[SOLVED] WiFi issues on Toshiba 550D

[doktor5000]

Which one is the one you're trying to connect to, Atlassian or corea?

[joeyc]

I have attempted to connect to both unsuccessfully since switching to KDE.

All of the information I have provided have been while attempting to connect to the Atlassian network.

[joeyc]

Did I answer the question or is there more info you need?

[doktor5000]

Well, only more time is needed, as currently dayjob eats a lot of my spare time and keeps me busy :/
Will take a look at the weekend.

[joeyc]

I understand! I really appreciate your time and effort!

[joeyc]

If I could get a hand with this, I would be most appreciative!

[doktor5000]

Sorry, seems i've forgotten this one :/

So, let's try to get this straight, from scratch. Please post the outputs of the following commands:

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lspcidrake -v | grep -i net
dmesg | grep -iE 'wifi|wlan|firmware'

Only other relevant threads about linux and wireless problems with this model seems that the key combination
Fn+F8 does not work to disable wireless. So most people seem to have a problem complete opposite to yours, as they want to disable wireless

There are two things you could try currently:

1. temporarily reconfigure one of the two wireless APs to try if a totally unencrypted connection works, and reconfigure the connection via drakconnect. If it does, then disable it afterwards again and reenable encryption and security.
2. Try to connect manually via editing the /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf to show for one of the two networks only the SSID of the network (atlassian or Corea IIRC) and password, both are only placeholders and need to be adapted:

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network={
  ssid="SSID"
  psk="password"
}

and then connect via the commandline:

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ifconfig wlan0 up
wpa_supplicant -B -Dwext -c/etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf -iwlan0
dhclient wlan0

The first command activates the interface, the second uses wpa_supplicant to establish an encrypted connection and the third requests a DHCP lease.

[joeyc]

Hi! Thanks, I appreciate you coming back to me

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[root@localhost joey]# lspcidrake -v |grep -i net
ath9k           : Atheros Communications Inc.|AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) [NETWORK_OTHER] (vendor:168c device:002b subv:11ad subd:6613) (rev: 01)
r8169           : Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.|RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller [NETWORK_ETHERNET] (vendor:10ec device:8136 subv:1179 subd:fdc0) (rev: 05)


I don't have admin access to either of the networks so is step 1 out of the question?

On the Atlassian network, there is no pre-shared key per se. It is WPA Enterprises but we have to login with our username and password. So I tried the following combinations

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network={
ssid="Atlassian"
password="password"
identity="identity"
}


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network={
ssid="Atlassian"
psk=""
password="password"
identity="identity"
}


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network={
ssid="Atlassian"
psk="password"
}


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network={
ssid="Atlassian"
psk="password"
identity="identity"
}


I replaced your second line with

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wpa_supplicant -B -Dwext -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -iwlan0


As system was returning a parsing error (was it a typo? I don't have a /wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf)

After then, the three lines executed without returning errors for all of the above combinations of config attributes EXCEPT for the first two - it complained that there was no psk in there and that the psk length was 0 respectively.

It might be worth repeating that I have no trouble getting onto the wi-fi network in the same building that doesn't have encryption. Unfortunately, I am not supposed to use this network and am supposed to get on the proper Atlassian network. I can also connect to the Atlassian network using a network cable seemingly with no problems.

Thanks again for your help!

[doktor5000]

I don't have admin access to either of the networks so is step 1 out of the question?

Yes, seems like it.

On the Atlassian network, there is no pre-shared key per se. It is WPA Enterprises but we have to login with our username and password. So I tried the following combinations

OK, WPA Enterprise usually means no pre-shared key (PSK) but authenticating via an RADIUS server, as you mention via username & password.
That explains something ...
So do you select WPA-Enterprise in drakconnect? Password will get greyed out, and you need to enter username and password?

Can you try to connect to any other wireless AP somewhere else, which does not sport nothing fancy, just plain WPA/WPA2-PSK?

As system was returning a parsing error (was it a typo? I don't have a /wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf)

After then, the three lines executed without returning errors for all of the above combinations of config attributes EXCEPT for the first two - it complained that there was no psk in there and that the psk length was 0 respectively.

It might be worth repeating that I have no trouble getting onto the wi-fi network in the same building that doesn't have encryption. Unfortunately, I am not supposed to use this network and am supposed to get on the proper Atlassian network. I can also connect to the Atlassian network using a network cable seemingly with no problems.

Thanks again for your help!

Yes, was a typo, sorry for that. I'll have a look for this.

[joeyc]

So do you select WPA-Enterprise in drakconnect? Password will get greyed out, and you need to enter username and password?

Yes, that's what I got. To refresh your memory, this is the output in the terminal

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Failed to connect to wpa_supplicant - wpa_ctrl_open: No such file or directory
Failed to create host name resolver: Invalid host name
run-parts: /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/hostname.d/avahi exited with return code 1
Error for wireless request "Set Encode" (8B2A) :
    invalid argument "s:".


Can you try to connect to any other wireless AP somewhere else, which does not sport nothing fancy, just plain WPA/WPA2-PSK?

Would the network I mentioned above that doesn't have encryption that I am not supposed to use qualify? If so, please tell me what you want to know. Thanks!

[doktor5000]

Can you try to connect to any other wireless AP somewhere else, which does not sport nothing fancy, just plain WPA/WPA2-PSK?

Would the network I mentioned above that doesn't have encryption that I am not supposed to use qualify?

No, not really, as that will not use wpa_supplicant. Just want to rule out if this is a general problem with wpa_supplicant.

What you could also try is to use wpa_gui which is a frontend for wpa_supplicant (you may have to install that package).
Also please show the output as root of

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ls -la /var/run/wpa_supplicant/

[joeyc]

Hi - I ran the comment above as su and got No such file or directory

I didn't get around to trying the frontend - but the output I got suggests that it probably wouldn't help much right?

[doktor5000]

Hi - I ran the comment above as su and got No such file or directory

I didn't get around to trying the frontend - but the output I got suggests that it probably wouldn't help much right?

Well, then just create it As root, do

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mkdir -p /var/run/wpa_supplicant

[wanne]

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#iwconfig wlan0 mode Master
Error for wireless request "Set Mode" (9B06)  :
SET failed on device wlan0 ; Invalid argument
 

This command is used to set up a Access-Point with old non nl8021 drivers. You don't want to use it.

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network={
ssid="Atlassian"
psk="password"
identity="identity"
}

identity is used for WPA-Enetprise networks. psk stands for Pre-shared key WPA-Enetprise is to avoide such a Key. This section makes no sense. Remove it and wpa_supplicant will start without errors.

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network={
ssid="Atlassian"
password="password"
identity="identity"
}

This Section is to simple. There are a view Thousnd of possible WPA-Enetprise configurations. You have to specify which one you use. Because there are configurations which are insecure in some cases wpa_supplicant don't choose just the one which a AP with the right name sends to you. I would recomend you to configure at first the other network. If this works you may read a little bit about 802.1X to configure the other network. (Since many graphical tools don't prevent you from making very insecure setups. This is very useful in this case too.)

But i think your real problem is that NetworkManager is running. You can use it or remove it. A coexistence between it and any other network configuration is more or less impossible since it reconfigures the devices from time to time without reading any config file. Not using it is very difficult since it starts again if you kill it... If you want to use the netapplet or the wpa_supplicant standalone urpme networkmanager (with all dependencys) is very helpful. In othe cases you have devices which are configured half by networkmanager and half by you what dosn't work normaly.

[doktor5000]

@wanne: Does seem more like neither networkmanager nor net_applet are running ...

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[root@localhost joey]# ps -ef | grep -vE 'grep|netns' | grep -i net


[joeyc]

Well, then just create it As root, do

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mkdir -p /var/run/wpa_supplicant

Fuck yeah! That seems to have done the trick!

Thank you so much for your help, doctor!

[doktor5000]

Glad to hear \o/

So everything is working now as it should? Then please mark the thread accordingly by editing the topic of the first post and prefix it by [SOLVED], thanks

[joeyc]

Have done so! Any ideas what the problem actually was?

[doktor5000]

Well, with the nonexistant directory wpa_supplicant was never able to start up (it writes it's lock file there) so you were only able to make unencrypted connections.
What the reasons for that was, you ask? Sorry, no clue, never saw something like that before. But there's always something new that can break and more or less fun to find and repair

[joeyc]

OK sure, I was wondering if I should write something on a wiki somewhere. Merry Christmas

[doktor5000]

Well, for quite some time i want to write up a good article about wireless setup and troubleshooting, but as i've got
quite some high expectations about my own quality, and as that is quite a diverse topic with many cornercases and stuff,
probably will not happen. Basicall it would be something like https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Wireless_Setup
adapted to Mageia.

But we should put up some basic common step-by-step description about how to setup/troubleshoot a wireless connection,
preferably in the wiki, as that makes history tracking and version comparisons and collaboration much easier.
We already have https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Setup_wireless_networking but i think that's a bit too general ...

If i don't forget i'll notify you when i've whipped something up. Cheers!

[joeyc]

you champion! Thanks