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Bushman

Member

Registered: 2010-05-27

Posts: 32

Knetworkmanager not working with WLAN

I recently installed KDE 4.4 (removing Xfce) and KNetworkManager (kdeplasma-applets-networkmanagement) is not quite working.  My network uses WEP, and I was able to connect just fine with the "/etc/rc.d/network" script, net-cfg, and the gnome network-manager applet.  For some reason, though, there is nothing in the "Connections" side of the pop-up, even though it shows my ethernet card (which it handles just perfectly) and my Atheros 5007-EG WLAN adapter with the ath_5k (which only it can't handle, apparently) on the "Interfaces" section.  Also, at the bottom of the "Interfaces" section, there is a pictogram of what looks like a driver's license with a padlock on top, with the text "Not Available" under it; clicking on it pulls up the details of the ethernet interface.  Selecting "Connect Automatically" on the settings for the wireless connection also does not help.  Additionally, I keep seeing something about an "/etc/network/interfaces" file, the parent directory of which does not exist (only "network.d", and there's an empty directory under it named "interfaces").  Finally, it always requests the KDE Wallet information when I pull up the connection settingsl, and never at startup.

Yes, I have commented out all the lines for the network script in rc.conf, and disabled the "network" and "net-profiles" daemons.  Yes, I'm also quite sure that

If there's anything wrong with this, I have no idea how to fix it.

xvello

Member

Registered: 2010-05-15

Posts: 81

Website

Re: Knetworkmanager not working with WLAN

Hello

NetworkManager is undocumented crap (the KDE applet is done by reverse engeneering the gnome one). You might wanna try wicd. It has an ncurses and a gtk frontend available for configuration, and runs directly in a daemon. This means once configured, your wifi is available before your desktop environment shows up. Useful when you blow up your Xorg and need to download packages to fix it.

Cheers

Bushman

Member

Registered: 2010-05-27

Posts: 32

Re: Knetworkmanager not working with WLAN

I see; I tried Wicd, and for some reason it, too, wouldn't work with the WLAN.  Neither it, knetworkmanager, nor cnetworkmanager would ever succeed in getting the darn IP lease from the router's DHCP, so I just gave up on both.  Unfortunately, netcfg seems to be somewhat unusable as well; upon setting up the profile and activating it with `sudo netcfg-menu', I get this:

find: `/var/run/network//suspend/': No such file or directory

Yes, the double slashes in there are not a typo on my part.

Last edited by Bushman (2010-05-30 01:03:08)

xvello

Member

Registered: 2010-05-15

Posts: 81

Website

Re: Knetworkmanager not working with WLAN

Are you sure it's not a driver issue ? Are you using the right driver, with firmware installed ? (see http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Wireless_Setup for tips).
Please look at the end of `dmesg` for error messages.

If you want, please parse the outputs of the following commands :
- `lspci`
- `lsmod`
- `iwconfig -a`
- `iwlist wlan0 scan` (if wlan0 is your wireless interface)
- `dmesg | grep ath`

Bushman

Member

Registered: 2010-05-27

Posts: 32

Re: Knetworkmanager not working with WLAN

I'm quite sure I'm using the right driver (ath5k on an Atheros 5007EG), because when I increase the WIRELESS_TIMEOUT, the good old /etc/rc.d/network script runs perfectly.  Yes, the other WLAN drivers are disabled.

EDIT: That's interesting...even though it throws that error with find, the WLAN card works just fine...wierd.  I guess I'll have to set a redirection in the daemons array (wonder if that's possible...) in order to get rid of the error message.

EDIT:  I looked through the netcfg2 script, then the /usr/lib/network/network script that it referenced.  The problem seems to be in /usr/lib/network/network, with this code block that starts at line 168:

# Successfully running a new profile; erase any suspended profiles on this interface
    local iface="$INTERFACE"
    find "$STATE_DIR/suspend/" -maxdepth 1 -type f -printf '%f\n' \
    | while read prof; do
        # the pipe to "while read" will create a subshell
        INTERFACE=$(. "$STATE_DIR/suspend/$prof"; echo "$INTERFACE")
        if [[ "$iface" == "$INTERFACE" ]]; then
            rm "$STATE_DIR/suspend/$prof"
        fi
    done

So if $STATE_DIR was empty, referenced a non-existant path, or had a trailing slash, it would do an erroneous find, thus generating that error message.  STATE_DIR, it turns out, is initialized in an imported (at least, that's what the period on a newline followed by a file does...) file in the same directory, "globals", and it is defined straight-up.  It has a trailing slash, and apparently, it is referenced many times in "/usr/lib/network/network" with an added slash in various operations including find, rm, mkdir, if [[ ]], and cp.

Interestingly, the wireless profile seems to start up and shut down just fine despite this.

Last edited by Bushman (2010-05-30 13:23:28)