5100AGN problems

[n4rky]

So the part of the configuration that is supposed to automatically run dhcpcd is not working. And dhcpcd is having nearly as much trouble as dhclient in getting a dhcp address over wireless; it has the evil behavior of assigning a 169.254.x.x address (which, damn the RFCs, is a really, really, really bad idea that should be shot dead along with whoever came up with it and his or her entire family) when it fails with a timeout. But because dhcpcd hangs around (I guess to renew the lease on a 169.254.x.x address), I could tell that wpa_supplicant was not running it.

This is seeming unreasonably problematic. I don't see that it adds anything but here is the relevant slice of /var/log/messages:

Jun 9 20:49:58 graton dhcpcd[4312]: wlan0: dhcpcd 3.2.3 starting
Jun 9 20:49:58 graton dhcpcd[4312]: wlan0: hardware address = 00:22:fb:45:30:46
Jun 9 20:49:58 graton dhcpcd[4312]: wlan0: DUID = 00:01:00:01:11:c1:6f:1c:00:22:fb:45:30:46
Jun 9 20:49:58 graton dhcpcd[4312]: wlan0: broadcasting for a lease
Jun 9 20:50:18 graton dhcpcd[4312]: wlan0: trying to use old lease in `/var/lib/dhcpcd/dhcpcd-wlan0.info'
Jun 9 20:50:18 graton dhcpcd[4312]: wlan0: probing for an IPV4LL address
Jun 9 20:50:19 graton dhcpcd[4312]: wlan0: using IPV4LL address 169.254.81.107
Jun 9 20:50:19 graton dhcpcd[4312]: wlan0: adding IP address 169.254.81.107/16
Jun 9 20:50:19 graton dhcpcd[4312]: wlan0: exiting
Jun 9 20:50:19 graton dhcpcd.sh: interface wlan0 has been configured with new IP=169.254.81.107
Jun 9 20:50:50 graton dhcpcd[4478]: wlan0: adding IP address 169.254.81.107/16
Jun 9 20:50:50 graton dhcpcd.sh: interface wlan0 has been configured with old IP=169.254.81.107
Jun 9 20:51:21 graton dhcpcd[4478]: wlan0: adding IP address 169.254.81.107/16
Jun 9 20:51:21 graton dhcpcd.sh: interface wlan0 has been configured with old IP=169.254.81.107
Jun 9 20:51:27 graton dhcpcd[5042]: wlan0: sending signal 1 to pid 4478
Jun 9 20:51:27 graton dhcpcd[4478]: wlan0: received SIGHUP, releasing lease
Jun 9 20:51:27 graton dhcpcd[4478]: wlan0: removing IP address 169.254.81.107/16
Jun 9 20:51:27 graton dhcpcd[5042]: wlan0: exiting
Jun 9 20:51:27 graton dhcpcd[4478]: wlan0: exiting
Jun 9 20:51:34 graton dhcpcd[5108]: wlan0: dhcpcd 3.2.3 starting
Jun 9 20:51:34 graton dhcpcd[5108]: wlan0: hardware address = 00:22:fb:45:30:46
Jun 9 20:51:34 graton dhcpcd[5108]: wlan0: DUID = 00:01:00:01:11:c1:6f:1c:00:22:fb:45:30:46
Jun 9 20:51:34 graton dhcpcd[5108]: wlan0: broadcasting for a lease
Jun 9 20:51:54 graton dhcpcd[5108]: wlan0: trying to use old lease in `/var/lib/dhcpcd/dhcpcd-wlan0.info'
Jun 9 20:51:54 graton dhcpcd[5108]: wlan0: probing for an IPV4LL address
Jun 9 20:51:55 graton dhcpcd[5108]: wlan0: using IPV4LL address 169.254.2.10
Jun 9 20:51:55 graton dhcpcd[5108]: wlan0: adding IP address 169.254.2.10/16
Jun 9 20:51:55 graton dhcpcd[5108]: wlan0: exiting
Jun 9 20:51:55 graton dhcpcd.sh: interface wlan0 has been configured with new IP=169.254.2.10
Jun 9 20:52:00 graton dhcpcd[5313]: wlan0: sending signal 1 to pid 5269
Jun 9 20:52:00 graton dhcpcd[5313]: wlan0: exiting
Jun 9 20:52:00 graton dhcpcd[5269]: wlan0: received SIGHUP, releasing lease
Jun 9 20:52:00 graton dhcpcd[5269]: wlan0: removing IP address 169.254.2.10/16
Jun 9 20:52:00 graton dhcpcd.sh: interface wlan0 has been brought down
Jun 9 20:52:00 graton dhcpcd[5269]: wlan0: exiting

[n4rky]

Apparently this is a known bug: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...ux/+bug/305338

Fixed with kernel version 2.6.30 (not available from Debian.

I'm marking this as solved for now, though I still don't know why wpa_supplicant isn't trying to run dhcpcd (or dhclient), because I won't be able to make further progress until I get a 2.6.30 kernel under Debian.

[n4rky]

So I managed to cobble together a Debian kernel package for 2.6.30-rc8. Not only did it NOT solve the iwlagn-dhclient issue, but it hung my machine shortly after boot. I've blown it away. I guess I'll be running Windows XP in wireless-only environments for a while.

[waterhead]

Did you try the fix that was reported to work, mentioned in the bug report that you linked to.

However, I've found a workaround for the problem by disabling support for 11N networks, ie by:

sudo modprobe -r iwlagn && sudo modprobe iwlagn 11n_disable=1

or by adding 'options iwlagn 11n_disable=1' to /etc/modprobe.d/options to make it permanent.

Yes, this disables n support. That appears to be where the problem lies.

Also, have you tried the latest wireless drivers? Instead of compiling a complete kernel, just try the latest drivers.

Download - Linux Wireless

[n4rky]

It looks like the workaround to disable 802.11n is ineffective in my case. And I haven't succeeded yet in building a version of the new drivers. Yesterday, I got a message saying "unknown target" (a make error) and today there didn't seem to be a daily snapshot.

My script for doing this is:

if [[ ! -f compat-wireless-${d}.tar.bz2 ]]
then
wget http://wireless.kernel.org/download/compat-wireless-2.6/compat-wireless-${d}.tar.bz2

if [[ -f compat-wireless-${d}.tar.bz2 ]]
then
tar jxvf compat-wireless-${d}.tar.bz2
cd compat-wireless-${d}
make
if [[ ${?} -eq 0 ]]
then
sudo make install
if [[ ${?} -eq 0 ]]
then
sudo make unload
if [[ ${?} -eq 0 ]]
then
sudo modprobe iwlagn
fi
fi
fi
fi
fi