ath9k wireless card "Cannot assign requested address"

rye.bread · 2012-05-18 13:28:45

# ip link set wlan0 up
RTNETLINK answers: Cannot assign requested address

#ip addr
1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> ntu 16436 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN
link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
inet 127.0.0.1/8 scope list lo
2: wlan0 <BROADCAST,MULTICAST> mtu 1500 qdisc noop state DOWN qlen 1000
link/ether 01:08:ca:e6:bc:76 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff

#iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions
wlan0 IEEE 802.11bgn ESSID:off/any
Mode:Managed Access Point: Not-Associated TX-Power-0dBm
Retry long limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Power Management:on

Please do excuse if there's a silly typo somewhere in those; not knowing how to do it any better, I've simply re-typed the terminal output into this computer, so I can't promise it free of mistakes. (There's got to be a better way to do that, right?

Asus UX31E-DH72 Zenbook
clean install of the 2011.08.19-core-x86_64 release
There is no ethernet port; only WiFi and a ASIX AX88772B USB-to-ethernet that shipped with the system. (no optical drive either; but that's not really relevant to this)
My current system has never been on the internet (well, since I wiped the Windows off of it...), and so I haven't been able to pacman properly. When I try to use makepkg, it claims it's missing a dependency on Linux-Headers. However, I do know that the wireless card works, seeing as how it had been working just fine under Windows.

If it's relevant: during install, I left the NETWORKING section of rc.conf blank (as the Beginner's Guide says to do for DHCP), like so:
HOSTNAME="zen"
interface=wlan0
address=
netmask=
broadcast=
gateway=
#NETWORKS=(main)

Disclaimer: I'm rather new to the forums here and entirely new to Arch (which is my first Linux distro after years of OSX and a few weeks of Windows). Not scared of the command-line, but you may have to spell things out. Also, I understand if you'd rather not spend time explaining yourself, but I'm a strong believer in teach-a-man-to-fish, so if you'd like to explain rather than just walk through, it'd be much appreciated. Thanks!

Strike0 · 2012-05-18 20:22:07

Welcome and congrats on your decision to grace your sleek new laptop with an equally sleek OS :-)
Just in case you have not found that yet: there is actually a wiki page on your notebook for later setup specifics: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Asus_Zenbook_UX31E
BTW: I just read there that the usb ethernet is supported in later/newer kernels out-the-box (if setting up wifi really does fail, you can get a later ISO maybe and use that for starters).

As I understand your current setup state, you have installed the system with the core August release and it boots fine? Please confirm.

Also please confirm the exact wifi card the notebook has:

lspci -nn | grep net 
or 
lspci -nn >> ryebookpcidevices.txt

The later pipes the output to a file. Doing the command again, appends to the file. We only need the exact PCI ID of the wifi card to double check. To save typing even that ID you can maybe copy the file you created "ryebookpcidevices.txt" to an usb stick, if that automounts under /media/...

Next, please quote here any errors you get when re-loading the ath9k module (all commands below need root/sudo):

rmmod ath9k
modprobe ath9k

If you get errors, check whether

rfkill list

gives valid output (not sure if that package is on the ISO, i doubt it actually).
If modprobe does without error, please retry your trial to connect with the card by directly issuing

iwlist wlan0 scan

Give us feedback on what happens then. If there is an error, try

ip link set down

and start from step 0 in the wireless wiki: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Wi … nual_setup
Your output says "Mode:managed", so something seems working there already..

For "makepkg" you indeed need the headers, but you dont say what you want to compile at this stage.

rye.bread · 2012-05-19 18:04:09

For starters, I've a USB-to-WiFi device that handles
# ip link set wlan1 up
just fine.

After setting up wpa_supplicant (as here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/WPA_supplicant), I'm now stuck at:
# dhcpd wlan1
when it returns with:
dhcpd: /lib/libc.so.6: version 'GLIBC_2.15' not found (required by dhcpd)
What's up with that? Is this an easier problem to solve?

As far as the original problem, yes, you're exactly right. The 64-bit core install on LVM on LUKS, and it boots through all of that no problem. Hangs for five or so seconds somewhere in the boot, but I figure that that's not relevant?

The WiFi card is listed as:
02:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Atheros Communications Inc. AR9485 Wireless Network Adapter [168c:0032] (rev 01)

I can re-load ath9k without errors, but "# iwlist wlan0 scan" returns "wlan0 Interface doesn't support scanning : Network is down"
Issuing "ip link set wlan0 up" returns the same as before "RTNETLINK answers: Cannot assign requested address". Same thing when I set-down and then set-up; still can't assign requested address.

For the record, rfkill isn't included by default. (Though I might have been able to install it from base-devel? I don't know.)

Oh, I read an earlier thread about a kernel update that broke the ath9k module, thought that might have been it, and was trying to build the patch for that. From what I've considered since then, though, I assume that that wasn't it. Mostly, I was just trying to let you know of my limitations for potentially building things.

rye.bread · 2012-05-19 18:33:31

FWIW, "$ pacman -Q glibc" returns "glibc 2.14-4", which is (apparently) too old for the newest dhcpd. Is there a .tar.xz for glibc_2.15 that I could install, so that I can get dhcpd working? (not the original topic, I know, but it's going to be relevant whether or not I get the internal card working)

Strike0 · 2012-05-19 21:51:17

Ah, took me a second read on your output:
That glibc error should not occur with the ISO for sure.
You dont want to start "dhcpd" (which is the isc server daemon) but "dhcpcd" or "dhclient" (the dhcp client's).
Pretty sure it is just that typo and you can forget about glibc for now.

Still that does not solve your wifi scan errors, although you confuse me with your first sentence. Is that USB a second wifi device? Is that atheros also?

Double checking the PCI card you quote, so the ath9k is right for that anyway.

Please reconfirm first with using "dhcpcd wlan0" at which stage of the wifi connection you get an error now.
Of course you can only dhcp out, if the wpa handshake works well. Your wifi is using WPA/Wpa2?

rye.bread · 2012-05-21 16:15:14

I'm sorry; that first sentence is confusing. In response to

Strike0 wrote:

BTW: I just read there that the usb ethernet is supported in later/newer kernels out-the-box (if setting up wifi really does fail, you can get a later ISO maybe and use that for starters).

I already have a USB WiFi device (which is also on ath9k), which gets around the "Cannot assign requested address" problem. In the long run, I'd like to be able to use the internal card, but for now I'd rather focus on getting it set up through the external device. Worst to absolute worst, I'll try the USB ethernet device, but I'd honestly rather not.

# ip link set wlan1 up
rtl8192cu: MAC auto ON okay!
rtl8192cu: Tx queue select: 0x05
rtl8192c: Loading firmware file rtlwifi/rtl8192cufw.bin
#

That's good, right?
I'm away from my home network at the moment, so I'll post again when I can try "dhcpcd wlan1" there. Assuming that fails, is there an easy way to check that the WPA handshake succeeded? (before using dhcpcd, that is)
Thanks for catching my noob typo, by the way.

Strike0 · 2012-05-21 17:58:45

The logfiles (if in doubt: /var/log/everything.log) will tell you if wpa_supplicant went well.
What you quote from my earlier post was referring to usb wired ethernet. And yes, since you seem to have a working wifi usb stick, you should leave that for the time being. It will hopefully work automatically once you have been able to update your system via pacman.

The output looks good, you can double check in

sudo less /var/log/kernel.log  | grep firmware

that the firmware loaded successfully.

But: your usb stick is not an Atheros device, but a Realtek chip obviously. If you get errors trying to connect with it, unload the ath9k and try again.

rye.bread · 2012-05-21 18:47:23

Whoo boy. I'm successfully online with the USB stick (if being able to use links to connect to Google is any indication...). I'll try updating, then see where that gets me in terms of the onboard WiFi card. Thanks for your help!

Strike0 · 2012-05-21 19:43:10

Great and good luck in getting it roll with onboard hardware .. Since this is your first Arch install: When updating from the last ISO you have to take a few manual steps / interventions for some packages. Pacman gives infos about them. But you get more input on those on the archlinux home page, or here: http://www.archlinux.org/news/

Arch Linux

#1 2012-05-18 13:28:45

ath9k wireless card "Cannot assign requested address"

#2 2012-05-18 20:22:07

Re: ath9k wireless card "Cannot assign requested address"

#3 2012-05-19 18:04:09

Re: ath9k wireless card "Cannot assign requested address"

#4 2012-05-19 18:33:31

Re: ath9k wireless card "Cannot assign requested address"

#5 2012-05-19 21:51:17

Re: ath9k wireless card "Cannot assign requested address"

#6 2012-05-21 16:15:14

Re: ath9k wireless card "Cannot assign requested address"

#7 2012-05-21 17:58:45

Re: ath9k wireless card "Cannot assign requested address"

#8 2012-05-21 18:47:23

Re: ath9k wireless card "Cannot assign requested address"

#9 2012-05-21 19:43:10

Re: ath9k wireless card "Cannot assign requested address"

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