What to do about wireless issues?

[Arthur Pemberton]

On Tue, Jul 22, 2008 at 10:30 AM, Chuck Anderson <cra at wpi.edu> wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 22, 2008 at 10:09:19AM -0500, Arthur Pemberton wrote:
>> What is the proper method for dealing with wireless issues? Wirless is
>> pretty popular now, and I find myself having issues with the wireless
>> stack even when I specifically choose the hardware to be compatible.
>> Due to the number of pieces in place, I can hardly file a proper bug
>> report due to my own ignorance on the matter. Is their a single medium
>> where users can reach people knowledgeable enough at least give me (or
>> other users) enough information to determine which component is
>> malfunctioning?
>>
>> For example, I have two examples currently with me where wifi worked
>> once, then never well again (so far) with no obvious logged errors.
>> (not giving details as I am not looking to use this list to
>> troubleshoot what is possible an end user problem)
>>
>> Or do I just keep thing to the general list and hope for a response?
>>
>> Arthur Pemberton
>
>
> In general, I would use these steps:
>
> Edit this file:
>
> /usr/share/dbus-1/system-services/fi.epitest.hostap.WPASupplicant.service
>
> by adding " -ddd" after /usr/sbin/wpa_supplicant so it looks something
> like this:
>
> Exec=/usr/sbin/wpa_supplicant -ddd -c /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf -u -f /var/log/wpa_supplicant.log
>
> Then reboot.  This will add lots of debugging information to the log
> file (which may grow fairly large).
>
> Then when you have a problem connecting to a wireless network, open a
> bug against NetworkManager and attach these files to the bug:
>
> /var/log/messages
> /var/log/wpa_supplicant.log
>
> NOTE: /var/log/wpa_supplicant.log might be zero bytes in length.  If
> that happens, find the latest logrotated copy of the file and attach
> that one instead:
>
> ls -ltr /var/log/wpa_supplicant*
>
> e.g. /var/log/wpa_supplicant.log-20080722
>
> Also, paste the output of these into the bug:
>
> nm-tool
>
> dmesg
>
> (the latter can be helpful to see kernel messages from your wireless
> driver)
>
> Also, note what you see in the nm-applet drop-down list, whether there
> is a security icon or a computer icon, etc.


Thank you, this is useful.


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