F9 - Network interface disabled after each reboot

Rick Stevens ricks at nerd.com
Fri Apr 25 16:39:42 UTC 2008


Andrew Kelly wrote:
> Christopher,
> 
> On Fri, 2008-04-25 at 10:29 +0100, Christopher Mocock wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I'm having a strange problem with Fedora 9 Preview. At first I couldn't 
>> get my network port to be configured by Network Manager. There are no 
>> details of it in the NetworkManager configuration screens and I can't 
>> "Add" it as all the buttons are greyed out.
>>
>> Frustrated by the inability to do anything with NM, I decided instead to 
>> use system-config-network. The NIC is listed there so I configured it, 
>> made sure to check the "start interface on boot" button. Unticked the 
>> box which lets NetworkManager control the interface.
>>
>> Now when I activate the interface in system-config-network, it works 
>> fine, but every time I reboot it's disabled again.
>>
>> I've tried unchecking the "Enable Networking" button in NetworkManager 
>> but that makes no difference - and annoyingly is always checked again 
>> after a reboot.
>>
>> System-wise, I started with the F9 Preview and have done a couple of yum 
>> updates so I'm up-to-date. The onboard NIC is an Intel 82562EZ 10/100 
>> (e100 module).
>>
>> Any ideas why this might be happening? Is Network Manager likely to be 
>> the culprit, and if so, is it fairly safe to uninstall?
>>
>> Thanks in advance,
> 
> Network Manager is pretty much a justifiable suspect for hair loss,
> weight gain, or why your car is suddenly getting really poor gas
> mileage.
> 
> Stop any NetworkManager* services that may be running. Use chkconfig to
> make sure they will not fire up at reboot. Use system-config-network to
> configure and fire up your networking. Have a look
> in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 to verify that onboot=yes
> 
> This should take of things, one would hope.
> 
> Oh, and yes, it's quite safe to uninstall NM.

Well, technically NM is useful if you use wireless and move around from
network to network.  A previous poster's comment that you use either
/etc/rc.d/init.d/network OR the /etc/rc.d/init.d/NetworkManager*
stuff is correct--they can fight each other something awful.

If you decide to run the non-NM stuff on wireless, configuring 
wpa_supplicant (for WPA security) is not the easiest thing to do if
you're not familiar with wireless protocols and what all the
various options mean (and the docs are a bit, uhm, sketchy).  For
example, my laptop typically lives on one of two wireless networks, one
WPA-protected and one WEP protected.  You can see how obnoxious my
/etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf file is:

ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant
ctrl_interface_group=wheel
# Office wireless network (WPA-PSK based)...
network={
     ssid="HCI2"
     scan_ssid=1
     key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
     pairwise=CCMP
     group=CCMP
     # Note: The passphrase has two dollar signs ("$$") in it.  This
     # causes issues, so I'm using the hex hash as calculated from
     # "wpa_passphrase HCI2 mypassphrase\$\$"...
     # psk="mypassphrase$$"
     psk=f77f3f506a81d16f950b93b1be49089e4ffa7e842dad1c5a17c985a202f3fc7b

}

# Home wireless network (WEP based)...
network={
     ssid="sssscnet"
     scan_ssid=1
     key_mgmt=NONE
     wep_key0="cleartextpass"
     wep_tx_keyidx=0
}

You also have to make sure that the wpa_supplicant is enabled in the
startup sequence.  By default, it starts MUCH later than the network
stuff (S10network, S28wpa_supplicant) and that can cause problems
with other things starting that depend on the network.  Then again,
NM only starts when the user logs in.

It's a quandary!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
- Rick Stevens, Systems Engineer                       rps2 at nerd.com -
- Hosting Consulting, Inc.                                           -
-                                                                    -
- Millihelen, adj: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. -
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