Armbian 5.59 and later WiFi issue

[Bahaa]

I have been using Armbian with orange pi for a while now, PC+, Zero+ 2 and other H3 models, recently with Armbian 5.59 (also tried 5.62) I have been encountering an issue where WiFi is not properly working, I add WiFi credentials to "/etc/network/interfaces", then reboot, the WiFi is up for a few seconds after booting and DHCP server assigns an IP to the board, then WiFi just goes down again, this is the log on serial interface:

 

Oct  4 18:09:44 localhost wpa_supplicant[1213]: Delete '/run/wpa_supplicant/wlan
0' manually if it is not used anymore
Oct  4 18:09:44 localhost wpa_supplicant[1213]: Failed to initialize control int
erface '/run/wpa_supplicant'.#012You may have another wpa_supplicant process alr
eady running or the file was#012left by an unclean termination of wpa_supplicant
 in which case you will need#012to manually remove this file before starting wpa
_supplicant again.
Oct  4 18:09:45 localhost wpa_supplicant[1213]: nl80211: deinit ifname=wlan0 dis
abled_11b_rates=0
Oct  4 18:09:45 localhost NetworkManager[762]: <error> [1538676585.1545] sup-ifa
ce[0x265a78,wlan0]: error adding interface: wpa_supplicant couldn't grab this in
terface.
Oct  4 18:09:45 localhost NetworkManager[762]: <info>  [1538676585.1548] device 
(wlan0): supplicant interface state: starting -> down
Oct  4 18:09:55 localhost NetworkManager[762]: <warn>  [1538676595.7644] device 
(wlan0): re-acquiring supplicant interface (#5).
Oct  4 18:09:55 localhost wpa_supplicant[1213]: nl80211: Could not re-add multic
ast membership for vendor events: -2 (No such file or directory)
Oct  4 18:09:55 localhost wpa_supplicant[1213]: ctrl_iface exists and seems to b
e in use - cannot override it

 

 

Edited October 5, 2018 by Bahaa

[chwe]

6 minutes ago, Bahaa said:

I add WiFi credentials to "/etc/network/interfaces", then reboot, the WiFi is up for a few seconds after booting and DHCP server assigns an IP to the board, then WiFi just goes down again,

http://docs.armbian.com/User-Guide_Getting-Started/#how-to-connect-to-wireless

per default, wifi is handled by NetworkManager. It may overwrite your credentials which then messes up.

[Bahaa]

48 minutes ago, chwe said:

http://docs.armbian.com/User-Guide_Getting-Started/#how-to-connect-to-wireless

per default, wifi is handled by NetworkManager. It may overwrite your credentials which then messes up.

Thanks a lot for your prompt response, I tried that and it worked for me, but I need an approach to add the WiFi SSID and password without having an interactive access, and without having to use serial interface or connecting to hdmi screen, that's why I edit "/etc/network/interfaces" file while having the microSD card mounted on my PC, then attach it to the board. That used to work with Armbian 5.37 before, but now when I try it with Armbian 5.59 and 5.62 it just doesn't work properly.

[chwe]

@botfap made an initial push to restructure network configuration prior to first boot. I didn't test it on my own yet but I assume the wifi part should work and perfectly fit for your needs.

https://github.com/botfap/armbian-image-config

quite sure he's happy to get some response from people actually used it.  You might give it a try? 

[Bahaa]

@chwe Sorry if this response is late, the official guide from Armbian based on "nmtui-connect" is robust and does the job for connecting but it needs user interaction, on the other hand, the tool from @botfap "https://github.com/botfap/armbian-image-config" is for pre-configuring an image, what I really need is a robust tool to configure WiFi non-interactively, after the images is burnt (to be used in a bash script for instance), since I don't know WiFi SSID/credentials in advance.  

[Bahaa]

I think the answer is just using "nmcli" ?

[Igor]

37 minutes ago, Bahaa said:

what I really need is a roust tool to configure WiFi non-interactively, after the images is burnt

https://github.com/armbian/build/blob/master/packages/bsp/common/usr/lib/armbian/armbian-firstrun-config