Networking a little stodgy?

[Luposian]

I notice that when I boot Haiku (I’m running R1/Beta 4 with all updates (Revision+93)), it either takes forever for Networking (connection to our router) to start or it never does and I have to manually go in and select our router’s name and THEN Networking starts working (configuring, etc.) about 10-15 seconds later. Any idea why?

I’ve already (previously) assigned Haiku to our Router, given it the passphrase, saved it to the keychain (to remember the passphrase) and authorized it to always use the keychain to access the router. But that’s not enough?

I was instructed to see what networking hardware I had. Here is the result (though I am using a NetGear USB WiFi dongle, which does not appear to be mentioned).

~> listdev | grep -Ei “Network|Wireless” -A2 device Network controller (Ethernet controller) [2|0|0] vendor 10ec: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. device 8168: RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller

[waddlesplash]

Manually having to select a network is a problem for a lot of people and there are other tickets about that. Taking 10-15 seconds is a bit more odd. Can you attach a syslog?

[Luposian]

Ok, the router login takes about 7-8 seconds, not 10+. I've attached the syslog (from prior to activating the router login). Took forever to get this syslog thing done, as networking is very slow (we're talking about MINUTES to upload the syslog and up to a minute+ to load a simple page here).

[waddlesplash]

Can you try a speedtest over LAN?

[Luposian]

Here are the two "Fast" Internet Speedtests on each platform (attachments). Nothing else I tried on WebPositive would work. So I made sure to make the test fair by using the same page.

[waddlesplash]

Depending on what methods they use, the differences could be due to Haiku's networking stack and the FreeBSD drivers, and there may not be much we can do about that...

[Luposian]

To me, the main issue is just knowing why you have to manually select the SSID, to get Networking rolling. Haiku has had pretty anemic networking speed for as long as it's had networking. Seems to be par for the course. Wish I didn't have to wait significantly longer for web pages to load, than with Windows 11/Firefox 120.0.1, but that's Haiku/WebPositive. It is what it is. Pointless to complain. So, any idea what is causing the lack of automatic SSID pickup, even though it's been assigned/authorized? Is it simply not remembering what the SSID, itself, is, even though it has (stored) the correct password for it?

[nephele]

So, any idea what is causing the lack of automatic SSID pickup, even though it's been assigned/authorized? Is it simply not remembering what the SSID, itself, is, even though it has (stored) the correct password for it?

This is a bug, on some laptops it works, others it doesn't. I don't think anyone has investigated the root cause.

[Luposian]

I suppose the fact I'm not running Haiku R1/B4 on a laptop, but rather a desktop, using a Netgear USB Wifi dongle, has any bearing on that. Any idea what setups (hardware) is picked up automatically? Has anyone tested/commented?

[nephele]

No, Haiku does not care if it is a laptop. This is the ticket: https://dev.haiku-os.org/ticket/10162

[Luposian]

Alighty, then! I just found my fix! Temporary or permanant, it works for me.

I added the following to my UserBootScript:

sleep 10; ifconfig /dev/net/realtekwifi/0 join [SSID name] [Passphrase] &

My Router Passphrase is several words, separated by spaces, but I had to remove all the spaces, to make it work in this situation. Does the router ignore any spaces you put in your passphrase? So, even though YOU put them in, IT doesn't count (consider) them?

Given this "fix" works in my situation, maybe it works for ALL Netgear (realtekwifi) USB dongles? If so, maybe Haiku needs to makes changes to how it functions, based on the hardware it sees. Maybe it's missing a sleep delay? Because, when I DON'T add the sleep delay, it doesn't work period. The best I can get (otherwise) is that login window, with the password filled in, but I'd still have to hit [Enter] or click on the [Ok] button. This way, it just function automatically like it's supposed to and configures the hardware and connects me. But I'm assuming it's supposed to do this automatically, without having to add this line to UserBootscript.

I'm going to tinker with it a bit more, to see exactly how little I need, to make it work right. Because, why have more "material" to a command, than what is actually needed? Gotta save those precious bytes, ya'know! :-D

[Luposian]

Ok, the Passphrase is not needed. So the command is:

sleep 2; ifconfig /dev/net/realtekwifi/0 join [SSID name] &

The sleep timer can be set as low as 2 (but it still takes about 10 seconds to start). Sleep 1 makes it act like no sleep command was added.