Re: Network setup by installer
On Fri 19 Jan 2018 at 22:10:39 (+0900), Mark Fletcher wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 19, 2018 at 06:43:10AM +0100, john doe wrote:
> > On 1/19/2018 12:45 AM, Mark Fletcher wrote:
> > > Hello the list
> > >
> > > Can anyone point me at documentation of how the installer sets up
> > > network interfaces, out of the several ways there are to do it?
> > >
> > > I've done a couple of installs of Stretch, one when it was still testing
> > > and one recently, on different hardware that both had both wired and
> > > wireless network interfaces. In both cases I chose to install using the
> > > wired interface even though for normal usage the computer will use the
> > > wireless interface. The result in both cases was a machine that had its
> > > wired interface configured but not its wireless one.
Yes, AIUI it doesn't try to read our minds but assumes the
installation methid is what will be used. And with a wired
interface configured, if you reboot with a wire connected,
the system will bring it up.
With wireless, there's no real equivalent to the wire
being connected. Even when installed and configured with
wireless, rebooting doesn't automatically bring up a
network; you need to type ifup.
> > > In both cases I can configure the wireless LAN using the desktop gui
> > > widget (KDE in one case, MATE in the other) but then the wireless LAN
> > > does not become available until someone logs in.
Not being a DE user, I can only guess that that's how they're
designed. Until a user logs in, the system doesn't know who
it's going to be and which WAP they will choose.
> > > I'd like to be able to log in remotely before anyone logs in locally, so
> > > need the wireless network interface up before login.
Then I think you might need to configure the wireless connection
outside the DE, perhaps by logging in to a VC, or perhaps as root.
Being a wicd user, the wicd-daemon runs at boot time. The wicd
client has options to connect automatically to any number of
networks, and to recognise them by essid rather than their
individual MAC addresses. So typically my laptop will connect
to almost any WAP it's seen before (home, university, pub, airport,
one or two friends) before I've even got logged in.
> > It is unclear to me why you can't configure the wireless interface using ssh
> > through the wired interface?
That makes it sound as if they know a way, through the DE, of
making the wireless come up automatically at boot time but
can't be bothered to explain how.
> Thanks for replying. I am not sure what problem you are trying to solve,
> but I am not sure how your suggestion relates to the problem I laid out
> in my original post. Apologies if I am misunderstanding you. I'm not
> trying to work around the fact that the wireless connection doesn't come
> up until login, but to fix it so that it does.
>
> I want to set up my wireless via the same mechanism that the installer
> set up my wired ethernet so that wireless comes up automatically at
> boot.
>
> So, I return to the essential question, which I led with in my original
> post, which is which method does the installer use to set up networking,
> and where can I find documentation on that so I can replicate it for my
> wireless connection?
Docs:
man interfaces if you want to use ifup/ifdown
man wicd for an overview of wicd
others might chime in with network manager advice.
Cheers,
David.
Reply to: