No Name Resolution

[BeagleDog]

New 18.3 install.
WiFi is connected, but Net names are not resolved to IP addresses! (e.g, Firefox, lynx, ping).
Nameserver shown is 127.0.0.1, just like the 17.3 I am posting this from. I don't have a clue how to solve this problem.

BTW, why the "odd" interface names? What happened to good old wlan0?

[Spearmint2]

127.0.0.1 is "local host". Wifi will connect to the router, but it won't allow access until you've entered it, the SSID, the encryption method used (WEP, WPA, WPA2....), and the passphrase or hex.

what does this report?

Code: Select all

iwconfig

[BeagleDog]

Ooops! Two errors in my first post. It's Mint 18.2 (Sonya), not 18.3. Worse, the nameserver should have said '127.0.1.1', not '127.0.0.1'. Sorry for those time-wasting typos.
Both ifconfig and iwconfig show that WiFi is up and running normally.

[greerd]

Hi BeagleDog,

As far as the 'odd' interface names goes, welcome to systemd and PredictableNetworkIntefaceNames

To your DNS problem, you probably had dnsmasq as a local forwarding nameserver in 17.3, see here for an explanation and fix.

Cheers

[BeagleDog]

That was a very interesting and (I hope) useful reply. I'm going to try it when I boot into 18.2 again.

The problem seems to involve a WiFi connection that is 'up', yet which does not appear to be capable of sending/receiving date at all! Eventually the WiFi link goes down. The problem appears at an unpredictable time after boot, and can be fixed only by rebooting. Thus, during the problem, here's what ifconfig and wconfig shows:

wlp4s0 IEEE 802.11 ESSID:"XXXX"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.437 GHz Access Point: XXXXX
Bit Rate=12 Mb/s Tx-Power=30 dBm
Retry short limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Power Management:on
Link Quality=60/70 Signal level=-50 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:1396 Invalid misc:168 Missed beacon:0

hlarons@hound:~$ ifconfig wlp4s0
wlp4s0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:08:a1:b4:f9:3b
inet addr:172.16.8.51 Bcast:172.16.15.255 Mask:255.255.240.0
inet6 addr: fe80::a988:4813:e53c:ad6a/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:1127345 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:530007 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:973092522 (973.0 MB) TX bytes:47144384 (47.1 MB)

After the WiFi interface goes down, it just won't reconnect.

I'm about to give up on 18.2, but I'll try your fix with a static nameserver.

Thanks for listening.

[Spearmint2]

Code: Select all

Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0

There's your problem, which I told you above. You need to enter your network settings and give your wifi access to the router using SSID, the encryption method used, and the password or hex set. Plug a LAN cord into your router, go into it's wireless area, write down what you need, and then configure your networking on the computer.

[JeremyB]

I worry about the wifi power management being on in LM18 as it causes numerous issues, the fix is

Code: Select all

sudo sed -i 's/wifi.powersave = 3/wifi.powersave = 2/' /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/default-wifi-powersave-on.conf
systemctl restart network-manager.service

Or just reboot

[BeagleDog]

Spearmint2: Unfortunately I don't have access to the router.

Jeremy8: I just found that file; looks promising indeed. However, why wifi.powersave = 2? Why not wifi.powersave = 0?

[JeremyB]

Because 2 is actually off, the source code shows

Code: Select all

typedef enum {
    NM_SETTING_WIRELESS_POWERSAVE_DEFAULT = 0,
    NM_SETTING_WIRELESS_POWERSAVE_IGNORE = 1,
    NM_SETTING_WIRELESS_POWERSAVE_DISABLE = 2,
    NM_SETTING_WIRELESS_POWERSAVE_ENABLE = 3,

[BeagleDog]

Wow! Imagine consulting the source code for the answer.

Clear and precise; I'm trying it now, so far so good.

Thanks for your insight.

[BeagleDog]

Looks like this was a power management problem after all. Here's what I did for a fix:

1. Stopped WiFi power management by changing "wifi.powersave = 3" to "wifi.powersave = 2" in /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/default-wifi-powersave-on.conf

2. Stopped dnsmasq by commenting out the line "dns = dnsmasq" in /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf

3. Added static DN Servers by adding the line "prepend domain-name-servers 8.8.8.8, 8.8.4.4;" to /etc/dhcp/dhclient.conf

Items 2 and 3 may not be necessary.

Thanks again to all who contributed ideas and suggestions.