Switching Between Wired and Wireless

BKJ1 · #1 25th October 2007, 01:55 AM

I have a question that I hope can be answered. I use KDE with WPA for the wireless and currently when I switch between a wired static ip and a dhcp wireless I essentially have to reboot twice in order to get the wireless to work again. Everything I try on the first reboot fails... ifconfig wlan0 up/down; if-up/down wlan0. However, if using dhcp on both (wired/wireless) everything seems to be ok. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to make this transition a smooth one? Once I get this figured out my next qquestion is going to be how the heck to get static ip for wireless working. I don't need this right now but eventually I would like to know what my options are for this.

Also why the heck can't one program manage wired/wireless with WPA.

Thanks in advance!

Iron_Mike · #2 25th October 2007, 02:54 AM

My guess is wireless device driver issue. What brand of wireless device are you using and the method?? Your error msgs are coming from the "device activated on boot" since you are using wpa it must authenticate BEFORE any IP 's are given and during the boot process this is not going to happen.

There is a program to manage this it is called network manager, in your case it is KNetworkManager. Turn on the NetworkManager services, both of them, install the knetworkmanger applet. Disable the "activate on boot" option for you ethernet/wireless devices. Using WPA will require the using kwallet which is the equivalent of the gnome keyring, my suggestion, if you are the only user of this computer, leave the kwallet password blank. This will alleviate typing in the kdewallet password in every single time......

BKJ1 · #3 25th October 2007, 03:35 AM

IM:

Thanks for the reply.

Q. What brand of wireless device are you using and the method?
A. Intel Wireless 3945 stock F7 install no mods.

As for the other items that you suggested, that is my exact setup to the tee. The issue is when I need to set a static wired IP an then go back to DHCP wireless. To set the static ip I use system-config-network and for the WPA DHCP wireless I let knetwork + kwallet handle it.

If you have any other suggestions I am all ears.

I just wish one program could handle all of it. I think that is the reason for this issue but I am not sure about this as I am new to Linux.

casket88 · #4 25th October 2007, 04:52 AM

Hi BKJ1,

I have done some research and found simply that the current version of KNetworkManager will not allow you to use static configuration on interfaces. It is "supposed" to trust information configured for that interface (in our example, Network Configuration) but for whatever reason it does not. The only documented case of this working that I have found is in opensuse when configured through Yast.

It is for this reason I am not using NetworkManager.

In my case (using a statically configured wired NIC) even when I plug the workstation in to a network with no DHCP server it keeps on searching for one, eventually reverting to the ol' 169.x.x.x address.

I hate Network Manager.

Apparantly the support in KDE 4.0 is alot better.

BKJ1 · #5 25th October 2007, 04:57 AM

C88... Thanks for the response.

In my case I have no choice as I need it for WAP Wireless DHCP. It is just a pain in the @@@ to have to reboot twice just to get my wireless working again after a static wired IP.

nick.stumpos · #6 25th October 2007, 05:05 AM

have you tried manually bringing down your interfaces before a shutdown

Iron_Mike · #7 25th October 2007, 02:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by casket88

Hi BKJ1,

I have done some research and found simply that the current version of KNetworkManager will not allow you to use static configuration on interfaces. It is "supposed" to trust information configured for that interface (in our example, Network Configuration) but for whatever reason it does not. The only documented case of this working that I have found is in opensuse when configured through Yast.

It is for this reason I am not using NetworkManager.

In my case (using a statically configured wired NIC) even when I plug the workstation in to a network with no DHCP server it keeps on searching for one, eventually reverting to the ol' 169.x.x.x address.

I hate Network Manager.

Apparantly the support in KDE 4.0 is alot better.

Pretty bold statement considering that KNetworkManager works perfectly fine here using STATIC or DHCP with WPA2. I have not had any issues using NetworkManager / KNetworkManager...

Iron_Mike · #8 25th October 2007, 02:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BKJ1

IM:

Thanks for the reply.

Q. What brand of wireless device are you using and the method?
A. Intel Wireless 3945 stock F7 install no mods.

As for the other items that you suggested, that is my exact setup to the tee. The issue is when I need to set a static wired IP an then go back to DHCP wireless. To set the static ip I use system-config-network and for the WPA DHCP wireless I let knetwork + kwallet handle it.

If you have any other suggestions I am all ears.

I just wish one program could handle all of it. I think that is the reason for this issue but I am not sure about this as I am new to Linux.

It's like that using Gnome also. system-config-network handles the interface configurations, while NetworkManager handles the connections. One other thing to check, under system-config-network, make sure you have check mark in the nox that "allow users to enable/disable device"

BKJ1 · #9 25th October 2007, 07:58 PM

Winner winer chicken dinner... Bringing down the interface before shutdown does work. Does anyone know haw this can be done via script? I may not always remember.

casket88 · #10 25th October 2007, 11:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iron_Mike

Pretty bold statement considering that KNetworkManager works perfectly fine here using STATIC or DHCP with WPA2. I have not had any issues using NetworkManager / KNetworkManager...

Well kindly help me out then, as I have posted numerous threads on numerous forums including bug requests (and there are numerous ones asking for support for static configuration in Fedora). If you have found how to get this working then I would love to know.

Keep in mind I am not talking about wireless interfaces.

Iron_Mike · #11 26th October 2007, 01:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by casket88

Well kindly help me out then, as I have posted numerous threads on numerous forums including bug requests (and there are numerous ones asking for support for static configuration in Fedora). If you have found how to get this working then I would love to know.

Keep in mind I am not talking about wireless interfaces.

Here's a screen shot KDE, Connected by ethernet with Static IP addressing. When unplugging the ethernet it will even go into wireless scanning mode with STATIC ip addressing...I always use static ip addressing from the get go, the only time I use DHCP is when traveling or visiting hot spots.

casket88 · #12 26th October 2007, 02:40 AM

Yes I can do this too.

What I am talking about is when configuring static addressing via system-config-network (like you have shown), when I start KNetworkManager the static addressing is OVERRIDEN by NetworkManager. It will not accept the static configuration.

For example:

I configure eth0 to have static addressing through system-config-network. This works fine when NetworkManager and NetworkManagerDispatcher services are not started and knetwork manager loaded. However whenever I do that it gets a DHCP address from our DHCP server. When I plug it in to a network with no dhcp service it just sits there until it times out and then auto-configures a 169.something.something.something address - it doesn't even revert back to static.

Iron_Mike · #13 26th October 2007, 01:59 PM

I see what your getting at. For example if your Network is configured for DHCP and the interfaces are configured for STATIC. Some Linux OS will throw a 169.xxx.xxx.xxx ip in there because it doesn't know how to react to the misconfguration. I do not believe this is Network Manager fault, more of a programming issues. I guess they could just program a dialog box to popup and state you have network setting mismatch or something along those lines.....

casket88 · #14 28th October 2007, 10:34 PM

It's not that it doesn't know how to act to misconfiguration as everything is configured fine, it's that it assigned an APIPA because a DHCP server is not found.

I believe APIPA was originally a Microsoft 'mechanism' designed for computer illiterate users. It assignes a 169.254.x.x address when it cannot find a DHCP server and no static configuration is present. The simple reason for this is that if say, by way of example, a user connected two workstations up to a switch with both having DHCP configurations, obviously there is no DHCP server and the workstations would be unable to communicate. Through APIPA, even though they wouldn't be able to get out to the Internet or anything like that, they still could communicate with each other.