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Hello all. Well, I seem to have run into some difficulties here while configuring my system. The thing is I cannot connect to my wireless network on bootup anymore. I stayed about 4 months without using Arch Linux, then I decided to reinstall it from the ground up on the SAME machine, which has suffered NO changes; it is the exact same computer. The only change since then is that I changed my WEP encryption key on my router. I had a functional rc.conf file which I keep just for taking a look at while I'm configuring the system. The Networking section follows:
# /etc/rc.conf (NETWORKING Section)
HOSTNAME="ArchPC"
wlan0="dhcp"
wlan_wlan0="wlan0 essid MySpot key 0123456789ABCDEFABCDEF1234"
interfaces=(wlan0)
gateway="default gw 192.168.0.1"
ROUTES=(!gateway)
The only thing I changed from my previous rc.conf was my WEP hex key, which I have already triple-checked. I used the same hostname (which is also correctly configured in /etc/hosts) and the essid is the same. In 2 years of Arch I used this configuration file and it worked flawlessly, but now it simply does not work anymore for boot-up connection. I simply get a FAIL after about 30 sec in '::Starting Network' on bootup. Then, by issuing 'iwconfig', I can see that my interface (wlan0) is up and the ESSID is set to "MySpot", but the access point is not associated. I do not know what is going on, as it never happened before. However, it works just fine if I do the step-by-step manual configuration from command line after my system is up and I can get internet access in such a way without any problems. Never did it before (so I do not know if this was the case for my previous installations), but by running 'lspci | grep -i net' I do not see my wireless extension listed, although 'iwconfig' shows it just fine. I am trying to make it work using rc.conf just as it did before. As I mentioned, my network connection is working, but not from bootup as it did before, so I do not know what to do. Did anything on Arch radically change since then? Couldn't find anything on the wiki pages besides using another network start method. Any help is greatly appreciated...
Edit: I just found out that my wmaster0 is missing...could that have anything to do with my issue?
Last edited by gabscic (2010-04-04 06:45:23)
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Just for the sake of not letting this go without any answer, I've just done a full system reinstall and now I've got back my wmaster0 (the driver module for my wireless network card is rtl8187). Searching the internet, it seems that wmaster0 is an internal master device that is to be used by the module, and not the user. The lack of wmaster0 may indicate that something is amiss on the driver installed on your system. Now that I've got it back, my rc.conf file (described on previous post) works like a charm. However, I remember I did have wmaster0 on my previous Arch installation and it just disappeared all of a sudden. So far the only thing I've done different is that I have not yet upgraded my new installation, so my guesses are that something on the upgrade procedure is breaking the driver in some way. Maybe all those package renames and such? I'll upgrade my system later (don't have the time now) and I'll get back here with any new findings. Regards...
Last edited by gabscic (2010-04-06 20:53:14)
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Yep, that was it. After upgrading the system my network connection stops working via network daemon through rc.conf on bootup (although network connection still works using other means such as manual after boot and netcfg). However, by inspecting /etc/rc.d I found a 'network' and a 'network~' file. By using vimdiff one can see that those two files are different in many different segments. Thus, a new 'network' daemon version is being created during system upgrade. Don't know which package upgrade is creating such new file, but by using the older one (install version, before upgrading the system) I can get internet on bootup via rc.conf using the network daemon, and that even in the abscence of wmaster0 (which, as stated, disappears after system upgrade). Well, just posting it here in case someone gets in trouble with that as I did.
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