From: adam@address.invalid   
      
   unruh wrote:   
   > On 2012-07-21, Adam  wrote:   
   >> Yeah, I agree.  I'm not blaming anyone or anything (at least not yet),   
   >> just trying to accomplish a task (of getting Wi-Fi working under Mageia   
   >> 2 on my test system).   
   >   
   > a) Networkcenter has a problem with not updating. You have to hit   
   > refresh.   
   > b) networkcenter has a problem with key_mgmt. If it decides that this is   
   > null for some ssid (eg because it got confused on a wakeup from   
   > hibernate or misinterpreted the output ) it refuses to change that. You   
   > have to go into /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf and change it by hand.   
   > c) It would be far better if ifup-eth would use wpa_supplicant to set up   
   > even sites without wpa  or wpa2 security. I rewrote ifup-eth to do that.   
   > d) wpa_supplicant refuses to connect to the site selected, but connects   
   > to the strongest essid listed in wpa_supplicant.conf, even if it is not the   
   one you want. I rewrote   
   > ifup-eth to extract the requested essid config stuff from   
   > wpa_supplicant.conf and put it into another file   
   > (/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/wireless.d/.wpa)   
   > so it has nothing else to connect to. Seems to work well.   
   >   
   > So is one of the above your problem?   
      
   This is strange.  This was/is all on my test system (my production   
   system until I bought this new box last month), which still had Mandriva   
   2010.0 and now has six other distros on it as well.  About two weeks   
   ago, I got Wi-Fi working on that box under Mandriva 2010.0, and when I   
   installed Fedora 17 on it last week, the Wi-Fi nearly configured itself   
   with only minimal input from me.  Earlier today I played around with a   
   lot of settings through Mageia 2's GUIs "configure your computer" and   
   "network center" and even a little editing with "vim".  This was all   
   choosing "manual configuration", no DHCP so each part of my LAN can have   
   a static LAN IP, and (at least for now) I'm using my ISP's DNS.  None of   
   the attempts to connect through Wi-Fi, both through the GUI and by "ifup   
   wlan0", succeeded.  Some of what I tried (sorry, I didn't keep a record)   
   even changed /etc/hosts, assigning "eris" (the test computer) 127.0.0.1   
   when /etc/hosts originally had had it as 192.168.1.23.  (Fortunately I'd   
   kept a copy of the correct file under another name and just copied that   
   back.)  Other things I tried added several hundred lines, mostly blank,   
   to /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf.  There were moments of connectivity but   
   they didn't seem to last very long despite my doing nothing that should   
   have changed that.  The whole process included several logouts and   
   reboots just in case those might help, but nothing did.  I gave up   
   temporarily, realizing that some of Mageia's "helper tools" had   
   problems, and powered the thing down.   
      
   Later, I powered the box back up and booted Mageia 2 again, and to my   
   amazement its wireless connection was working, and stayed working!  I'm   
   not sure exactly what did it, but I did use 'find' to get a list of what   
   in /etc had changed recently.  The two relevant ones seemed to be   
   /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-wlan0 and /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf.   
     /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/wireless.d/my_ssid was still unchanged   
   since before I'd powered the thing down, and was identical to   
   ifcfg-wlan0 except it didn't have the DEVICE, ONBOOT, and   
   MII_NOT_SUPPORTED lines.  I'd had to change my original choice for my   
   SSID into something that would be a valid filename.   
      
   Here's ifcfg-wlan0 complete, with a few things "censored" and a few   
   comments in brackets:   
      
   DEVICE=wlan0   
   BOOTPROTO=static   
   IPADDR=192.168.1.nn	[unchanged since I first configured this box]   
   NETMASK=255.255.255.192   
   GATEWAY=192.168.1.nn			[my DSL wireless router]   
   ONBOOT=yes   
   METRIC=35   
   MII_NOT_SUPPORTED=no   
   USERCTL=yes   
   DNS1=68.237.nnn.nnn		[two of my ISP's DNSs, for now]	   
   DNS2=71.243.nnn.nnn   
   RESOLV_MODS=no   
   WIRELESS_MODE=Managed   
   WIRELESS_ESSID="my_ssid"			[in double quotes]   
   WIRELESS_ENC_KEY='s:my_secret_ASCII_passphrase'	[with single quotes and   
   s: before the passphrase]   
   WIRELESS_WPA_DRIVER=wext   
   WIRELESS_WPA_REASSOCIATE=yes   
   IPV6INIT=no   
   IPV6TO4INIT=no   
   ACCOUNTING=no   
   NM_CONTROLLED=no   
      
   and the relevant part of wpa_supplicant.conf is at the very end:   
      
   network={   
        psk="my_secret_ASCII_passphrase"		[in double quotes]   
        priority=1   
        scan_ssid=1	[Would =0 work? It's supposed to be a trifle faster]   
        bssid=00:12:0e:xx:xx:xx		[my DSL wireless router]   
        ssid="my_ssid"				[in double quotes]   
   }   
      
   So... I'm not sure which of my numerous changes actually accomplished   
   anything, but those are the results that succeeded, at least for now.   
   BTW my real SSID and ASCII passphrase are random printable characters,   
   both the maximum length allowed.  I'm sorry I can't answer your   
   questions directly, but I hope there are some answers to them in what   
   I've written and that other Mageia 2 wireless users will find something   
   useful in it.   
      
   Adam   
   --   
   Registered Linux User #536473   
      
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