No wireless internet availability or bug with Broadcom or Ralink

[korolevskaya]

I have BCM43142 wireless NIC from Lenovo. It does not work (no "wl" module available and no interface wlanXXXX). I have tried installing packages "bcmwl-kernel-source", this package is not available in APT (why??), installing from Ubuntu trusty DEB-file, shows some errors but installs fine. Errors are due to "possibly missing module in /lib/firmare for i915" (whatever this means) and due to lack of "wl" module.

I've tried compiling driver myself but GCC version needs to be downgraded to 6.2.1 that is not something i was able to do, and also "linux-headers-generic" package missing, so i think it is fun and will not success to build driver in your OS.

I also have USB dongle DWA-110 ciphset named RT2571W (or RT72 i am not sure). It loads driver and interface wlxXXXXX and even scans networks. But it says "Wireless OFF" in top-right corner of gnome desktop and if i open "Connect to network" dialogue, it scans for networks, but still says "Wireless OFF. Enable?". Enabling does not work. Clicking scanned network does not work. I have hidden ESSID network, i have no clue how to connect to it even from terminal.

This is all ridiculous. These are one of most popular chips. Could someone, please, give a hint!?

I also noticed "Networking" in System Settings list only "Wired" and "Proxy" pages, no "Wireless". When plugging USB D-Link at boot time, where appears some dummy "Ethernet" page.

As a result, i cannot use computer, i need cable in other place.

[korolevskaya]

I also noticed i cannot run Root terminal in the same time running normal gnome-terminal. Is this really restriction or my installation is damaged?

[korolevskaya]

I also noticed Tor Browser installer does not work. It always saying "Signature Verification Failed". Taking HTTPS used in download into account, this might not be ISP interference, but a Subgraph bug or problem of Tor maintenances who did not update ASC file. However, error message of Tor Installer says it is a "Network error". This is not true description of problem.

[neuralpancake]

@korolevskaya: Subgraph is alpha. Very, very alpha. Exciting, isn't it? If that can't make a reasonable person start foaming at the mouth and growing extra hair and eyeballs I don't know what will.

Is this a fresh install, or have you updated/upgraded? Because of recent breakage in upstream Debian Stretch testing, wireless is reconfigured as ethernet after update/upgrade. See issue #209. (Update: Bug report for this filed w/ Debian by @dma )

Until this issue is resolved, I highly recommend running just a fresh install of subgraph-os-alpha_2016-12-30_1.iso and NOT updating/upgrading if you just want to play around.

If this is a fresh install, did you verify the download per the instructions on the download page?

Re: Torbrowser Signature Verification: See closed issue #205. There is a workaround, and it seems to work for most everyone.

Re: Root terminal vs gnome-terminal. Yeah that's interesting, isn't it? Same here. I haven't checked the issues/irc/code about this one yet as I've been focusing on grsec/paxrat/systemd/netmanager anomalies. Today we're really going to put our morals to the test as we look at how much wreckage will happen when we attempt to integrate Nix on top of a fresh install. Easy, incremental rollbacks would be a huge win for this project. (One of the biggest wins of Nixos.)

Overall, there are some excellent ideas here. There are also some design decisions that are curious and arguable, such as tying the distribution to Debian Stretch testing:

From https://www.debian.org/releases/stretch/:

Please note that security updates for testing distribution are not yet managed by the 
security team.  Hence, testing does not get security updates in a timely manner. You 
are encouraged to switch your sources.list entries from testing to jessie for the time 
being if you need security support. See also the entry in the Security Team's FAQ for 
the testing distribution.

I'm certain the developers have good reasons for tying to Stretch, but because of this and because it is so very, very Alpha, it should not in any way be considered, suggested or actively promoted for daily use. It's a research/development project with a great deal of promise, and there are speed bumps and occasionally outright roadblocks. Don't use it if you need security, anonymity or stability. Do chip in and start banging away if you like the ideas in the project.

[dma]

Yeah. Sorry. This issue is due to a (presumed) bug in Network Manager 1.6 which was just put into stretch before it freeze. It's from upstream, but Subgraph users are affected because we are a rolling release derived from stretch. I think this instability is related to the freeze, and it will get fixed.

As for the root terminal issue, I just use sudo -i. I never open "root terminals".

[conorsch]

Got bitten by this as well an a Lenovo X220, no more wifi drivers. Agreed it appears to be a stretch problem, will try again over ethernet and evaluate with the fix lands, but may need to wait a while given the freeze.

[neuralpancake]

@conorsch: I get joy over ethernet on all my target machines. Wi-Fi only is affected.

[neuralpancake]

@korolevskaya, @conorsch: @xSmurf tracked this down, see issue #209, there is now a workaround. @korolevskaya: If you're still subgraphing, let us know if this helped on your end.

[korolevskaya]

Thank you for your replies.. I am still subgraphing, of course:) If i wil not be able to set up wifi, i will have to try Qubes or something else then..

I've tried #209 workaround with apparamor_parser. It seems this fixes buggy UI behavior when i use USB dongle WiFi (ralink). It scans for network and lists "Wireless" in "Networking" dialog. However, i cannot connect to my hidden network. I have set up security settings including password but it connects infinitely with following messages in syslog:

Feb 10 10:07:28 subgraph NetworkManager[647]: <info>  [1486721248.7555] device (wlx00219151fa91): supplicant interface state: disconnected -> scanning
Feb 10 10:07:29 subgraph wpa_supplicant[769]: wlx00219151fa91: SME: Trying to authenticate with aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff (SSID='HOME_NET' freq=2447 MHz)
Feb 10 10:07:29 subgraph kernel: [  681.449919] wlx00219151fa91: authenticate with aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff
Feb 10 10:07:30 subgraph kernel: [  681.488968] wlx00219151fa91: send auth to aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff (try 1/3)
Feb 10 10:07:30 subgraph NetworkManager[647]: <info>  [1486721250.0033] device (wlx00219151fa91): supplicant interface state: scanning -> authenticating
Feb 10 10:07:30 subgraph kernel: [  681.491222] wlx00219151fa91: authenticated
Feb 10 10:07:35 subgraph kernel: [  686.493658] wlx00219151fa91: aborting authentication with aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff by local choice (Reason: 3=DEAUTH_LEAVING)
Feb 10 10:07:35 subgraph NetworkManager[647]: <info>  [1486721255.0347] device (wlx00219151fa91): supplicant interface state: authenticating -> disconnected
Feb 10 10:07:36 subgraph NetworkManager[647]: <info>  [1486721256.0388] device (wlx00219151fa91): supplicant interface state: disconnected -> scanning
Feb 10 10:07:37 subgraph wpa_supplicant[769]: wlx00219151fa91: SME: Trying to authenticate with aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff (SSID='HOME_NET' freq=2447 MHz)
Feb 10 10:07:37 subgraph kernel: [  688.733222] wlx00219151fa91: authenticate with aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff
Feb 10 10:07:37 subgraph NetworkManager[647]: <info>  [1486721257.2859] device (wlx00219151fa91): supplicant interface state: scanning -> authenticating
Feb 10 10:07:37 subgraph kernel: [  688.770969] wlx00219151fa91: send auth to aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff (try 1/3)
Feb 10 10:07:37 subgraph kernel: [  688.773454] wlx00219151fa91: authenticated
Feb 10 10:07:37 subgraph kernel: [  689.085619] grsec: denied resource overstep by requesting 2048 for RLIMIT_NOFILE against limit 1024 for /usr/lib/xorg/Xorg[Xorg:1143] uid/euid:1000/1000 gid/egid:1000/1000, parent /usr/lib/gdm3/gdm-x-session[gdm-x-session:1141] uid/euid:1000/1000 gid/egid:1000/1000
Feb 10 10:07:37 subgraph kernel: [  689.105084] grsec: denied resource overstep by requesting 2048 for RLIMIT_NOFILE against limit 1024 for /usr/lib/xorg/Xorg[Xorg:1143] uid/euid:1000/1000 gid/egid:1000/1000, parent /usr/lib/gdm3/gdm-x-session[gdm-x-session:1141] uid/euid:1000/1000 gid/egid:1000/1000
Feb 10 10:07:37 subgraph kernel: [  689.120500] grsec: denied resource overstep by requesting 2048 for RLIMIT_NOFILE against limit 1024 for /usr/lib/xorg/Xorg[Xorg:1143] uid/euid:1000/1000 gid/egid:1000/1000, parent /usr/lib/gdm3/gdm-x-session[gdm-x-session:1141] uid/euid:1000/1000 gid/egid:1000/1000
Feb 10 10:07:37 subgraph kernel: [  689.138670] grsec: denied resource overstep by requesting 2048 for RLIMIT_NOFILE against limit 1024 for /usr/lib/xorg/Xorg[Xorg:1143] uid/euid:1000/1000 gid/egid:1000/1000, parent /usr/lib/gdm3/gdm-x-session[gdm-x-session:1141] uid/euid:1000/1000 gid/egid:1000/1000
Feb 10 10:07:37 subgraph kernel: [  689.156326] grsec: denied resource overstep by requesting 2048 for RLIMIT_NOFILE against limit 1024 for /usr/lib/xorg/Xorg[Xorg:1143] uid/euid:1000/1000 gid/egid:1000/1000, parent /usr/lib/gdm3/gdm-x-session[gdm-x-session:1141] uid/euid:1000/1000 gid/egid:1000/1000
Feb 10 10:07:37 subgraph kernel: [  689.174910] grsec: denied resource overstep by requesting 2048 for RLIMIT_NOFILE against limit 1024 for /usr/lib/xorg/Xorg[Xorg:1143] uid/euid:1000/1000 gid/egid:1000/1000, parent /usr/lib/gdm3/gdm-x-session[gdm-x-session:1141] uid/euid:1000/1000 gid/egid:1000/1000
Feb 10 10:07:37 subgraph kernel: [  689.194312] grsec: denied resource overstep by requesting 2048 for RLIMIT_NOFILE against limit 1024 for /usr/lib/xorg/Xorg[Xorg:1143] uid/euid:1000/1000 gid/egid:1000/1000, parent /usr/lib/gdm3/gdm-x-session[gdm-x-session:1141] uid/euid:1000/1000 gid/egid:1000/1000
Feb 10 10:07:37 subgraph kernel: [  689.237501] grsec: more alerts, logging disabled for 10 seconds
Feb 10 10:07:40 subgraph NetworkManager[647]: <warn>  [1486721260.4530] device (wlx00219151fa91): Activation: (wifi) association took too long, failing activation
Feb 10 10:07:40 subgraph NetworkManager[647]: <info>  [1486721260.4531] device (wlx00219151fa91): state change: config -> failed (reason 'ssid-not-found') [50 120 53]
Feb 10 10:07:40 subgraph NetworkManager[647]: <info>  [1486721260.4533] manager: NetworkManager state is now DISCONNECTED
Feb 10 10:07:40 subgraph NetworkManager[647]: <warn>  [1486721260.4542] device (wlx00219151fa91): Activation: failed for connection 'HOME_NET'
Feb 10 10:07:40 subgraph kernel: [  691.938536] wlx00219151fa91: aborting authentication with aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff by local choice (Reason: 3=DEAUTH_LEAVING)
Feb 10 10:07:40 subgraph NetworkManager[647]: <info>  [1486721260.4549] device (wlx00219151fa91): state change: failed -> disconnected (reason 'none') [120 30 0]
Feb 10 10:07:40 subgraph wpa_supplicant[769]: wlx00219151fa91: CTRL-EVENT-DISCONNECTED bssid=aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff reason=3 locally_generated=1
Feb 10 10:07:40 subgraph NetworkManager[647]: <info>  [1486721260.5005] device (wlx00219151fa91): set-hw-addr: set MAC address to E6:EA:61:FA:E6:8D (scanning)
Feb 10 10:07:40 subgraph NetworkManager[647]: <warn>  [1486721260.5700] sup-iface[0x4d7bb47780,wlx00219151fa91]: connection disconnected (reason -3)
Feb 10 10:07:40 subgraph NetworkManager[647]: <info>  [1486721260.5701] device (wlx00219151fa91): supplicant interface state: authenticating -> disconnected

Maybe it is possible to workaround such problem?

205 workaround for Tor Browser installer worked just fine. I am sorry i didn't search before posting about this issue.

Native laptop wireless interface isn't working (Broadcom). However, i now remember that back in 2013 i also had problems with this laptop and Ubuntu. They were solved with compiling driver. Ill try that later

[dma]

@korolevskaya hmm, so prior to a recent update this worked? Do you have auditd installed? Could you check the audit logs for clues?

Thanks for reporting this.

[korolevskaya]

@dma I was reading this but don't know precisely which command's output or file you are interested in?

Yes, i did a clean reinstall from ISO and did not upgrade.

[conorsch]

Setting the AppArmor profile for NetworkManager to complain mode, as described in #209, worked for me—thanks for documenting that workaround. Haven't confirmed that a patch has landed to resolve the issue, so still running in complain mode for the nonce.

[dma]

Oh, we patched it a few days ago (maybe a week ago?). Go ahead and do an upgrade, you'll see the fix come through.

[conorsch]

Go ahead and do an upgrade, you'll see the fix come through.

Confirming that the issue (best described in #209) is soundly resolved for me. Not sure if @korolevskaya's problem is the same, so perhaps additional follow-up is warranted here, particularly some guidance about audit logs to provide.