[Cbe-oss-dev] Diagnosing NetworkManager/ps3_gelic connection issues in Ubuntu Jaunty

[Dan Munckton]

Hi folks

I'm currently investigating the last big show-stopper for seamless
NetworkManager managed networking on Ubuntu PS3 [0]. The old issues with
WPA2 and wifi scanning will be gone in Jaunty as we have a 2.6.28 based
kernel for PowerPC.

The problem we're experiencing now is failure to connect to a wireless
network if the wired interface has already been connected.

The most obvious possible cause would be because both interfaces have
the same MAC address and both are connecting to the same network segment
(e.g. basic home wifi/ethernet router). Because the system brings up
eth0 first at boot and wlan0 on user login, eth0 beats wlan0 to the
connection.

Although I have a working knowledge of networking, and this explanation
makes sense to me, I want to be sure the symptoms are definitely due to
this before moving on. In the log below it appears the gelic wireless
driver is doing all the right things but it's just not getting the right
results from the hardware/hypervisor.

Can anyone confirm this?

Does anyone know if any of the other distros are having similar issues?

Here's a full log of a boot and a couple of attempts to connect to the
wifi network. The kernel has DEBUG defined in ps3_gelic_*.c:

http://launchpadlibrarian.net/23011674/ps3-syslog-wlan_connect_failing

Essentially this log shows

1. Boot - ending with eth0 being brought up and plenty of wlan scanning
2. Me logging in (search for pam_sm_authenticate)
3. NM trying to connect to my wifi network (search for "starting
connection 'Auto munckfish'")
4. Then what seems to be repeated failures to connect/associate
delimited by ...

Feb 23 13:34:48 ps3 NetworkManager: <info> (wlan0): supplicant
connection state: associating -> disconnected
Feb 23 13:34:48 ps3 NetworkManager: <info> (wlan0): supplicant
connection state: disconnected -> scanning

and sometimes

Feb 23 13:34:55 ps3 NetworkManager: <info> wlan0: link timed out.

5. Then at some point NM applet pops up the pasword dialog (search for
"asking for new secrets"), and we run through the same loop all over
again.

Thanks

Dan Munckton


[0] https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-ps3-port/+bug/309457