? disable auto eth0 ?

English Network/Internet
1

I used my Eee netbook whilst on a recent trip; the wireless worked well; however the last two hotels offered ethernet cables;

(I have OpenSuse 11.4; gnome; 32bit running; atheros wireless…was running well…)

having returned home, I noted today that wireless is not working…network manager (Gnome) shows *wireless disabled in grey
*

I did initially attempt some googling …

following advice from lwfinger in another post, I looked in var/log/NetworkManager and I see this from the date of the first use of the ethernet cable in the hotel

Jul 15 09:06:53 linux-g1bi NetworkManager[1438]: keyfile: parsing Auto eth0 …
Jul 15 09:06:53 linux-g1bi NetworkManager[1438]: keyfile: read connection ‘Auto eth0’
Jul 15 09:06:53 linux-g1bi NetworkManager[1438]: <info> found WiFi radio killswitch rfkill1 (at /sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1c.2/0000:01:00.0/ieee80211/phy0/rfkill1) (driver <unknown>)
Jul 15 09:06:53 linux-g1bi NetworkManager[1438]: <info> WiFi enabled by radio killswitch; enabled by state file
Jul 15 09:06:53 linux-g1bi NetworkManager[1438]: <info> WWAN enabled by radio killswitch; enabled by state file
Jul 15 09:06:53 linux-g1bi NetworkManager[1438]: <info> WiMAX enabled by radio killswitch; enabled by state file
Jul 15 09:06:53 linux-g1bi NetworkManager[1438]: <info> Networking is enabled by state file

so seemingly a re-write there

so I seem to be stuck with auto eth0

following on from another lwfinger tip, I looked in /etc/network/sysconfig/ifcfg-eth0 and found that

STARTMODE=‘bootup’
…sorry; I think that was the phrase

I changed it to

STARTMODE=‘ifplugd’

however on restarting wireless is still greyed as disabled and I see

Jul 31 17:56:33 linux-g1bi NetworkManager[1444]: <info> Policy set ‘Auto eth0’ (eth0) as default for IPv4 routing and DNS.

I would be grateful for advice before changing more settings…wireless has not been my forte…

2

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…

after more searching, I see in

etc/NetworkManager/system-connections there is a file called Auto-eth0

from post #2 here

KDE Networkmanager uses “auto eth0” connection instead of my “home” connection

I note that deleting this file does not alter things: wireless is still disabled

3

You may need to delete the NetworkManager lock file (with root privileges of course)

rm -f /var/lib/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.state

Then restart the network with

rcnetwork restart
4

thanks;

identified the file using gedit before logging in with su - powers

deleted as you suggested; watched with interest as network shut down and restarted; wireless still greyed as disabled;

on rebooting; I see NetworkManager.state is recreated; as before I deleted it; same text I see; still wireless disabled

5

Next step, do you have rfkill installed? If not, install it with

zypper in rfkill

To get a list of reported devices:

rfkill list

For reference, I get

0: hp-wifi: Wireless LAN
        Soft blocked: no
        Hard blocked: no
1: hp-bluetooth: Bluetooth
        Soft blocked: no
        Hard blocked: no
2: hp-wwan: Wireless WAN
        Soft blocked: no
        Hard blocked: no
4: hci0: Bluetooth
        Soft blocked: no
        Hard blocked: no

Maybe wireless has been disabled. If so, you can enable with

rfkill  unblock <device no>
6 
Jul 15 09:06:53 linux-g1bi NetworkManager[1438]: <info> found WiFi radio killswitch rfkill1 (at /sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1c.2/0000:01:00.0/ieee80211/phy0/rfkill1) (driver <unknown>)
Jul 15 09:06:53 linux-g1bi NetworkManager[1438]: <info> WiFi enabled by radio killswitch; enabled by state file
Jul 15 09:06:53 linux-g1bi NetworkManager[1438]: <info> WWAN enabled by radio killswitch; enabled by state file
Jul 15 09:06:53 linux-g1bi NetworkManager[1438]: <info> WiMAX enabled by radio killswitch; enabled by state file

I glanced over your first post and missed the above. That suggests wireless should be enabled. With the KDE NM plasmoid, it is possible to enable/disable wireless via a check box. I’m not familiar with the Gnome UI, can the same be done there?

7

thanks;

re post #4;

I did not have rfkill installed; so I installed it

so after

su -

I typed the command

rfkill list

and it gave the reply

rfkill list

0: hci0: Bluetooth
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no
1: phy0: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: yes

so I tried

rfkill unblock phy0

and got the answer

Bogus unblock argument ‘phy0’.

so I tried

rfkill unblock phy0: Wireless LAN

and got the answer

Bogus unblock argument ‘phy0:’.

I see it is hard-blocked;

that must mean a hardware switch; let me fossick around here

Solved: top left of Eee: is a button; middle of Eee is blue light for wireless;

pushing button turns off wi-fi; despite this, blue light remains on…

pushing button … turns on wi-fi !!

so Solved ! … many thanks

8

Happy that you got it working! Yes, hard blocked confirms a hardware switch. I didn’t want to suggest checking the obvious though, as you’re not a newbie :slight_smile:

Anyway, for future reference, and assuming soft(ware) blocked device, the rfkill command is of the form

rfkill unblock 1
9

thanks; always things to learn!
for me on the switch issue: toggling on or off does not change the blue wifi light; (my assumption was that it reflected wifi on or off… so light might go out …I now see otherwise)

learnt a bit about rfkill; spotted a few places files are stored; learnt from googling … hopefully all good stuff …

10

On 07/31/2011 10:06 PM, pdc 2 wrote:
>
> thanks; always things to learn!
> for me on the switch issue: toggling on or off does not change the blue
> wifi light; (my assumption was that it reflected wifi on or off…
> so light might go out …I now see otherwise)
>
> learnt a bit about rfkill; spotted a few places files are stored;
> learnt from googling … hopefully all good stuff …

Toggling the switch also requires that the driver be ready to go. Do you have a
firmware issue?

11

thanks for your comments lwfinger

Do you have a firmware issue?

help me understand how I could check this out please

12

On 08/01/2011 05:16 PM, pdc 2 wrote:
>
> thanks for your comments lwfinger
>
>> Do you have a firmware issue?
>
> help me understand how I could check this out please

I thought that was covered in the stickies.

Any missing firmware messages will be in the output of the dmesg command.

13

thanks;

I checked through with the aid of this excellent primer

Getting Your Wireless to Work

and all seems fine; wireless now finds out local WAP and logs in automatically

14

On 08/01/2011 05:56 PM, pdc 2 wrote:
>
> thanks;
>
> I checked through with the aid of this excellent primer
>
> ‘Getting Your Wireless to Work’ (http://tinyurl.com/4w785aq)
>
> and all seems fine; wireless now finds out local WAP and logs in
> automatically

I’m glad that is still useful.