problem: I mounted the Arch rootfs at `/media/marcin/arch`. Then

# chroot /media/marcin/arch
# pacman -S rfkill
(...)
error: could not open file: /etc/mtab: No such file or directory
error: could not determine filesystem mount points
error: failed to commit transaction (unexpected error)
Errors occurred, no packages were upgraded.

Interestingly, /etc/mtab is a symlink to

../proc/self/mounts

Trilby · 2016-03-05 15:54:31

The arch-chroot script does a lot behind the scenes for you - so if you are chrooting from a non-arch system, you'll need to do that prep yourself. Please see here:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Change_root

marmistrz · 2016-03-05 16:14:13

Ok, thanks.

I installed gnome-keyring as found somewhere else and this was the fix. This should be better documented.

Trilby · 2016-03-05 16:31:32

marmistrz wrote:

I installed gnome-keyring as found somewhere else and this was the fix. This should be better documented.

Where did you find this? Where should this be documented? By who should it be documented?

If you want it in the wiki, put it in the wiki. If you aren't willing to share what you learned (even by posting the link to what you found here) why would you expect anyone else to share this information?

Life is a two-way street.

It doesn't make any sense to me that gnome-keyring would have anything to do with rfkill. And I'd be surprised if this wasn't a coincidence (is gnome keyring all you installed? You got connected to the internet to install new packages and didn't install rfkill?)

marmistrz · 2016-03-05 16:38:33

Here: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=185742

Sure, I'll put it into wiki. The question is: where. In the network configuration section? It'd seem intuitive, as it was my first try. In the Cinnamon page? Another good idea, since it pertains specifically Cinnamon.

I didn't touch anything but gnome-keyring. In particular, I didn't touch rfkill at all. Absolutely no idea why this helped.

Docbroke · 2016-03-05 17:21:19

Networkmanager probably saves network password with help of gnome-keyring, but it has nothing to do with soft-block or rfkill issue. It is there in wiki https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ne … ager#GNOME

Trilby · 2016-03-05 18:10:54

That other thread has nothing to due with rfkill. So I believe I was right to suspect this was a coincidence. Gnome-keyring is not a solution to an "Operation not possible due to rfkill" error.

marmistrz · 2016-03-08 17:10:26

So I'll surprise you: the RFkill problem disappeared when I tried the command again with gnome-keyring installed. Maybe the network applet did some blocking on its own?

Arch Linux

#1 2016-03-05 11:55:02

[solved] Wireless blocked by RF-kill even though it's not installed

#2 2016-03-05 12:11:19

Re: [solved] Wireless blocked by RF-kill even though it's not installed

#3 2016-03-05 12:46:54

Re: [solved] Wireless blocked by RF-kill even though it's not installed

#4 2016-03-05 12:56:10

Re: [solved] Wireless blocked by RF-kill even though it's not installed

#5 2016-03-05 15:15:34

Re: [solved] Wireless blocked by RF-kill even though it's not installed

#6 2016-03-05 15:49:59

Re: [solved] Wireless blocked by RF-kill even though it's not installed

#7 2016-03-05 15:53:07

Re: [solved] Wireless blocked by RF-kill even though it's not installed

#8 2016-03-05 15:54:31

Re: [solved] Wireless blocked by RF-kill even though it's not installed

#9 2016-03-05 16:14:13

Re: [solved] Wireless blocked by RF-kill even though it's not installed

#10 2016-03-05 16:31:32

Re: [solved] Wireless blocked by RF-kill even though it's not installed

#11 2016-03-05 16:38:33

Re: [solved] Wireless blocked by RF-kill even though it's not installed

#12 2016-03-05 17:21:19

Re: [solved] Wireless blocked by RF-kill even though it's not installed

#13 2016-03-05 18:10:54

Re: [solved] Wireless blocked by RF-kill even though it's not installed

#14 2016-03-08 17:10:26

Re: [solved] Wireless blocked by RF-kill even though it's not installed

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