DHCP failing with WiFi after 6.0 upgrade

[Erik Nørgaard]

Jesse Sheidlower wrote:
> I recently took my IBM ThinkPad X23, which had been running 4.11, and
> did a fresh install (backup files, wipe disk, install from scratch)
> to 6.0. Most things have gone smoothly, though there are still a few
> things to iron out.
> 
> My biggest problem is that I can't seem to get DHCP to work with my
> wireless card. I have an Orinoco Gold 802.11b card that's always worked
> fine; I'm about to replace it with something else for 802.11g with a
> new WAP.
> 
> There seem to be minor differences in how the card goes in; under 4.11
> I would get various beeps when I plugged it in and after it associated,
> but now it's silent. And I had to remember to load WEP in my kernel.
> But I can seem to get things started by issuing the command
> 
>   ifconfig wi0 ssid jesterWAP wepmode on wepkey 0x[DELETED]
> 
> which does seem to successfully reach my WAP:
> 
>   # ifconfig wi0
>   wi0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
>         inet6 fe80::202:[DELETED] prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x3
>         ether 00:02:[DELETED]
>         media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet autoselect (DS/2Mbps)
>         status: associated
>         ssid jesterWAP channel 6 bssid 00:[DELETED]
>         stationname "FreeBSD WaveLAN/IEEE node"
>         authmode OPEN privacy MIXED deftxkey UNDEF wepkey 1:104-bit txpowmax 100 bintval 100
> 
> I can't seem to get a DHCP lease, however:
> 
>   # dhclient wi0
>   DHCPDISCOVER on wi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 5
>   DHCPDISCOVER on wi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 13
>   DHCPDISCOVER on wi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 7
>   DHCPDISCOVER on wi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 8
>   DHCPDISCOVER on wi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 13
>   DHCPDISCOVER on wi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 15
>   No DHCPOFFERS received.
>   No working leases in persistent database - sleeping.
> 
> (Under 4.11, I didn't get any verbose output from dhcpclient.)
> 
> I can get a DHCP lease with fxp0, my Ethernet card; also, some 
> Macs in the house have no problem getting leases through the
> WAP. (The DHCP server is in a separate router, not in the WAP.)
> 
> Is there something that's changed under 6.0, or is there just
> something I'm forgetting to do? I do plan to get a new card,
> but I want to get this working too.

Just about everything about dhclient has changed. The dhclient from ISC 
has been replaced by a complete new development from the OpenBSD team. 
Options that previously worked are nolonger recognized. Among these 
options are the options to configure what wireless network to associate 
with.

Also, added is wpa_supplicant which is used to choose the WLAN to 
connect to.

If there are other WLAN's in your neighbourhood and you have not 
configured wpa_supplicant, it is likely that you associate with the 
wrong network and that network doesn't offer a lease.

One thing to do, mostly for testing: Reset completely your card so it 
does not appear to be associated with any network. When you run dhclient 
and it fails, you should at least be able to see what network it is 
associated with if any.

So, read up on the man-pages, and start over.

Cheers, Erik

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