Netcfg error (ipv6?)

Davini · 2011-07-12 02:02:32

I just did a "pacman -Syu" on my system for the first time in probably a month and netcfg prints this error:

error: "net.ipv6.conf.eth0.accept_ra" is an unknown key

My net-profile comes straight from the ethernet-dhcp example in the network.d/examples folder. What is this error and how do I remove it?

Last edited by Davini (2011-07-12 02:03:00)

ghen · 2011-07-12 09:01:36

Very old kernel? Or modules for your running kernel not available anymore after kernel upgrade?

Reboot first.

danielstrong52 · 2011-07-14 10:06:26

I have no idea what the error actually means, but it is caused by netcfg 2.6 and higher, which seems to break everything. Downgrade to 2.5.

tomk · 2011-07-14 10:41:19

I have that error too, but in my case it doesn't break anything - the connection works as expected.

Consequently, I haven't been sufficiently motivated to track down the error.

Last edited by tomk (2011-07-14 10:41:38)

tomk · 2011-07-14 11:04:00

OK - I got motivated - a bit.
That error message is generated by sysctl, and refers to an invalid sysctl key, not a wep/wpa key. sysctl is called five times in /usr/lib/network/connections/ethernet (which is clearly used for other connection types as well).
However, AFAICS the sysctl calls all relate to IPv6 connections, so that's where I've stopped debugging for now, as I'm a bit stuck for time. My connection is IPv4 - in fact, IPv6 is completely disabled here.

I'll have another look later.

ghen · 2011-07-14 11:08:27

Yes, the unknown key is a sysctl knob. It may not exist because the ipv6 module is not loaded (can't check, have ipv6 everywhere). Does "sysctl -a | grep ipv6" show anything?

Does the error go away after "modprobe ipv6"?

Davini · 2011-07-15 23:40:18

Ahh, I'm sorry for the delay with my response. I did a quick update and that seemed to fix the error. Thanks for those who responded.

<3 Arch Linux and it's community

briaric · 2011-08-10 14:37:31

I did a pacman -Syu the other night and lost my network connection and noticed the

error: net.iv6.conf.eth0.accept_ra is an unknown key

message being printed out upon startup.

I am not sure what I did but I have network connection again but still get the message. I did another pacman -Syu and the message has not gone away. I have run gentoo for used and moved to arch about 3 months ago (tired of recompiling source.) I feel like a newbie on this one. Where do I start in debugging this? ipv6 is not running and not sure if I should get it running.

Your help is appreciated.

ugoff · 2011-08-10 17:31:38

I am also getting this error. It started after disabling the IPv6 module, which I disabled because I was seeing a message about no IPv6 routers being found. I don't use IPv6, so I just wanted it gone. I've disabled it in any way I can find or think of, but this message keeps coming up everytime the net-profiles daemon is started. It is true, the file is not found there, but how do we stop netcfg from trying to find it?

partner55083777 · 2011-08-10 19:24:33

Adding "ipv6" to your MODULES array in /etc/rc.conf will make this error go away.

You can see that /usr/bin/netcfg sources code in /usr/lib/network/connections/ethernet which tries to set this value using sysctl. I imagine a future update to the netcfg code will fix this. It looks like this bug has (kind of) been reported: https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/24896

briaric · 2011-08-11 02:51:11

That seemed to fix the message from coming up. Not sure I completely understand it and I don't have the bandwidth right now to read the bug report.

Thanks much!

Last edited by briaric (2011-08-11 02:56:18)

AskApache · 2011-08-11 19:01:54

Run:

$ sudo sh -xv -c 'NETCFG_DEBUG=yes netcfg firewire-net'

Shows the error with output.

NETCFG_DEBUG=yes netcfg firewire-net
+ NETCFG_DEBUG=yes
+ netcfg firewire-net
DEBUG: Loading profile firewire-net
DEBUG: Configuring interface firewire0
:: firewire-net up [BUSY] DEBUG: status reported to profile_up as:
DEBUG: Loading profile firewire-net
DEBUG: Configuring interface firewire0
DEBUG: ethernet_iproute_up ifup
DEBUG: ethernet_iproute_up ip addr add 10.66.66.1/255.255.255.252 brd + dev firewire0
error: "net.ipv6.conf.firewire0.accept_ra" is an unknown key
DEBUG: ethernet_iproute_up hostname galileo

This error happens when the ipv6 module isn't enabled and loaded. It happens because of a poorly written area of the netcfg script that can easily be fixed.
The /usr/lib/network/connections/ethernet-iproute has a function ethernet_up() that parses the value of the IP6 variable that you can set in a /etc/network.d/netprofile-1 to either dhcp, stateless, static, no. If it's set but not one of those values, the script fails with this error.

> IP6 must be 'dhcp', 'dhcp-noaddr', 'stateless', 'static' or 'no'

Even if the IP6 isn't in the network profile, the script tries to run this:

sysctl -q -w net.ipv6.conf.firewire0.accept_ra=0

Resulting in an error every time.

Basically, no matter if you set the IP6 or not, or what you set the value to, this poorly written function will always attempt to use sysctl to write to net.ipv6.conf.** but if the ipv6 module is not loaded, that entire tree net.ipv6* does not even exist, so you get a sysctl error message.

If you load the ipv6 module like modprobe ipv6, then the sysctl will work correctly.

Once ipv6 module is loaded, it cannot be removed or unloaded. Forceably unloading the ipv6 module may crash your kernel.

The fastest fix would be to add the -e param to the sysctl calls in the script. The best fix would be to rewrite the case section of the function as well.

To summarize, this error can be 100% ignored.

AskApache · 2011-08-11 19:04:54

Oh and unless you use ipv6, adding it to your MODULES array in rc.conf is not what you want to do. You should disable autoloading of ipv6 by adding this to /etc/modprobe.d/modprobe.conf

alias net-pf-10 off

That prevents ipv6 from autoloading, but lets you manually load it like 'modprobe ipv6' if you actually do need to use it.

briaric · 2011-08-12 14:23:12

thanks much for the explanation. I didn't realize that netcfg was recently updated with the newest version and I saw it when I went back to the arch pages. I will ignore the message. Now to work on KDE4.6 and phonon and the problems I am having there.

Thanks again.

dmacblu · 2012-01-31 03:27:12

I think this error is back since a lot of folks (like me) had this error after the latest wireless_tools and Syu update. I had to do a complete re-install and I'm still not sure if it was the kernel update or wireless tools. At least the reference above showed where I was getting the error message from (/usr/lib/network/connections/ethernet-iproute) : rm -r ${_DHCLIENT_PIDFILE} &>/dev/null
report_debug ethernet_up dhclient -6 -q -e TIMEOUT="${DHCP_TIMEOUT:-10}" -pf ${_DHCLIENT_PIDFILE} "$INTERFACE"
if ! dhclient -6 -q -e TIMEOUT="${DHCP_TIMEOUT:-10}" -pf ${_DHCLIENT_PIDFILE} ${DHCLIENT6_OPTIONS} "$INTERFACE"; then
report_fail "DHCPv6 IP lease attempt failed."
I put this here to direct anyone having the same problem to a solution namely : "sudo modprobe ath9k -r" then "sudo modprobe ath9k nohwcrypt=1"
After than I was able to "netcfg mywirelessnetwork" and I can now get back online. BTW my connection is ipv4.

Arch Linux

#1 2011-07-12 02:02:32

Netcfg error (ipv6?)

#2 2011-07-12 09:01:36

Re: Netcfg error (ipv6?)

#3 2011-07-14 10:06:26

Re: Netcfg error (ipv6?)

#4 2011-07-14 10:41:19

Re: Netcfg error (ipv6?)

#5 2011-07-14 11:04:00

Re: Netcfg error (ipv6?)

#6 2011-07-14 11:08:27

Re: Netcfg error (ipv6?)

#7 2011-07-15 23:40:18

Re: Netcfg error (ipv6?)

#8 2011-08-10 14:37:31

Re: Netcfg error (ipv6?)

#9 2011-08-10 17:31:38

Re: Netcfg error (ipv6?)

#10 2011-08-10 19:24:33

Re: Netcfg error (ipv6?)

#11 2011-08-11 02:51:11

Re: Netcfg error (ipv6?)

#12 2011-08-11 19:01:54

Re: Netcfg error (ipv6?)

#13 2011-08-11 19:04:54

Re: Netcfg error (ipv6?)

#14 2011-08-12 14:23:12

Re: Netcfg error (ipv6?)

#15 2012-01-31 03:27:12

Re: Netcfg error (ipv6?)

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