rfkill-unblock@all not working

dlbarron28 · 2014-04-24 13:52:12

I've got my install almost working. The only issue I have remaining is with the rfkill-unblock@all service.

When I reboot I can see a failure message for rfkill-unblock@all and from the command line I type

systemctl status rfkill-unblock@all

The error I see is

rfkill[160]: Can't open RFKILL control device: No such file or directory

However I can issue rfkill unblock all from the command line and it works fine. Since I am running netctl-auto@wlp3s0.service the wifi connect automatically to any known wifi hotspots in the area.

Is there something I can do to correct the problem with rfkill-unblock@all?

Thanks

Last edited by dlbarron28 (2014-04-29 21:36:48)

WonderWoofy · 2014-04-24 15:45:51

You shouldn't need to use the rfkill-unblock@.service at all anymore. As of systemd 212 (maybe a few versions back actually), there is the systemd-rfkill@.service. It should handle itself automatically and simply restore devices to the state they were in upon shutdown.

dlbarron28 · 2014-04-24 16:24:05

WonderWoofy wrote:

You shouldn't need to use the rfkill-unblock@.service at all anymore. As of systemd 212 (maybe a few versions back actually), there is the systemd-rfkill@.service. It should handle itself automatically and simply restore devices to the state they were in upon shutdown.

That's good news but it's not working. The reason I enabled rfkill-unblock@.service is because I was trying to eliminate the need to type rfkill unblock all every time I reboot. Do I have to enable systemd-rfkill@.service instead?

WonderWoofy · 2014-04-24 16:57:03

Nah, it should work on its own.

What interface are you trying to use this on and by what means are you connecting?

dlbarron28 · 2014-04-24 17:22:50

WonderWoofy wrote:

Nah, it should work on its own.
What interface are you trying to use this on and by what means are you connecting?

The interface I'm using is wlp3s0. I got that from using the "iw dev" command. It shows
Interface wlp3s0
ifindex 3
wdev 0x1
addr 00:21:6b:25:64:70
type managed
channel 11 (2462 MHz), width: 20 MHz (no HT), center1: 2462 MHz

I'm not sure what you are looking for when you ask by what means I am connecting. I followed the Beginner's Guide to get wifi working. After "iw dev" I tried
ip link set wlp3s0 up which always failed with an error about rfkill not allowed or something. I don't recall the exact error, but I did some searching and found that rfkill unblock all worked in some cases so I tried that and ip link set wlp3s0 up began working. I then tried wifi-menu wlp3s0 to connect to wifi and then dhcpcd wlp3s0 which failed. So continuing further down I followed these steps and they worked:

# echo 'ctrl_interface=DIR=/run/wpa_supplicant' > /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
# wpa_passphrase <ssid> <passphrase> >> /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
# ip link set <interface> up
# wpa_supplicant -B -D nl80211 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -i <interface name>
# dhcpcd -A <interface name>

As I said, as long as I issue the rfkill unblock all command manually wifi works fine.

Does that answer your question?

WonderWoofy · 2014-04-24 17:29:56

Maybe you should try using netctl again, but in the wifi-menu generated profile, set 'RFKill=auto'.

Basically, some of the network management services can handle RFKill state on their own. So maybe it would be a good idea to use one of these. I use connman, which definitely handles this on its own, but it is still a fairly young project and might not be the easiest to wrap your head around.

dlbarron28 · 2014-04-24 17:51:39

WonderWoofy wrote:

Maybe you should try using netctl again, but in the wifi-menu generated profile, set 'RFKill=auto'.
Basically, some of the network management services can handle RFKill state on their own. So maybe it would be a good idea to use one of these. I use connman, which definitely handles this on its own, but it is still a fairly young project and might not be the easiest to wrap your head around.

All right I added RFKill=auto to the profile and rebooted, it did not change anything.

Let me add some more information.

This is running on a laptop and there is an indicator light for wifi. When wifi is on the light is blue, when it's off the light is amber.

When I issue rfkill unblock all the light turns blue, meaning wifi is on. It connects etc, all is good.
I reboot, the light turns amber briefly, then turns blue again at the GRUB screen. It stays blue during the boot process, then turns amber again as soon as the login prompt is displayed.

Is it possible that something is doing rfkill block all during the boot?

WonderWoofy · 2014-04-24 23:49:56

Does it indicate such in your logs anywhere? What hardware do you have specifically?

dlbarron28 · 2014-04-25 11:02:18

WonderWoofy wrote:

Does it indicate such in your logs anywhere? What hardware do you have specifically?

Which logs should I look at? I looked for something before but couldn't find anything that explained the problem.
Is there a command I can issue that tells me the hardware?

Edit
I found this command in the wiki lspci -k

It returns this:
03:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 5100 AGN [Shiloh] Network Connection
Subsystem: Intel Corporation WiFi Link 5100 AGN
Kernel driver in use: iwlwifi
Kernel modules: iwlwifi

Last edited by dlbarron28 (2014-04-25 12:08:43)

dlbarron28 · 2014-04-28 23:41:17

If anyone could point me to the appropriate boot log I would appreciate it.

skanky · 2014-04-29 08:12:03

When I was debugging a virtually identical problem, I used journalctl[1] and dmesg.
However, it seemed to get fixed with an update, rather than anything I'd done, so I don't know how useful they'll be. They could be a good start though.

[1]https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Journalctl

dlbarron28 · 2014-04-29 15:33:52

skanky wrote:

When I was debugging a virtually identical problem, I used journalctl[1] and dmesg.
However, it seemed to get fixed with an update, rather than anything I'd done, so I don't know how useful they'll be. They could be a good start though.

[1]https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Journalctl

All right, that helps.
Looking through the boot log I see
iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0: can't disable ASPM; OS doesn't have ASPM control
(whatever that means)
Then further down I'm seeing this:
iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0: RF_KILL bit toggled to disable radio.

Does that mean the kernel is doing it?

skanky · 2014-04-29 16:13:05

I think so, though you can sometimes see being toggled on and off in some logs.

I saw similar and that's as far as I got really. Mine's an Intel 3945.

I had a load of other stuff to do, so I manually cleared rfkill for a while with the intention of coming back to the issue (I was going to see if anything had been reported at kernel.org), when it suddenly started working. I didn't check what update fixed it, unfortunately (wish I had).

dlbarron28 · 2014-04-29 16:51:34

skanky wrote:

I think so, though you can sometimes see being toggled on and off in some logs.
I saw similar and that's as far as I got really. Mine's an Intel 3945.
I had a load of other stuff to do, so I manually cleared rfkill for a while with the intention of coming back to the issue (I was going to see if anything had been reported at kernel.org), when it suddenly started working. I didn't check what update fixed it, unfortunately (wish I had).

Yeah, that's what I was afraid of. I don't think I want to take on changing the kernel, there's too many ways I can go wrong doing that, and I'm not enough of an expert at this point.

Does this explain the error I was getting when I had enabled rfkill-unblock@all?

skanky · 2014-04-29 20:36:51

dlbarron28 wrote:

skanky wrote:
I think so, though you can sometimes see being toggled on and off in some logs.
I saw similar and that's as far as I got really. Mine's an Intel 3945.
I had a load of other stuff to do, so I manually cleared rfkill for a while with the intention of coming back to the issue (I was going to see if anything had been reported at kernel.org), when it suddenly started working. I didn't check what update fixed it, unfortunately (wish I had).
Yeah, that's what I was afraid of. I don't think I want to take on changing the kernel, there's too many ways I can go wrong doing that, and I'm not enough of an expert at this point.
Does this explain the error I was getting when I had enabled rfkill-unblock@all?

I don't know, to be honest. I got similar errors (my issue spanned the systemd change) when I was trying to sort it.
I thought it was down to how I set up my networking in the past, before I discovered connman but I couldn't find where and how, if it was.
Anyway, there's several things that could have changed (I think there were updates to all at various times) to fix it: kernel, systemd, intel firmware, connman

I'm unable to help much more really, as I didn't know what the issue was. Sorry.

dlbarron28 · 2014-04-29 20:39:41

skanky wrote:

dlbarron28 wrote:
skanky wrote:
I think so, though you can sometimes see being toggled on and off in some logs.
I saw similar and that's as far as I got really. Mine's an Intel 3945.
I had a load of other stuff to do, so I manually cleared rfkill for a while with the intention of coming back to the issue (I was going to see if anything had been reported at kernel.org), when it suddenly started working. I didn't check what update fixed it, unfortunately (wish I had).
Yeah, that's what I was afraid of. I don't think I want to take on changing the kernel, there's too many ways I can go wrong doing that, and I'm not enough of an expert at this point.
Does this explain the error I was getting when I had enabled rfkill-unblock@all?
I don't know, to be honest. I got similar errors (my issue spanned the systemd change) when I was trying to sort it.
I thought it was down to how I set up my networking in the past, before I discovered connman but I couldn't find where and how, if it was.
Anyway, there's several things that could have changed (I think there were updates to all at various times) to fix it: kernel, systemd, intel firmware, connman
I'm unable to help much more really, as I didn't know what the issue was. Sorry.

Well, thanks for your help on it. I'll go ahead and mark this solved even though it's not really.

skanky · 2014-04-29 20:43:44

I wouldn't mark it as solved - someone else may have answers.

dlbarron28 · 2014-04-29 20:45:20

skanky wrote:

I wouldn't mark it as solved - someone else may have answers.

I'm not hopeful on that score.

skanky · 2014-04-29 20:55:49

I've looked at when I think it started working (I don't use wireless every day) and unfortunately all except firmware were updated on the same day (connman, linux, and systemd). I'll go through them and see if there's anything obvious.

dlbarron28 · 2014-04-29 21:09:09

skanky wrote:

I've looked at when I think it started working (I don't use wireless every day) and unfortunately all except firmware were updated on the same day (connman, linux, and systemd). I'll go through them and see if there's anything obvious.

OK, thanks

skanky · 2014-04-29 21:31:29

Nothing obvious, to me. If I had to put money on it, I'd say it was in the wireless side of the kernel.

Might be worth looking there.

One other thing though, do you have a BIOS switch that may be set to off?

skanky · 2014-04-29 21:35:22

dlbarron28 wrote:

skanky wrote:
I wouldn't mark it as solved - someone else may have answers.
I'm not hopeful on that score.

The thing is though, anyone else searching on this issue will see it as solved in the results and it'll be getting their hopes up.

Arch Linux

#1 2014-04-24 13:52:12

rfkill-unblock@all not working

#2 2014-04-24 15:45:51

Re: rfkill-unblock@all not working

#3 2014-04-24 16:24:05

Re: rfkill-unblock@all not working

#4 2014-04-24 16:57:03

Re: rfkill-unblock@all not working

#5 2014-04-24 17:22:50

Re: rfkill-unblock@all not working

#6 2014-04-24 17:29:56

Re: rfkill-unblock@all not working

#7 2014-04-24 17:51:39

Re: rfkill-unblock@all not working

#8 2014-04-24 23:49:56

Re: rfkill-unblock@all not working

#9 2014-04-25 11:02:18

Re: rfkill-unblock@all not working

#10 2014-04-28 23:41:17

Re: rfkill-unblock@all not working

#11 2014-04-29 08:12:03

Re: rfkill-unblock@all not working

#12 2014-04-29 15:33:52

Re: rfkill-unblock@all not working

#13 2014-04-29 16:13:05

Re: rfkill-unblock@all not working

#14 2014-04-29 16:51:34

Re: rfkill-unblock@all not working

#15 2014-04-29 20:36:51

Re: rfkill-unblock@all not working

#16 2014-04-29 20:39:41

Re: rfkill-unblock@all not working

#17 2014-04-29 20:43:44

Re: rfkill-unblock@all not working

#18 2014-04-29 20:45:20

Re: rfkill-unblock@all not working

#19 2014-04-29 20:55:49

Re: rfkill-unblock@all not working

#20 2014-04-29 21:09:09

Re: rfkill-unblock@all not working

#21 2014-04-29 21:31:29

Re: rfkill-unblock@all not working

#22 2014-04-29 21:35:22

Re: rfkill-unblock@all not working

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