Order of 'wpa_supplicant' and 'network' boot-up scripts

[David G. Miller]

"Ernst Beiglboeck " <ernst.beiglboeck at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi,
> I want to configure wireless lan WITHOUT network-manager (it's a
> machine that's always in the same network and I want networking to be
> enabled at boot-time, not just only after log-in).
> I use Fedora 7 test.
> I've configured /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf to reflect my
> SSID, passphrase etc and enabled the 'wpa_supplicant'-service in
> system-config-services.
> But when I monitor the boot-process, I see networking being started
> before wpa_supplicant. It tries to get an IP-address and fails. About
> ten scripts later wpa_supplicant is started.
> After booting, no network is available. I have to manually commit a
> '/sbin/service network restart', then it works.
> Wouldn't it be necessary to start wpa_supplicant BEFORE networking?
> How can I change the order of boot-up scripts? (If some developer
> reads this, shouldn't you change the default behaviour?)
> Kind regards,
> Ernst from Austria
You have two choices as to how to fix this problem:

1) The order of execution of startup scripts is determined by the script 
name.  Look in /etc/rc3.d.  The start script for network is S10network.  
The start script for wpa_supplicant is something like S88wpa_supplicant 
(my laptop is off at the moment so I don't have the exact filename 
handy).  You can try changing the name of the wpa_supplicant script to 
something like S09wpa_supplicant which will cause it to execute before 
the network startup script.  Also check in /etc/rc5.d if you boot to 
graphical.

2) Probably easiest is change the settings for your wireless card to not 
start on boot.  This will allow the system to start the loopback network 
interface but not attempt to start your wireless.  Edit the file 
/etc/rc.local and add "ifup eth0" (or wlan0 or whatever your wireless 
interface is).  rc.local is executed after all other initialization so 
wpa_supplicant should be running.

Option #1 may not work.  It wouldn't surprise me if the wpa_supplicant 
startup script checks to see if networking has been started and only 
starts if networking is running.

Cheers,
Dave

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