Susie 11.4 network manager doesnt start at bootup

rowan_chattock · May 22, 2011, 12:23pm

Hi All

I am sorry if this is covered in a previous post but having done search I could not find my exact problem.

I am using an Acer Aspire 5536 AMD dual core laptop with a 64bit installation of Susie 11.4. Using 11.2 I had no problems connecting to the wireless router. As soon as 11.4 was installed, clean install, and the laptop rebooted, network manager failed to start, until manually invoked and then enabling networking through the system tray. Even after this it will not connect to a wired or wireless network sometimes for more than 30 minutes.

Thanks in advance for your assistance.

DenverD · May 22, 2011, 3:23pm

On 05/22/2011 12:36 PM, rowan chattock wrote:

> Susie 11.4.

i know nothing about that distro.

–
dd CAVEAT: http://is.gd/bpoMD
[NNTP via openSUSE 11.4 [2.6.37.6-0.5] + KDE 4.6.0 + Thunderbird 3.1.10]
Dual booting with Sluggish Loser7 on Acer Aspire One D255

jdmcdaniel3 · May 22, 2011, 4:07pm

The following examples require that you open up a terminal session and then run the commands listed as shown.

This can be used to reset your internal routing:

sudo /sbin/netconfig update -f

If that does not work, then you could try this:

sudo rm /var/lib/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.state  
sudo /etc/init.d/network restart

If that does not work, then you can go for the gold and blank everything in your /home area (This includes saved passwords in kwallat):

sudo /etc/init.d/network stop, requires root password  
sudo killall -9 kwalletemanager, if running            
sudo killall -9 knetworkmanager, if running  
rm -rf ~/.kde4/share/config/networkmanagementrc  
rm -rf ~/.kde4/share/apps/networkmanagement  
rm -rf ~/.kde4/share/config/kwalletrc  
rm -rf ~/.kde4/share/apps/kwallet  
rm -rf ~/.kde4/share/apps/networkmanager  
rm ~/.kde4/share/config/networkman*

For wireless to work in KDE and Network Manager, you must be running Kwallet. You can get an enhanced view using Network Manager Plasmoid if you like by following this advice.

Go to YaST / Software / Software Managerement and search on plasmoid. When you check the package plasmoid-networkmanagment you will get an option to uninstall NetworkManager-kde4 or to not install plasmoid-networkmanagment so elect to delete the package NetworkManager-kde4. If all goes well you need to restart openSUSE to start using the new one.

See if something above might be helpful to you.

Thank You,

rowan_chattock · May 22, 2011, 5:51pm

Thanks for the advice, option 2 possibly had the most significant effect in that it was immediately able to connect, however at boot Knetworkmanager is still not available in the system tray.

“sudo /etc/init.d/network restart” does remedy the situation and I am then able to force my laptop to connect to the network.

At re-boot networkmanager only appears under hidden icons in the system tray if at all. Clicking on the icon reveals that “enable networking” is not ticked.

Enable networking does not activate the network connection.

Opening a terminal window and typing the following command “sudo /etc/init.d/network restart” changes the networkmanager icon from the blue NM to a black ethernet socket symbol, still no internet connection.
Disabling and then re-enabling “enable networking” displays the network manager as an active icon clicking on the icon shows the wireless network but still requires manual intervention to activate the network connection.

So the remaining question is why does it not enable or connect automatically as it used to under OpenSuse 11.2.

This penguin may be forced back to the dark side

jdmcdaniel3 · May 22, 2011, 7:03pm

So the remaining question is why does it not enable or connect automatically as it used to under OpenSuse 11.2.
I can say that normally the last step takes care of the problem if you must go that far AND you must not miss the fact you must run Kwallet to store your passphrase when using KDE. Further, the main reason for using Network Manager is to automatically switch between two or more network connections. That means, if you always connect say using wireless, you can disable Network Manager, switch to the Traditional Method using ifup when you go to YaST / Network Devices / Network Settings. You then manually configure your wireless setup and if that does not work, the fault does not appear to be with Network Manager.

Thank You,

rowan_chattock · May 22, 2011, 7:39pm

I have already tried using ifup and managed to get eth0 to work but that was all.

The facts that are relevant to this issue are:
This affects all user log ons
Network manager does not start at boot up
Both eth0 and WLAN0 are affected
Kwallet is not being used to store pass phrases I am saving unencrypted.

Could this be that networkmanager is trying to start before the network services are available and if so how can I remedy this?

jdmcdaniel3 · May 22, 2011, 8:42pm

I have already tried using ifup and managed to get eth0 to work but that was all.

The facts that are relevant to this issue are:
This affects all user log ons
Network manager does not start at boot up
Both eth0 and WLAN0 are affected
Kwallet is not being used to store pass phrases I am saving unencrypted.

Could this be that networkmanager is trying to start before the network services are available and if so how can I remedy this?
Let me just repeat two things here:

If you use KDE and Network Manager, you must load Kwallet.
If you can’t get ifup to work with a single wireless connection, the problem is not with Network Manager.

The problem with ifup is that it can be somewhat cryptic in using it. Further, when things don’t work automatically, it can be really frustrating and perhaps we don’t have the right clue to send you to the correct solution. I have a bash script that might provide more information about your hardware setup you can get from here and post the text lot provides online. Be aware it can produce a lot of text, not all of which might be relevant and may even need to be posted in two parts due to its size. None the less, we seem to be at an impasse here and so perhaps this will get us over the hump.

netinfo - Read Network & PC Information into a Local Text File

See message #11 for the latest version of the netinfo script.

Thank You,

rowan_chattock · June 5, 2011, 11:08am

Hi

Sorry for the long delay in getting back to you. I was all set to run the script you suggested and having noticed that my laptop was taking a long time to boot due to trying to mount NFS point that was not available due to the network not yet connected, so failing. I decided to delete the NFS settings and on re-booting my network connections are immediately available and connect immediately.

Thank you very much for your kind assistance
Rowan now a happy penguin again.

jdmcdaniel3 · June 5, 2011, 3:02pm

Hi

Sorry for the long delay in getting back to you. I was all set to run the script you suggested and having noticed that my laptop was taking a long time to boot due to trying to mount NFS point that was not available due to the network not yet connected, so failing. I decided to delete the NFS settings and on re-booting my network connections are immediately available and connect immediately.

Thank you very much for your kind assistance
Rowan now a happy penguin again.

Happy to hear that you did find a problem source. If you would like to put the NFS mount into a script, run at startup, just let me know what your manual mount command might be.

Thank You,

nrickert · June 5, 2011, 6:53pm

Not true, at least with KDE 4.6.0.

It depends on whether you are using knetworkmanager (which does require Kwallet), of the plasmoid network manager applet (whether to use Kwallet is then configurable).

With the plasmoid, if you click on the network manager icon in the tray, then click on “manage connections”, a settings screen comes up. Click on “Other” in the left column of that screen, and then you will find a selection available between

Store connection secrets: Do not store (always prompt); in file (unencrypted); in secure storage (encrypted)

The default is the third of those, which uses Kwallet. But you can select either of the others. I chose to store mine in a file (unencrypted)

The network key is then stored in a file in $HOME/.kde4/share/apps/networkmanagement/connections

(in my case “/home” is an encrypted partition, which I consider secure enough for a WiFi key)

jdmcdaniel3 · June 5, 2011, 7:47pm

Not true, at least with KDE 4.6.0.

It depends on whether you are using knetworkmanager (which does require Kwallet), of the plasmoid network manager applet (whether to use Kwallet is then configurable).

With the plasmoid, if you click on the network manager icon in the tray, then click on “manage connections”, a settings screen comes up. Click on “Other” in the left column of that screen, and then you will find a selection available between

Store connection secrets: Do not store (always prompt); in file (unencrypted); in secure storage (encrypted)

The default is the third of those, which uses Kwallet. But you can select either of the others. I chose to store mine in a file (unencrypted)

The network key is then stored in a file in $HOME/.kde4/share/apps/networkmanagement/connections

(in my case “/home” is an encrypted partition, which I consider secure enough for a WiFi key)
Thanks for your comments nrickert. In case there is someone that does not know how to load the NetworkManager Plasmoid, here is how you get it:

In order to install the NetworkManager Plamoid you need to install the package called plasmoid-networkmanagment which requires that you remove NetworkManager-kde4.

To do this go to:

YaST / Software / Software Managerement and search on plasmoid. When you check the package plasmoid-networkmanagment you will get an option to uninstall NetworkManager-kde4 or to not install plasmoid-networkmanagment so elect to delete the package NetworkManager-kde4. If all goes well you need to restart openSUSE to start using the new one.

If the Network Management Plasmoid does not automatically appear in the bottom right hand corner, then select the Panel Tool Box button, also in the bottom right by default, then select add widgets. Enter the search term network. When you see Network Management, double click on this and the Network Manager icon should appear next to the Panel Tool Box Button.

Be aware that I am using all NetworkManager files from the original openSUSE repositories. If you mix up NetworkManager versions, such as those that can be found in the GNOME or KDE specific repositories, NetworkManager can stop working properly. In general you should ONLY add in Packman to the default repositories that have been added for you when you installed openSUSE.

Be for warned about this problem of mixed version of the NetworkManager.

Thank You,

suse_tpx60s · July 6, 2011, 10:30am

I have exactly the same problem as the OP. If I enable NFS then the network doesn’t come up at all after booting, i.e. no network interfaces are enabled so networkmanager fails to start and connect. I’m using the networkmanager plasmoid instead of networkmanager-kde4.

ifconfig will only show the lo interface.

The only thing that works is restarting the network

/etc/init.d/network restart

Simply disabling the NFS service makes everything work again, i.e. the network interfaces are visible and networkmanager connects without problems.

It seems that NFS is trying to connect before the network is up. So is this a bug or is there a way of forcing NFS not to start until the network is up?

@jdmcdaniel3

Happy to hear that you did find a problem source. If you would like to put the NFS mount into a script, run at startup, just let me know what your manual mount command might be.

I’d appreciate if you could show me what the script is and where to place it. My nfs mounts are as below.
xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:/DATA_I /mnt/DATA_I nfs defaults 0 0
xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:/DATA_II /mnt/DATA_II nfs defaults 0 0
xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:/media/LacieMedia /mnt/LacieMedia nfs defaults 0 0
xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:/media/LacieBackup /mnt/LacieBackup nfs defaults 0 0

suse_tpx60s · July 6, 2011, 11:55am

Just a quick update that may help the OP or others with this problem. Whilst searching through the bug reports, it seems that a bug report (https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=623193) has already been filed. The problem also seems to relate to this bug

The workaround (for me at least) is to simply make a single edit to /etc/nfsmount.conf, changing the line
#Defaultvers=4
to
Defaultvers=3

This worked for me. Note, the NFS drives I’m accessing are on a openSUSE 11.2 server. I’ll be rebuilding the server to 11.4 shortly and will see if this still work around still works or is even required.

djh-novell · July 6, 2011, 12:28pm

suse tpx60s wrote:
> Just a quick update that may help the OP or others with this problem.
> Whilst searching through the bug reports, it seems that a bug report
> (https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=623193) has already been
> filed. The problem also seems to relate to ‘this bug’
> (https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=623307)

I’m not really following this issue (I just skim things that mention
NFS). Those two bug reports are interesting. There’s another one
mentioned in a thread elsewhere that may also be of interest to people
with problems:

https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=694461

It may also be worth repeating the desirability of using the _netdev
mount option if you are using /etc/fstab

Ecky · July 6, 2011, 8:15pm

I just tried this and it worked ok on a laptop

Added an nfs share using yast

Disabled the nfs service in Yast > System > System Services (Runlevel)

Disabled network manager in Menu > System Settings > Startup and Shutdown > Service Manager and configured the network to use ifup in Yast Network Devices > Network Settings

Added this command to the file /etc/init.d/after.local : service nfs start

Rebooted the laptop and the share was mounted and available when I logged in to a user, no hang waiting for the network to start or shares to mount

Might work for the OP, the laptop I used is also an acer aspire btw but not the same model as the OP

Ecky · July 10, 2011, 3:56pm

Played around with this a little more last night and found that the method I described in my last post will work with network manager after all, though the desktop is a little slower to load

I’ve yet to try either method when the /home directory is an nfs share but I suspect only the ifup method would work (if any) in that case, probably play with that scenario tonight to see what happens

suse_tpx60s · July 12, 2011, 11:27am

Well an update on my experience. I rebuilt the server to oS11.4 and reverted the change of Defaultvers=4 to Defaultvers=3 in /etc/nfsmount.conf on the client but the problem still exists.

I’ve now adopted Ecky’s solution and disabled the nfs service and start with a script it after the runlevel is reached as he describes. It seems to be working fine and I’m using NetworkManager.

Ecky · July 13, 2011, 11:28am

Just to verify, played around a bit and I could not get it to work with an nfs exported /home, though robin_listas gave me food for thought on another thread with regards to making the wi-fi adaptor a mandatory device

Won’t say any more about that at this point as I’ve yet to try it

mamasboy · July 14, 2011, 7:02pm

If you’re connecting to Suse’s share from another machine, you should configure the firewall settings to allow NFS.

Yast2 > (search for Firewall) > Allowed Services > Add …

NFS Client
NFS Server

I added both just in case. Before doing this, I couldn’t access my Suse NFS share from my crunchbang netbook (debian-based). I’d configured it to be NFS version 3, btw.

Cheers!

Ecky · July 15, 2011, 3:34am

You don’t need to allow both in the firewall, on the server allow Nfs Server, on clients allow Nfs Client

I played with a crunchband vm not so long back but I never looked at nfs on it so I can’t say anything about firewalling for nfs there