I am having an odd problem with wireless networking using ndiswrapper.

When I boot, the machine the machine hangs for a couple of minutes before starting X.

I think it is hanging while executing /etc/rc.d/rc.local at the line

/sbin/dhcpcd wlan0

After a couple of minutes X starts but there is no network connection.

If I then turn the machine off and boot it up again there is no hanging and the network works.

Not only that but the machine can be turned off for a few hours and it will boot ok with a working network. It seems that if the Pc is turned off for some days then the problem comes back. It is as if it takes time to wake up the network connection.

This is proving a difficult issue to test because it is not easy to reproduce.

Any ideas? It would help if I could run the statements in rc.local as a non-root user so that any user would be able to start the network if it doesn't work on booting.

Alan

Shouldn't inet1 be firing up your card as opposed to local? It's a more logical place for it anyway and inet.conf should be capable of handling wlan interfaces...

I use driverloader and am not fimilar with ndiswrapper but still... I would probably try listing ndiswrapper in rc.modules then let inet1 handle the connection like it's supposed to happen. Who knows, that may solve your quirkyness.

Your problem sounds like it is related to the lease time of your IP address. When you boot, the "dhcpcd" program tries to get a lease for an IP address with the local DHCP server (most probably your cable/dsl internet router). Once the computer has obtained an IP lease, that lease will remain valid for a specific amount of time, determined by the DHCP server. Within the first 50% of that lease time, your "dhcpcd" program will feel no need to query the DHCP server because it knows the IP address it has cached is still valid. Only after that 50% timeline has passed, will the dhcpcd program begin directing cautious queries toward the DHCP server, to verify the IP address is not about to be leased to some other PC.
Your PC's talks to the DHCP server seems to cause rather large delays. When the IP address lease has been obtained, subsequent (re)boots seem to go much quicker, up to the point where obviously the 50% timeline is passed, and the lengthy process of querying the DHCP server begins again.

Check the content of /etc/dhcpc/dhcpd-wlan0.info for the value of "RENEWALTIME" and divide that value by 8600 to get the number of days that the dhcp client may use the IP address before starting a new query.
Also, you might need to activate your wlan0 interface earlier in the boot process. The rc.local file is only executed after all the other programs have been started. If you run Slackware 10.2 (not earlier) you can add this to /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf for your wlan0 interface:

Then, the network interface configuration will happen much sooner in the boot process, and chances are you will have an IP address by the time X is starting.

Long story, but I guess you should check that DHCP server to see if it is being too busy.

Eric

Thanks.

I have uncommented some lines in inet1.conf as follows
IFNAME[4]="wlan0"
USE_DHCP[4]="yes"
WLAN_ESSID[4]=whatever
WLAN_MODE[4]=Managed
WLAN_KEY[4]="whatever"
WLAN_WPADRIVER[4]="ndiswrapper"

and commented out the stuff in rc.local
It is working but I do not know about whether it will work after the expiry. Do those changes look ok?

/etc/dhcpc/dhcpd-wlan0.info shows:

LEASETIME=3600
RENEWALTIME=1800
REBINDTIME=3150

Should I change the renewal time?

A LEASETIME of 3600 means one hour which is very short. You could easily make that 12 hours, and still start fresh every day.

I don't think you use WPA, so you might as well leave WLAN_WPADRIVER[4]="ndiswrapper" out.

Eric