shouldn't wpa_supplicant start before network?

[gsgleason]

I'm working on getting wpa_supplicant working for me. When I start the wpa_supplicant service, it sets up the wireless security and connects to my AP just fine, but since the network service has already attempted to bring up the wlan0 interface before that, dhclient doesn't happen.

It's better if I change S10network and S28wpa_supplicant in /etc/rc5.d/ to S10wpa_supplicant and S11network, respectively - that way the physical interface of the wireless interface is established before trying to bring the network in service, but it doesn't seem like i should have to do this.

I'm assuming the package maintainers know more than myself and I'm missing something.

[scottro]

http://home.nyc.rr.com/computertaijutsu/rhwireless.html

It gives a link to the bug report. The package maintainers have their reasons for doing it this way--the bad thing, which was fixed fairly quickly, was that wpa_supplicant was starting before message bus and failing.

Also look at Mike's writeup which is linked on that page. I've found it to be the best way--I was doing what you were doing before that.
In a nutshell, we put wpa_supplicant into rc.local rather than running it from rc.3 (or 5).
Anyway, the bug report, though it got pretty long, gives the maintainer's reasons and Mike's way works really well.

[scottro]

Oops, an error in my earlier post (though explained correctly in the link I gave). wpa_supplicant does start from /etc/init.d/ after network, but the dhclient part goes into rc.local.

[stevea]

NetworkManager kicks off an instance of the supplicant *if* the connection requires it. Also the config iis trivial. Unless you are doing something exotic I'd avoid manually configuring the supplicant.

[gsgleason]

NetworkManager kicks off an instance of the supplicant *if* the connection requires it. Also the config iis trivial. Unless you are doing something exotic I'd avoid manually configuring the supplicant.

What do you mean by "exotic?"

I'm using WPA personal with a TKIP passphrase.

I'll read about NetworkManager...

[gsgleason]

Scrottro, thanks for the info. I'll look into it and let everyone know what transpires when I get more time to play with this. I appreciate your comments.

[scottro]

NetworkManager is a GUI network configuration tool. If you use it, then you shouldn't need to configure wpa_supplicant and the like.

From your original post, I was assuming that you're doing this from the command line.
NetworkManager is more like MS' thing in the lower right--I forget what it's called. NetworkManager is an icon in the upper right (because we take the high road where MS doesn't?).

[gsgleason]

NetworkManager is a GUI network configuration tool. If you use it, then you shouldn't need to configure wpa_supplicant and the like.

From your original post, I was assuming that you're doing this from the command line.
NetworkManager is more like MS' thing in the lower right--I forget what it's called. NetworkManager is an icon in the upper right (because we take the high road where MS doesn't?).

Indeed. I generally stay away from GUI configuration tools if I can as I don't like to be in the dark as to exactly what they're doing, which files they're editing, etc, as I like to be in control of all my configs and whatnot.

Unfortunately I'm at work and my Linux machine is at home, so I will get to play with this later tonight.

[gsgleason]

I set my wired and wireless interface to onboot=no in their config files, am not starting wpa supplicant either, and am starting NM.

It works automagically. It finds all the access points, shows encryption they're using, power levels, and connects just fine.

I'm glad I don't have to mess with my init scripts any more.