reassign 798494 wicd
thanks
On 2015-09-09, John Harrington wrote:
> Package: iw
> Version: 3.17-1
> Severity: important
>
> Dear Maintainer,
>
> My network manager (wicd) lost the ability to connect to my unsecured wireless
> router when I upgraded from the 3.16-0-4-686-pae kernel to the 4.1.0-1-686-pae
> kernel. It still works normally when I boot into the 3.16 kernel.
iw is a command line tool to query and modify the configuration of
cfg80211 based wlan cards via nl80211. To the best of my knowledge wicd
still has no concept of nl80211 and still depends on the obsolete wext
compatibility layer in order to speak to the kernel. Accordingly this
bug can't be in iw, as iw isn't even involved in the use case you
describe.
Therefore, from an initial 10'000 mile bird view, the packages involved
in your problem could be:
- src:linux
- crda/ wireless-regdb
- wpasupplicant
- wicd
but not iw.
The prime suspect would usually be the kernel upgrade, but considering
that you experience problems with vastly different kernel modules (ath5k
and iwlagn) suggests a more generic issue (and wlan as a whole certainly
isn't broken in linux 4.1 for everyone).
crda and wireless-regdb are only responsible for setting and obeying
the regulatory domain settings (allowed channels, ~transmit power, and
~features). Unless you're operating your device outside of its
specifications, these two packages aren't really an active component in
your problem.
wpasupplicant would be the next contender, but here the version didn't
really change between jessie (roughly corresponding to kernel 3.16) and
unstable (the difference between wpasupplicant 2.3-1+deb8u1 and 2.3-2 is
tiny and doesn't affect functionality).
wicd hasn't seen an uploaded since 2013, so at least no /change/ in wicd
could be made responsible for your issues either - except that no change
at all and using an obsolete API to talk to the kernel (wext) can be a
source of problems on its own. I'm still tentatively reassigning this bug
to wicd, as you apparently have only tried wicd as configuration and
connection management frontend and didn't reproduce the issue any other
way so far.
> This computer has a Qualcomm Atheros wireless adapter using the ath5k driver.
> See further details in the command line output below.
>
> On another computer of mine, wicd lost the ability to connect when upgrading
> from the 4.0.0-2-686-pae to the 4.1.0-1-686-pae kernel. (On this computer --
> the one I'm preparing this bug report on -- I upgraded directly from the 3.16
> kernel to the 4.1 kernel, so have not tested the wireless connection on this
> computer when running the 4.0 kernel.) On that other computer -- the one on
> which I lost wireless capability on the upgrade from the 4.0 to the 4.1 kernel
> -- I have an Intel Ultimate N Wifi Link 5300 adapter using the iwlwifi driver.
> Since I have the same problem with two different devices, I assume this
> problem
> is not specific to a particular adapter or driver.
>
> Sorry if I'm reporting this bug against the wrong package. From the command
> line I can't connect using either the iw or the iwconfig utilities, and I
> don't
> know how to narrow the problem down any further. Below are a series of
> commands that I ran under both the 3.16 and the 4.1 kernel with the
> corresponding terminal output, showing that both the iw and iwconfig commands
> successfully connect when running the 3.16 but fail when running the 4.1
> kernel:
Neither iw, nor wireless-tools (iwconfig) are able to connect to
wireless networks using modern (required) encryption (WPA2/ CCMP) on
their own. Therefore you do need to use wpa_supplicant, which can be
configured manually, but it's much better to use more well-known
frontends in order to configure it and manage the connection.
Beyond wicd, the most common ones would be network-manager or
wpasupplicant's own ifupdown integration[1]. Once you have configured
any of these, you can query further information from syslog or
wpa_supplicant using wpa_cli (status). This will probably provide
further insight into your problem.
> ___
>
> OUTPUT WHEN RUNNING THE 3.16 KERNEL:
>
> root@kitchencomp:/home# lspci -k
lspci -knn is typically preferred, as it also provide numeric vendor-
and product IDs.
>
> 00:0d.0 Ethernet controller: Qualcomm Atheros AR5212/5213/2414 Wireless
> Network
> Adapter (rev 01)
> Subsystem: D-Link System Inc AirPlus DWL-G520 Wireless PCI Adapter
> (rev. B)
> Kernel driver in use: ath5k
>
O.k., this one should be working - at least it is/ was working for me
with kernel 4.2 (and 4.1 before) using systemd-networkd.
Regards
Stefan Lippers-Hollmann
[keeping the rest of your mail intact for the wicd maintainers]
> root@kitchencomp:/home# iw dev
> phy#0
> Interface wlan0
> ifindex 3
> wdev 0x1
> addr 00:11:95:92:61:bd
>
