NM: the usual rant

[Robert L Cochran]

I too am having a problem with Network Manager, and like Anne, I should
file a bug and provide feedback if requested. In my case Network Manager
seems to have a terribly difficult time connecting to my wireless
network before I login. I always have to force a restart of the network
service in order to get the magic "Connection Established" gui popup
message and the connectivity bars icon showing at the top right of my
screen. I think it may have something to do with a problem in ifup-eth
and dhclient.

[root at deafeng3 ~]# service network restart
Shutting down interface eth0: [ OK ]
Shutting down interface wlan0: [ OK ]
Shutting down loopback interface: [ OK ]
Bringing up loopback interface: [ OK ]
Bringing up interface eth0:
Determining IP information for eth0... failed; no link present. Check cable?
[FAILED]
Bringing up interface wlan0:
Determining IP information for
wlan0.../etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifup-eth: line 291: 4291
Terminated /sbin/dhclient ${DHCLIENTARGS} ${DEVICE}
failed.
[FAILED]

(At this point, if I see the line about ifup-eth, the "Connection
established" GUI message will appear and I have wireless connectivity
regardless of the failure messages mentioned above.)

hardware:

Dell Latitude E6400, with this wireless device:

0c:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 5300 AGN
[Shiloh] Network Connection
Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device 1121
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 17
Memory at f1ffe000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8K]
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: iwlagn
Kernel modules: iwlagn

Maybe I ought to be using a different kernel driver...

Bob



Timothy Murphy wrote:
> I'm having problems with NM again.
> I often have to re-boot once or twice before it connects.
>
> But that is not the subject of this rant.
> To try to make sense of what is happening
> I have been looking through NM entries in /var/log/messages
> and I find these less than helpful.
>
> Was ever so much written to so little purpose?
>
> I see for example:
>
> Feb 23 14:49:41 mary NetworkManager: <WARN>  check_one_route():
>    (eth1) error -34 returned from rtnl_route_del(): Sucess#012
> Feb 23 14:49:41 mary avahi-daemon[2272]: 
>   Withdrawing address record for 192.168.2.19 on eth1.
> Feb 23 14:49:41 mary avahi-daemon[2272]: 
>   Leaving mDNS multicast group on interface eth1.IPv4 with address 
> 192.168.2.19.
> Feb 23 14:49:41 mary avahi-daemon[2272]: 
>   Interface eth1.IPv4 no longer relevant for mDNS.
> Feb 23 14:49:47 mary NetworkManager: 
>   <info>  (eth1): now unmanaged
>
> What does this mean?
> What is error -34?
> How can one find out?
>
> Or:
>
> Feb 24 20:47:58 mary NetworkManager: <info>  (
>   eth1): supplicant interface state:  starting -> ready
> Feb 24 20:50:29 mary kernel: eth1: 
>   Error -19 disabling MAC port
> Feb 24 20:50:30 mary NetworkManager: <info>  
>   (eth1): now unmanaged
>
> What is error -19?
>
> Surely Linux error messages should be intelligible
> by the common user?
> Or are they intended solely for gurus?
>
> And what are all these states NM keeps going into
> and coming out of?
>
> Feb 24 20:50:38 mary NetworkManager: <info>  
>   (eth1): preparing device.
> Feb 24 20:50:38 mary NetworkManager: <info>  
>   (eth1): deactivating device (reason: 2).
> Feb 24 20:50:38 mary NetworkManager: <info>  
>   (eth1): device state change: 2 -> 3
>
> What is "reason: 2"?
> Where are the states documented?
>
> NM = nightmare ...
>
>