[Solved] Problems with net-auto-wired, no interent after install

Question

*Background*
I am returning to Arch Linux after being away for about a year. I have finally had a chance to install Arch on my new laptop. Since I am new to systemd and the new installation process I followed the beginners guide very closely.
*Description of the Steps I followed and the Error I encountered*
When I came the the "Configure the Network" Portion of the Beginners' Guide, I chose to follow the net-auto-wired setup. This was partly because I found the warning to be confusing and could not understand why the Guide included a command that "won't work". Additionally I the "net-auto-wired" method seemed given the language of the Guide to be the superior alternative. So I followed the following steps:
# pacman -S ifplugd
# cd /etc/network.d
# ln -s examples/ethernet-dhcp .
# systemctl enable net-auto-wired.service
These commands returned no errors, nor did the net-auto-wired daemon fail to initialize on reboot. I simply did not have a connection with the internet, even after confirming that all the wires were securely plugged in.
*Question for the Forum*
I was able to establish a connection with via several means as well I will likely be installing dbus and wicd to manage my internet connections. So my question is less about how to get connected and more (a) how to trouble shoot net-auto-wired and (b) what language and procedures can we change to the Beginners' Guide so that this issue is not encountered by beginners in the future.
*Information I have Uncovered*
When the net-auto-wired daemon failed to establish a connection. I immediately tried running the following command:
# systemctl enable [email protected]
The output of this command (what is following) showed me what the warning was talking about, how it rename the symbolic link to eth0.service and not enp4s0f2.service as it should have.
ln -s '/usr/lib/systemd/system/[email protected]' '/etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/[email protected]'
I attempted to resolve this issue by creating the symbolic link with the following command
# ln -s /usr/lib/systemd/system/[email protected] /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/[email protected]
After reboot, the appropriately started the dhcpcd@ deamon and established an internet connection.
It also hit me that the netcfg profile "ethernet-dhcp" would be pointing to the wrong interface. I edited the profile to interface with the enp4s0f2 not eth0 and was able to establish a connection manually with the following command but net-auto-wired still failed to work.
# netcfg ethernet-dhcp
At this point I checked the status of the of the net-auto-wired daemon with the following command which uncovered what is most certainly the issue.
# systemctl status net-auto-wired
net-auto-wired.service - Provides automatic netcfg wired connection
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/net-auto-wired.service; disabled)
Active: active (running) since Thu 2013-01-24 14:47:12 EST; 36s ago
Main PID: 421 (ifplugd)
CGroup: name=systemd:/system/net-auto-wired.service
421 /usr/bin/ifpluged -i eth0 -r /etc/ifplugd/netcfg.action -fIns
Jan 24 14:47:12 ragnarok systemd[1]: Started Provides automatic netcfg wired connection.
Jan 24 14:47:12 ragnarok ifplugd[421]: ifplugd 0.28 initializing.
Jan 24 14:47:12 ragnarok ifplugd[421]: Using interface eth0
Jan 24 14:47:12 ragnarok ifplugd[421]: Initalization complete, link beat not detected.
Obviously the issues with this are it use of eth0 and not enp4s0f2.
I do not know where to go from here but I am curious if the issue of dhcpcd@ misnaming the symlink is some how related to this issue.
Thanks for all your insight and responses.
PS. This is the third time I have written this post. I finally typed it out in a separate text editor and then copied it in. Twice my login has timed out before I could submit and thus when I submitted I was logged out and my post lost. I do not post often with the forums but I was just frustrated to have lost so much effort. Has anyone else encountered this?
Last edited by jash (2013-01-25 17:29:49)

Answer 1

jash wrote:PS. This is the third time I have written this post. I finally typed it out in a separate text editor and then copied it in. Twice my login has timed out before I could submit and thus when I submitted I was logged out and my post lost. I do not post often with the forums but I was just frustrated to have lost so much effort. Has anyone else encountered this?
Yes, it seems that after a period of inactivity (5 minutes ?) the forum software automatically logs someone out.
After that happened to me for the zillionth time, i installed the firefox addon ReloadEvery .
Now i always open 2 tabs for arch forums : 1 that just shows the index, and has reloadevery enabled with a time of 1 minute.
The 2nd tab is for reading/answering etc.
Haven't been logged out automatically since.