# Baselayout upgrade has borked my wireless! [SOLVED]

## househead

Hey all,

I recently upgraded to baselayout-1.12.0_pre3-r2, and now I am unable to use my Atheros wireless. I have a wired network on 192.168.0.255 and wireless on 192.168.1.255. I also use a VPN, and another wireless (prism54) sometimes, but that's out of the scope of my problem as I can't even get the atheros to associate with my AP. I am using softlevels and therefore have the following in my grub.conf (NOTE, kernel boot options ARE on one line)

```

# For booting Gentoo

title  Gentoo 2005.0 HOME

root (hd0,1)

kernel /vmlinuz ro root=/dev/hda3 video=vesafb:ywrap,pmipal,1280x1024-64@85 splash=silent,fadein,theme:livecd-2005.1 quiet CONSOLE=/dev/tty1 softlevel=home
```

Then I have the following in my /etc/conf.d/net.home (atheros = ath0, wired = eth0, ethernet-over-firewire = eth1, Netgear_WG511_prism54 = eth2)

```

config_eth0=( "192.168.0.60 broadcast 192.168.0.255 netmask 255.255.255.0" )

routes_eth0=( "default via 192.168.0.1" )

config_ath0=( "192.168.1.3 broadcast 192.168.1.255 netmask 255.255.255.0" )

routes_ath0=( "default via 192.168.1.1" )

essid_ath0="MY_AP_ESSID"

mode_ath0="Managed"

channel_ath0="MY_CHANNEL"

key_MY_AP_ESSID="MY_AP_KEY enc open"

dns_servers_MY_AP_ESSID=( "10.4.0.1" ) # This is for my OpenVPN

dns_domain_MY_AP_ESSID="MY.DOMAIN"
```

The modules are loaded correctly...

```

...

ath_pci                64544  0 

ath_rate_onoe          10120  1 ath_pci

wlan                  122716  3 ath_pci,ath_rate_onoe

ath_hal               149840  2 ath_pci

...
```

and iwconfig shows the interface as detected with wireless extensions

```

lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

ath0      IEEE 802.11  ESSID:""  

          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.447 GHz  Access Point: FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF   

          Bit Rate:1 Mb/s   Tx-Power:50 dBm   Sensitivity=0/3  

          Retry:off   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off

          Encryption key:off

          Power Management:off

          Link Quality=0/94  Signal level=-95 dBm  Noise level=-95 dBm

          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0

          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

eth1      no wireless extensions.

eth2      IEEE 802.11b/g  Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.452 GHz  

          Access Point: 00:00:00:00:00:00   Bit Rate:0 kb/s   Tx-Power=31 dBm   

          Sensitivity=20/200  

          Retry min limit:8   RTS thr:2347 B   Fragment thr:2346 B   

          Encryption key:off

          Link Quality:0  Signal level:0  Noise level:0

          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0

          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

```

but when i run /etc/init.d/net.ath0 start... 

```

linvaio mark # /etc/init.d/net.ath0 start

 * Starting ath0

 *   Bringing up ath0

 *     192.168.1.3                                                                                                             [ ok ]

 *   Adding routes

 *     default via 192.168.1.1 ...                                                                                             [ ok ]
```

it allocates and ip and sets routes etc, but does not show the familiar "Configuring Wireless Network for ath0", and an iwconfig shows it is not connected to the AP and the network is unavailable

```
lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

ath0      IEEE 802.11  ESSID:""  

          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.437 GHz  Access Point: FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF   

          Bit Rate:1 Mb/s   Tx-Power:50 dBm   Sensitivity=0/3  

          Retry:off   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off

          Encryption key:off

          Power Management:off

          Link Quality=0/94  Signal level=-95 dBm  Noise level=-95 dBm

          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0

          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

eth1      no wireless extensions.

eth2      IEEE 802.11b/g  Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.452 GHz  

          Access Point: 00:00:00:00:00:00   Bit Rate:0 kb/s   Tx-Power=31 dBm   

          Sensitivity=20/200  

          Retry min limit:8   RTS thr:2347 B   Fragment thr:2346 B   

          Encryption key:off

          Link Quality:0  Signal level:0  Noise level:0

          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0

          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

```

My wired interface is fine, as is the other wirleless card I use from time-to-time (Netgear WG511, prism54), which also doesn't show the "Configuring Wireless Network for..." on bootup, but DOES associate with an AP (the exact same settings were used for ath0 / eth2 in this statement)

----------

## UberLord

Ensure that iwconfig is in /sbin and not /usr/sbin

If it's in /usr/sbin, then you need to emerge a more recent version.

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## househead

 *UberLord wrote:*   

> Ensure that iwconfig is in /sbin and not /usr/sbin
> 
> If it's in /usr/sbin, then you need to emerge a more recent version.

 

That works, thanks! Quick reply too.

If the above is the case, shouldn't emerging the new baselayout also emerge the newest / relevant wireless-tools? I imagine this will probably bork a number of peoples configs.

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## UberLord

 *househead wrote:*   

> If the above is the case, shouldn't emerging the new baselayout also emerge the newest / relevant wireless-tools? I imagine this will probably bork a number of peoples configs.

 

Sadly no.

Portage currently provides DEPEND (build time depencies) and RDEPEND (run time dependencies).

The problem is the wireless-tools (along with wpa_supplicant, dhcpcd, pump, dhclient, ifconfig, etc etc) is a weak dependency and thusly cannot be included in DEPEND or RDEPEND.

Someone did file a bug about this

https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=100763

I'm suprised that so many people got this as we made the changes to stable and ~ARCH versions at the same time!

Maybe we can resolve this in future portage versions.

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## househead

A wifi USE flag would not be a bad idea IMO if (quite rightly) baselayout cannot depend on wireless tools. In reference to the bug quoted, how about a "wireless-tools" flag?

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## UberLord

 *househead wrote:*   

> In reference to the bug quoted, how about a "wireless-tools" flag?

 

That would require a USE flag for every weak dependency. That's a lot of USE flags just for a short term fix.

We (the baselayout devs) would prefer a portage solution, rather than a plethora of USE flags.

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## cgmd

moved...

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## rasmus

 *UberLord wrote:*   

> 
> 
> I'm suprised that so many people got this as we made the changes to stable and ~ARCH versions at the same time!
> 
> Maybe we can resolve this in future portage versions.

 

Not so surprising, IMHO. I did an "emerge uDv system", which upgraded baselayout but not wireless-tools.  :Sad: 

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## househead

 *rasmus wrote:*   

>  *UberLord wrote:*   
> 
> I'm suprised that so many people got this as we made the changes to stable and ~ARCH versions at the same time!
> 
> Maybe we can resolve this in future portage versions. 
> ...

 

Shouldn't that command upgrade ALL packages on the system which have an unmasked upgrade available? Did you emerge sync first? In my case, I simple upgraded baselayout specifically.

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## rasmus

 *househead wrote:*   

>  *rasmus wrote:*   
> 
> Not so surprising, IMHO. I did an "emerge uDv system", which upgraded baselayout but not wireless-tools.  
> 
> Shouldn't that command upgrade ALL packages on the system which have an unmasked upgrade available? Did you emerge sync first? In my case, I simple upgraded baselayout specifically.

 

No, it shouldn't, according to docs. "Emerge uD world" should. "system" is just the core stuff that's essential for getting the system running, not every installed package.

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## Massimo B.

Same problem for me: There is an update for iwconfig[ebuild     U ] net-wireless/wireless-tools-27-r1 [27],  but emerge -au world didn't say something about. Now I also have iwconfig in /sbin.

By the way: /sbin/functions.sh should be changed from DEFAULTLEVEL to mylevel:

```
add_suffix() {

        if [ "${RC_USE_CONFIG_PROFILE}" = "yes" -a -e "$1.${mylevel}" ]

        then

                echo "$1.${mylevel}"
```

..so that I can use net.[runlevel]

----------

