[SOLVED] Improve boot up time of wireless WPA protected network

Question

Hi guys
I just installed arch for the first time so i am really a newbie
I have recent hardware intel 2500k, crucial SSD and so on so i can boot up from grub to X using pekwm  as WM (no DM) in about  5 seconds. Very impressive.
I would like to keep my arch as minimal and tiny as possible.
My problem is on network boot up time.
I am using WPA personal wireless network and i have to wait further 10 seconds since the boot of X to have the network working properly. So i have to wait about 15 seconds to have a fully working PC
I tried wicd. I really don't need network scanning so i followed the the netcfg wiki
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Netcfg
and i am using net-profiles method
# /etc/rc.conf - Main Configuration for Arch Linux
# See 'man 5 rc.conf' for more details
# LOCALIZATION
HARDWARECLOCK="UTC"
TIMEZONE="Europe/Rome"
KEYMAP="it"
CONSOLEFONT=
CONSOLEMAP=
LOCALE=
DAEMON_LOCALE="yes"
USECOLOR="yes"
# HARDWARE
MODULES=()
USEDMRAID="no"
USEBTRFS="no"
USELVM="no"
# NETWORKING
HOSTNAME=knembo
interface=wlan0
address=
netmask=
broadcast=
gateway=
NETWORK_PERSIST="no"
# DAEMONS
DAEMONS=(dbus @net-profiles)
Please don't misunderstand me....wait 15 seconds is not really a problem but i would like to know your opinion in fastest  boot up network method to  improve my skill with arch
Bye
Last edited by knembo (2012-05-28 23:54:37)

Answer 1

Shouldn’t you also have a NETWORKS parameter in your /etc/rc.conf ? I’ve been using netcfg for a while now, sorry I cannot tell you if I must wait more-or-less-than 15 seconds for my network to initialize, but it seems pretty fast, almost instantaneous, using wpa2personnal with a static ip.
3 configuration files are involved in my setup, and for what it’s worth, here they are:
#1 /etc/rc.conf (only relevant sections shown)
# NETWORKING
HOSTNAME="myhost"
interface=
address=
netmask=
broadcast=
gateway=
NETWORK_PERSIST="no"
NETWORKS=(mywireless) # Requires netcfg
# + profile in /etc/nework.d/
# DAEMONS # + net-profiles daemon below
DAEMONS=(@mpd @net-profiles @dbus @alsa @sshd @syslog-ng @crond !gpm)
#2 /etc/network.d/mywireless (this file can be named whatever but must match the NETWORKS line in /etc/rc.conf)
CONNECTION='wireless'
INTERFACE='wlan0'
SECURITY='wpa-config'
WPA_CONF='/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf'
IP='static'
ADDR='192.168.1.234'
NETMASK='255.255.255.0'
GATEWAY='192.168.1.1'
#3 /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
ctrl_interface=/run/wpa_supplicant
ctrl_interface_group=wheel
network={
ssid="My_SSID"
key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
proto=RSN
group=CCMP
pairwise=CCMP
psk=64charactersalphanumericstringthatwasgeneratedusingwpapassphrase
*Edit* I realize I don’t _have_ to use three files, I know I can also achieve the same result using only two config files (I don’t remember the reason why I setup my connection this way but I like it !) ; anyway, the two last files can also be ‘combined’ like such, so that file #2 (/etc/network.d/mywireless) becomes this :
CONNECTION='wireless'
INTERFACE=wlan0
SECURITY='wpa-configsection'
IP='static'
ADDR='192.168.1.234'
NETMASK='255.255.255.0'
GATEWAY='192.168.2.1'
CONFIGSECTION='
ssid="My_SSID"
key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
proto=RSN
group=CCMP
pairwise=CCMP
psk=64charactersalphanumericstringthatwasgeneratedusingwpapassphrase
so this way there really is no need for file #3 (/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf) (but the NETWORKS line in /etc/rc.conf would still required with though)
Last edited by Montague (2012-05-16 18:57:17)