[gentoo-user] Wireless worked, rebuilt kernel, wireless no longer works

[gentoo-user] Wireless worked, rebuilt kernel, wireless no longer works

[Mark Knecht]

Hi,
   Why would wireless no longer work after rebuilding the kernel to
add USB OHCI support only?

   The title more or less says it. My network is a bunch of LinkSys
access points and a LinkSys wireless router. I use WEP and broadcast
my ESSID, for now.

   I emerged wireless-tools, wpa_supplicant (which I am not using at
this time) and ndiswrapper. Using ndiswrapper I installed the Windows
driver and ndiswrapper installed and working:

christmas ~ # ndiswrapper -l
Installed ndis drivers:
net8180 driver present, hardware present
christmas ~ #

christmas ~ # lsmod | grep ndis
ndiswrapper           162288  0
christmas ~ #

   I added ndiswrapper to /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.6:

christmas ~ # cat /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.6
# /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.6:  kernel modules to load when system boots.
#
# Note that this file is for 2.6 kernels.
#
# Add the names of modules that you'd like to load when the system
# starts into this file, one per line.  Comments begin with # and
# are ignored.  Read man modules.autoload for additional details.

# For example:
# 3c59x
sis900
ndiswrapper
christmas ~ #

   I configured the following files yesterday and got wireless working:

christmas ~ # cat /etc/conf.d/wireless
# /etc/conf.d/wireless:
# Global wireless config file for net.* rc-scripts
##############################################################################
# SETTINGS
##############################################################################

essid_wlan0="LadySmithBliss"
preferred_aps=( "LadySmithBliss" )
channel_wlan0="6"
key_LadySmithBliss="AAAA-BBBB-CCCC-DDDD-EEEE-FFFF-GG enc restricted"

christmas ~ #

christmas ~ # cat /etc/conf.d/net
# This blank configuration will automatically use DHCP for any net.*
# scripts in /etc/init.d.  To create a more complete configuration,
# please review /etc/conf.d/net.example and save your configuration
# in /etc/conf.d/net (this file :]!).

config_eth0=( "192.168.1.58/24" )
routes_eth0=( "default via 192.168.1.1" )

config_wlan0=( "192.168.1.59/24" )
routes_wlan0=( "default via 192.168.1.1" )
christmas ~ #

I created the link for wlan0:

christmas ~ # ls -la /etc/init.d/net.*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root     6 Jul  4 22:33 /etc/init.d/net.eth0 -> net.lo
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 24324 Jul  4 22:33 /etc/init.d/net.lo
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root     6 Jul  8 02:09 /etc/init.d/net.wlan0 -> net.lo
christmas ~ #

At this point I could start and use the network by hand so I used
rc-update to add net.wlan0 to default. Everything was working fine. I
powered the machine completely down and booted cold. The wireless
network can up and ran fine.

   I thought everything was great until we tried to configure my son's
printer and found the kernel didn't have the right USB support so I
rebuilt the kernel. After rebuilding the kernel I can no longer get
wireless to run:

christmas ~ # /etc/init.d/net.wlan0 start
 * Starting wlan0
 *   Configuring wireless network for wlan0
 *   Failed to configure wireless for wlan0
                [ !! ]
christmas ~ #

   I tried re-emerging ndiswrapper but that didn't help.

   I'm really confused at this point. Can someone suggest some things
for me to look at?

Thanks very much,
Mark
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Re: [gentoo-user] Wireless worked, rebuilt kernel, wireless no longer works

[Willie Wong]

On Sat, Jul 08, 2006 at 11:09:39AM -0700, Penguin Lover Mark Knecht squawked:
> Hi,
>   Why would wireless no longer work after rebuilding the kernel to
> add USB OHCI support only?
> 
Since you rebuilt the kernel, you'd probably need to recompile
ndiswrapper against the new kernel. I saw that you mentioned that you
did just that. Perhaps first remove ndis from module.autoload, and see
if you can modprobe it by hand? It could be that even though you
recompiled ndiswrapper, it was compiled against the wrong kernel
version or something, so the module cannot load?

This is the only thing that comes to mind right now. 

The new kernel that you compiled, is it the same version? Or a
different one? If it is different, perhaps you can try (if you saved
it) booting into the old one and see if you can modprobe ndiswrapper
(The old one should still be in /lib/modules under the correct kernel
version). 

Best, 

W
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Re: [gentoo-user] Wireless worked, rebuilt kernel, wireless no longer works

[Mark Knecht]

On 7/8/06, Willie Wong <wwong@princeton.edu> wrote:
> On Sat, Jul 08, 2006 at 11:09:39AM -0700, Penguin Lover Mark Knecht squawked:
> > Hi,
> >   Why would wireless no longer work after rebuilding the kernel to
> > add USB OHCI support only?
> >
> Since you rebuilt the kernel, you'd probably need to recompile
> ndiswrapper against the new kernel. I saw that you mentioned that you
> did just that. Perhaps first remove ndis from module.autoload, and see
> if you can modprobe it by hand? It could be that even though you
> recompiled ndiswrapper, it was compiled against the wrong kernel
> version or something, so the module cannot load?
>
> This is the only thing that comes to mind right now.
>
> The new kernel that you compiled, is it the same version? Or a
> different one? If it is different, perhaps you can try (if you saved
> it) booting into the old one and see if you can modprobe ndiswrapper
> (The old one should still be in /lib/modules under the correct kernel
> version).
>
> Best,
>
> W

Willie,
   Thanks. I did at least recompile ndiswrapper before I wrote this
post. That alone did not fix it. The kernel was the same kernel -
Gentoo stable - so 2.6.16-gentoo-r9 I think.

   I noticed that the machine was sort of sluggish with that kernel so
I built a new real-time one - 2.6.17-rt5 from the pro-audio overlay.
For that kernel I needed to build ndiswrapper for the first time,
which I did, and low and behold when I booted into that kernel
wireless did come up running right away so I think you're on the right
track but for somereason it didn't work for me on the earlier kernel.
I cannot explain why right now.

   I do have some problems that I'm going to have to work out. I am
getting messages about 'device initiated installation' - or something
like that - early in the boot process. Later the kernel posts a
message telling me either net.eth0 or net.wlan0 cannot start until the
boot process completes. I checked rc-update show and I see that I'm
startign these in default, not boot, so I think what I'm doing is
correct but possibly coldplug or hotplug is doing something wrong the
way I'm configured.

   Anyway - right now I have wireless connectivity, which is great,
but some problems persist that need to be addressed tomorrow.

Thanks much,
Mark
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Re: [gentoo-user] Wireless worked, rebuilt kernel, wireless no longer works

[Willie Wong]

On Sat, Jul 08, 2006 at 04:15:29PM -0700, Penguin Lover Mark Knecht squawked:
>   I do have some problems that I'm going to have to work out. I am
> getting messages about 'device initiated installation' - or something
> like that - early in the boot process. Later the kernel posts a
> message telling me either net.eth0 or net.wlan0 cannot start until the
> boot process completes. I checked rc-update show and I see that I'm
> startign these in default, not boot, so I think what I'm doing is
> correct but possibly coldplug or hotplug is doing something wrong the
> way I'm configured.

there has been a recent thread about this. You might be able to play
around with /etc/conf.d/rc (I think RC_PLUG_SERVICES) [I am not quite
sure if this is the right solution though].

W
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Re: [gentoo-user] Wireless worked, rebuilt kernel, wireless no longer works

[Mark Knecht]

On 7/8/06, Willie Wong <wwong@princeton.edu> wrote:
> On Sat, Jul 08, 2006 at 04:15:29PM -0700, Penguin Lover Mark Knecht squawked:
> >   I do have some problems that I'm going to have to work out. I am
> > getting messages about 'device initiated installation' - or something
> > like that - early in the boot process. Later the kernel posts a
> > message telling me either net.eth0 or net.wlan0 cannot start until the
> > boot process completes. I checked rc-update show and I see that I'm
> > startign these in default, not boot, so I think what I'm doing is
> > correct but possibly coldplug or hotplug is doing something wrong the
> > way I'm configured.
>
> there has been a recent thread about this. You might be able to play
> around with /etc/conf.d/rc (I think RC_PLUG_SERVICES) [I am not quite
> sure if this is the right solution though].
>
> W

Thanks. I missed that thread so I'll go looking tomorrow morning.

Cheers,
Mark
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