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derelict

Member

Registered: 2006-07-25

Posts: 81

netcfg2 with wpa_supplicant [SOLVED]

I receive the following error when attempting to connect wirelessly using netcfg2:

Failed to connect to wpa_supplicant - wpa_ctrl_open: No such file or directory

This repeats about ten time before I receive a message that wireeless association failed.
finferflu had a similar symptom in this post http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=57756, but unfortunately his solution has not helped me.
I can duplicate the error using 2 different wireless cards (and their respective drivers, ipw2200 and b43legacy).

When I issue the appropriate wpa_supplicant commands manually, I do not receive the error and I connect normally.

My network profile:

CONNECTION="wireless"
DESCRIPTION="Argos"
INTERFACE=eth1
SECURITY="wpa-config"
SCAN=no
ESSID="Argos"
IP="static"
IFOPTS="192.168.0.3 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 192.168.0.255"
GATEWAY="192.168.0.1"
WPA_CONF="/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf.argos"

Last edited by derelict (2008-11-09 16:22:32)

derelict

Member

Registered: 2006-07-25

Posts: 81

Re: netcfg2 with wpa_supplicant [SOLVED]

Despite the error message, wireless association succeeds and can be verified by the output of iwconfig. But because netcfg2 never finishes, the static ip and default route are not added (resolv.conf was already manually set).

So far I've tracked it down to this:
http://bugs.archlinux.org/task/11818?dev=418

The problem is that this patch simply suppresses the output. So something else is either misconfigured or broken.

Last edited by derelict (2008-11-09 06:57:50)

iphitus

Forum Fellow

From: Melbourne, Australia

Registered: 2004-10-09

Posts: 4,927

Re: netcfg2 with wpa_supplicant [SOLVED]

That patch hasnt been applied. What your error effectively means is that regardless of whether wpa_supplicant is running, wpa_cli can't communicate with it.

The problem may be with your config file. It's probably specifying a different wpa control socket than wpa_cli is using, thus wpa_cli can't communicate with wpa_supplicant.

This should work

ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant
ctrl_interface_group=0

The bug you link to is a different situation where you normally only get the error message once. In that bug, wpa_cli is called before wpa_supplicant has set up the control socket, thus wpa_cli fails. Usually though it'll work the second time round and the bug tends to only occur if netcfg is run on a system under load.

Last edited by iphitus (2008-11-09 12:18:33)

.:B:.

Forum Fellow

Registered: 2006-11-26

Posts: 5,819

Website

Re: netcfg2 with wpa_supplicant [SOLVED]

Offtopic - but is there a reason you are using something else than the 'vanilla' wpa_supplicant.conf? I mean: the config file handles multiple networks flawlessly afaik (it does here), so there's no need for complicated schemes with multiple configuration files.

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iphitus

Forum Fellow

From: Melbourne, Australia

Registered: 2004-10-09

Posts: 4,927

Re: netcfg2 with wpa_supplicant [SOLVED]

The main reason why you'd use a config file is for WPA Enterprise networks where some form of authentication is required. For example my uni's network.

derelict

Member

Registered: 2006-07-25

Posts: 81

Re: netcfg2 with wpa_supplicant [SOLVED]

I applied the patch just to see if the results would be different. And that's when I determined that it simply suppresses the output.

I must thank you for your suggestion iphitus. I'd previously commented out the control interface parameters when I was debugging, and since I could connect manually without any problems I never would have put the pieces together.