wireless nic doesn't connect until after desktop gui is loaded

[toddbailey]

Is there a way to fix this?


I have a dell d800 laptop using a hp 802abg nic and it doesn't properly initialize until gnome desktop is loaded

I'm using 128 bit key and a hidden network name.

I would like to have wireless networking running before /etc/rc.local is executed at boot time to connect to nfs shares.


after gnome is loaded and I login to user account, wireless networking starts and connects.

When I set inittab to 3 and boot machine, ifconfig and iwcfg report card doesn't exist, when I then telinit 5 and start x/gnome card gets properly setup.

is it possible the card doesn't get initialize3ed because the network key needs to be entered in a file somewhere that the boot sequence can access it and init the card properly?

I setup the card using the usual gnome networking gui tools.:




any ideas?

[MarcoP]

Just posting because I want to follow this thread.
I have the same question but I believe /etc/sysconfig/networking-scripts/xxxx onboot=yes would be my first guess.

EDIT: not sure why ifconfig and iwcfg report a not existing card since F12 uses HAL but could be that some other service needs to start at init level 3 as well?

[smr54]

It's probably relying on NetworkManager. To fix this, you can try disabling Network Manager in services and enabling network.
I haven't used NM in awhile, but I believe it still waits for the GUI login before going into operation.

You might have to setup the card using wpa_supplicant rather than NM for it to work this way.

See http://www-users.york.ac.uk/~mdc1/fedora_wireless.html

Although it's marked for F7 & 8 and refers to Intel cards, the principles are still applicable. The only difference would be if your card is seen as wlan0, then when editing /etc/sysconfig/wpa_supplicant use wlan0 rather than eth1.

[SlowJet]

gnome menu - System, Authorization, network.
double-click on the device under the device tab.
activate device when computer starts - check box on


SJ

[toddbailey]

In reply to MarcoP

yup it's there, all the settings look good


Slowjet

that was my first thought, but already set


smr54

correct the card relies on NetworkManager
with out it the card does not initialize, no matter what I try

in order to use wpa, I have to disable network manager
but wpa doesn't work, after making the required settings, as outlined on several web site, the service will not start.

it requires to have the interfaces line configured, but fails when I set it to wlan1

This is really frustrating,

[smr54]

It shouldn't rely on NetworkManager. In theory, at least (and in my experience) if you make the proper entries in /etc/sysconfig/wpa_supplicant, /etc/network-scripts/ifcfg-wlan0 and so on, it should work if it will work at all. Sometimes, a reboot is necessary, after making sure NetworkManager is disabled in services--I'm sure there's a way around it, but again, I don't use NM, and the few times I've played with it, after disabling it, wpa_supplicant was conflicting with some process or another, so a reboot fixed it.

Take a look at http://home.roadrunner.com/~computer.../wireless.html which goes through completely disabling NM. You might also have to put in the ifcfg-wlan0 file something like
NM_CONTROLLED=no

Although if NM isn't running in services and you reboot, that shouldn't be necessary.

[toddbailey]

OK, made some progress, NM is now disabled and wlan1 connects to the network, but again only after gnome desktop is loaded.

After reading the t/s guide link...

when I run iwconfig wlan0 essid mynetwork key mykey
I can put that into rc.local and hopefully all will be well.

[MarcoP]

Hi todd,

1) follow the above guide till you get a working wpa_supplicant.conf

2) make sure /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-wlan0 uses

ONBOOT=yes

3) then

su -
chkconfig --level 2345 NetworkManager off
chkconfig --level 2345 network on
chkconfig --level 2345 wpa_supplicant on
reboot