On 1/29/08, John W. Linville <linville@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On Tue, Jan 29, 2008 at 09:53:27AM -0200, Martin Marques wrote: > > Manish Kathuria escribió: > > >I am using Fedora 8 x86_64 (kernel 2.6.23.14-107) on my Dell Vostro > > >laptop which has a Broadcom Corporation BCM94311MCG wireless mini PCI > > >lan device which has been automatically detected and uses the b43 > > >wireless driver. > > > > > >I have configured the wireless device wlan0 using a static IP address > > >and have provided the ESSID, CHANNEL, MODE, RATE settings. The > > >wireless device comes up and gets associated with the Access Point / > > >Wireless Router when the system is started. However if the wireless > > >router is restarted the wireless device on the laptop fails to > > >associate with it again and I have to restart the network service in > > >order to connect to it. If I remember correctly, the Intel Centrino > > >ipw2200 device on my older laptop never had this problem and nor does > > >a PCI wireless card (Realtek 8180) which I have configured using > > >ndiswrapper. What could be the reason for this problem ? Any tips or > > >suggestions ? > > > > Use NetworkManager. I tried to run it but it could not connect to the wireless network. Then I updated it to the latest version available (NetworkManager-0.7.0-0.6.7.svn3204.fc8.x86_64) but it dies immediately as soon as I start the service and gives the message NetworkManager dead but pid file exists though the NetworkManagerDispatcher keeps on running. Anyhow, this is a secondary problem and I will try to fix it. > Good advice. Alternatively you could use wpa_supplicant (whether or > not you are using WPA encryption), or you could simply do "iwconfig > wlan0 essid $ESSID" whenever you detect that your AP has been reset. > I have been restarting the network service or running the Wireless Assistant to reconnect to the wireless network. > If you want a technical explanation...the hardware in question is > "soft MAC" device which uses the mac80211 infrastructure in the > kernel. The mac80211 component has a limited MLME implemenation > which relies on userland intervention at a number of points. One of > those points is for triggering associations. When you reset your AP, > your association is lost. So, you must trigger a new association. > wpa_supplicant (which is also used by NetworkManager) is smart enough > to trigger the association for you. > > As for why it works for the other devices cited, the ipw2200 has a > robust MLME implemented in firmware. It does not require userland > intervention. The rtl8180 actually is a "soft MAC" device, but since > you are using ndiswrapper (which should not be needed in F8 BTW) > the Windows driver must contain it's own MLME implementation. Excellent explanation. I think I need to work on the NetworkManager to fix this issue. The RTL 8180L card is on a multi boot system with Fedora 7 and CentOS 5 so I am still using ndiswrapper. > > Hth! > > John > -- > John W. Linville > linville@xxxxxxxxxx Thanks a lot. -- Manish Kathuria
