Wireless does not start on boot - udev/early start of ifup problem

[Roman Yepishev]

Binary package hint: ifupdown

Hello,

Although the issue seems not to be related to udev (i.e. network manager/ndiswrapper/bcm43xx seem to be blamed for this). But actually this happens because of udev doing its work properly.

I am using wpa_supplicant to connect to my access point.
Here's the scenario of my boot sequence:

1. The kernel gets loaded, basic initialization is performed, udev starts
2. Additional device drivers gets loaded bringing up the PCMCIA bridge driver (yenta in my case) that in loads bcm43xx driver for my wireless.
3. Udev sees that the new device is going to be created and starts ifup --auto DEVICE...
4. The initialization hasn't yet started, wpa_supplicant is not yet ready to be used (for whatever reason), yet the interface gets marked as up by the ifupdown and dhclient3 is started (as a result of configuration) and tries to bring the IP for interface that has no connection.
5. /etc/init.d/networking script is started and ifup -a is fired. However, all the interfaces are "already up" so it does nothing.
6. Boot sequence finishes, i have my login prompt and loopback networking only.

NetworkManager is advertised as a remedy for this problem and it works, because it performs initialization after all modules are available (e.g. for encryption) and after the drivers are loaded.

If i comment out the "ACTION=="add"," rule in /etc/udev/rules.d/85-ifupdown.rules, then no early start of ifup happens and I get normal networking on boot.

I will be happy to provide any info that may help sorting this issue out.

[Eric Amundson (sewmyheadon)]

I've had the exact same problem and commenting out this line works for me too on my Dell Inspiron 9300. Would like to see this work automatically without the workaround.