automatically restarting the wifi

Hi,
I would like the LG to be cleaver enough to detect that the wifi router serving its defined wifi connection has been powered up and therefore the network connection can be activated. Or just a cron entry that every few minutes try to restart the network if it is not up (according to ifconfig).

Any hint as to how to proceed?

Best,

good idea,
yes, i have also noted the same.
when it lost the wifi connection, i normally shutdown and on again,
it is better a way of auto config,
i think crontab is a good idea, to check every 5 minutes or so the connection.

vic1972 escribió:good idea, yes, i have also noted the same. when it lost the wifi connection, i normally shutdown and on again,

You can also use the net config menú and the yellow button to "re-play" ("reproducir" -- I think they wanted to say "reiniciar" ;) the wifi. So this could be done through the command-sender hook, but I would like a solution which do not depend on DvdPlayer.

[...]i think crontab is a good idea, to check every 5 minutes or so the connection.

Well, this is easy. But what are the commands to actually restart the wifi? I see wpa_supplicant with the config data included in /tmp/net/wpa.conf is used (the config data is what I entered on the LG menu). The command is:

wpa_supplicant -P/var/lock/wpa_supplicant.pid -D wext \
-c /tmp/net/wpa.conf -i wlan0 -B

But I have tried and this is not enough. Something like ifup is missing...

Waiting for more help,

Best,

evr escribió:I would like the LG to be cleaver enough to detect that the wifi router serving its defined wifi connection has been powered up and therefore the network connection can be activated. Or just a cron entry that every few minutes try to restart the network [...]

I have solved this! No cron needed... It looks like DvdPlayer configures wpa_supplicant correctly so as to keep scanning in search for the target wifi router (Access Point -- AP -- manually configured in the LG), regardless it is ON or OFF. As soon as the AP gets ON, wpa_supplicant should automatically start to negotiate a connection... However, for some reason, if the AP is OFF when the LG is boot up, the network configuration made by DvdPlayer misses a crucial command:

Código:

ifconfig wlan0 192.168.1.32 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 192.168.1.255

So the solution is simple: just make this command be executed some 20-30 seconds after DvdPlayer starts (the delay is needed to allow DvdPlayer to complete its normal (attempt to) wifi start. I have included this in a pseudo-service, S30nettweaks (see below), launched along the other custom services at boot up.

I have been able to debug this issue by directly connecting the LG to the PC using a crossover connection. Since I've found this extreamly useful, I have also included the needed LG setup in the same S30nettweaks pseudo-service (see below).

This way, after the LG is powered ON it is permanently ready for both direct ethernet cable connection (at IP=192.168.2.3 in my setup) and wifi connection (at IP=192.168.1.32 in my setup). Then you can power your AP ON whenever you like. And, of course, you can power the AP OFF and ON as many times as you like and the LG will automatically connect with the AP when this becomes possible. I will write a wiki entry about these things as soon as I have some time...

Best,

Código:

#!/bin/sh
#
# Two useful networking tweeks:
# - Set up ethernet IP=192.168.2.3 for direct (crossover) connection
# - Set up wifi (fixed) IP=192.168.1.32 and gateway to allow the
#  wpa-supplicant scan function to successfully connect to the target
#  access point (or router, as set up in the LG), when the router
#  is powered up.
#
# Both IPs must be the same as manually configured in the LG MS450.
# Change the specific IP addressess according to your needs.
#
case "$1" in
        start)
                echo "starting eth0 with IP 192.168.2.3"
                ifconfig eth0 192.168.2.3 \
                        netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 192.168.2.255
                echo "allow wifi restart IP=192.168.1.32, after 30s delay"
                { sleep 30
                  ifconfig wlan0 192.168.1.32 \
                          netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 192.168.1.255
                  route add default gw 192.168.1.1 dev wlan0 ;} &
                ;;
        stop)
                echo "stopping eth0"
                ifconfig eth0 down
                ifconfig eth0 0.0.0.0
                ;;
        *)
                echo "Usage: $0 start/stop"
                exit 1
                ;;
esac

Great!!!!
So, if for instance i switch off the wifi AP for 5 minutes, and then turn it on,
it will connect automatically, in lets say a short amount of time ....?
thanks

vic1972 escribió:Great!!!!
So, if for instance i switch off the wifi AP for 5 minutes, and then turn it on,
it will connect automatically, in lets say a short amount of time ....?
thanks

It generally takes less than 1 minute; typically just a few seconds more than the time it takes if you do it manually, using the net config menu and the yellow button to "re-play" the wifi.

Best,

vic1972 escribió:So, if for instance i switch off the wifi AP for 5 minutes, and then turn it on,
it will connect automatically, in lets say a short amount of time ....?

evr escribió:It generally takes less than 1 minute[...]

In fact, in this case, you do not gain much, if any. It becomes useful mainly when you power the LG ON while the AP is OFF, because, in this case, without the proposed tweak, the only way to activate the wifi in the LG is manually...

Best,

Hello,
just today i have tried to reproduce the isse, but the lg finally connects well to wifi AP.

case 1: LG is connected to wifi AP , then ap is swithced off for a minute, and then it is swiched on,
LG finally keep connecting well to the AP.

case 2: both lg and ap are off. Now we switch on LG; and then in 5 minutes we switch AP. LG finally reconnect well to the AP.

I am ready for testing netweak, but first I tried to reproduce the issue, ....
The thing is that I remember to have this issue, I do not know what can be wrong (or fine)
or what i am doing different now.
thanks you all for reading me.

vic1972 escribió:just today i have tried to reproduce the isse, but the lg finally connects well to wifi AP.

case 1: LG is connected to wifi AP , then ap is swithced off for a minute, and then it is swiched on,
LG finally keep connecting well to the AP.

case 2: both lg and ap are off. Now we switch on LG; and then in 5 minutes we switch AP. LG finally reconnect well to the AP.

I am ready for testing netweak, but first I tried to reproduce the issue, ....The thing is that I remember to have this issue, I do not know what can be wrong (or fine) ;) or what i am doing different now.

I made my tests more than 6 months ago and the LG behaviour was not very consistent (sometimes it reconnected normally and many others it failed; if you have made just one test, maybe you have been lucky ;) But most of the time, your case 2 resulted in permanent failure of the LG to connect to the AP. Since this case was quite common to me, this is why I implemented the nettweaks pseudo-service.

Now I am not at home and can not do any test (until next week-end).

Best,

Hey, you are right
It happened to me today twice.

Question, i have tried this, and seem to work, but only first time, it does not keep running as a daemon,
probably i am doing something wrong,
can you have a look.
note that i am only waking up the wifi interface not eth.

Código:


#!/bin/sh
#
# Two useful networking tweeks:
# - Set up ethernet IP=192.168.2.3 for direct (crossover) connection
# - Set up wifi (fixed) IP=192.168.1.32 and gateway to allow the
#  wpa-supplicant scan function to successfully connect to the target
#  access point (or router, as set up in the LG), when the router
#  is powered up.
#
# Both IPs must be the same as manually configured in the LG MS450.
# Change the specific IP addressess according to your needs.
#
case "$1" in
        start)
            echo "starting eth0 with IP 192.168.2.146"
#            ifconfig eth0 192.168.2.146 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 192.168.2.255
            echo "allow wifi restart IP=192.168.2.119, after 30s delay"
            { sleep 30;
              ifconfig wlan0 192.168.2.119 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 192.168.2.255;
              route add default gw 192.168.2.1 dev wlan0 ;
              } &
            ;;
        stop)
          echo "stopping eth0"
          ifconfig eth0 down
          ifconfig eth0 0.0.0.0
            ;;
          *)
        echo "Usage: $0 start/stop"
        exit 1
    ;;
esac


no need to say that i am testing like this: ./netweak start

Thanks

vic1972 escribió:[...]Question, i have tried this, and seem to work, but only first time, it does not keep running as a daemon, probably i am doing something wrong, can you have a look. note that i am only waking up the wifi interface not eth. [...] no need to say that i am testing like this: ./netweak start

I think it is just this invocation is what is wrong. Nettweaks is not really a service (I call it a "pseudo-service"); that is, it can not really be started at will -- I included the stop code only to disable the eth0 (crossover cable) interface, mainly for testing purposes.

Nettweaks is intended to be started just at boot. To this end you need to make the symbolic link S30nettweaks -> nettweaks. The prefix "S30" ensures an adequate place for it in the order of boot tasks.

Hope this fixes the issue...
Best,

OK, thanks.
I have done the simbolic link, so it is like:

Código:


root@Venus:~/custom/etc/init.d# ls -l
total 13
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root    root            8 Nov 17 17:39 S01libcache -> libcache
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root    root            8 Nov 17 17:39 S15lighttpd -> lighttpd
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root    root            6 Nov 17 17:39 S20hdidle -> hdidle
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root    root            7 Nov 28 17:24 S30netweak -> netweak
-rwxr-xr-x    1 500      500            849 Feb 15  2011 dropbear
-rwxr-xr-x    1 500      500            765 Feb 10  2011 hdidle
-rwxr-xr-x    1 500      500            229 Aug 11  2010 libcache
-rwxr-xr-x    1 500      500          1636 Jan 14  2011 lighttpd
-rwxr-xr-x    1 500      500          1031 Jan 29  2011 minidlna
-rwxrwxrwx    1 root    root          1116 Nov 28 17:50 netweak
-rwxr-xr-x    1 500      500            264 Feb  6  2011 opendns
-rwxr-xr-x    1 500      500            587 Oct 25  2010 samba
-rwxr-xr-x    1 500      500          1380 Jan 14  2011 transmissiondaemon
root@Venus:~/custom/etc/init.d#


But I am not sure I am doing well, let me explain.
Now I reboot LG, but in the list of process (ps),
I cannot see the delay process anywhere.

And, more, if I now execute manually from the command line ./S30netweak
The direct output is:
root@Venus:~/custom/etc/init.d# ./S30netweak start
starting eth0 with IP 192.168.2.146
allow wifi restart IP=192.168.2.119, after 30s delay

and if I issue the ps command, I can see something like:
570 root 0:00 /bin/sh ./S30netweak start
571 root 0:00 sleep 30


So, as you can see manually I can see log and process; but not when executed as a service.
help please... thanks

vic1972 escribió:I have done the simbolic link, so it is like:
[...]
But I am not sure I am doing well, let me explain.
Now I reboot LG, but in the list of process (ps),
I cannot see the delay process anywhere.

And, more, if I now execute manually from the command line ./S30netweak
The direct output is:
root@Venus:~/custom/etc/init.d# ./S30netweak start
starting eth0 with IP 192.168.2.146
allow wifi restart IP=192.168.2.119, after 30s delay

and if I issue the ps command, I can see something like:
570 root 0:00 /bin/sh ./S30netweak start
571 root 0:00 sleep 30

So, as you can see manually I can see log and process; but not when executed as a service.

You're right, you should see the sleep process just after boot (unless you invoque ps more than 30 s. later....). Do you see the other services (samba, hdidle, etc.)?

I seem to remember that a hiden file called ".<service>" is additionally needed for services configurable through the web interface... I will check whether this is also needed for non-web-supported services such as nettweak and I will let you know.

Best,

evr escribió:
Do you see the other services (samba, hdidle, etc.)?

Hello, yes, the rest is working fine.

Código:


  584 root      0:00 /tmp/hdd/root/custom/sbin/lighttpd -f /tmp/hdd/root/custo
  585 root      0:00 /tmp/hdd/root/custom/bin/php-cgi
  594 root      0:00 /tmp/hdd/root/custom/bin/hd-idle -i 300
  598 root      0:00 /tmp/hdd/root/custom/bin/php-cgi


[quote="evr"]

vic1972 escribió:I seem to remember that a hiden file called ".<service>" is additionally needed for services configurable through the web interface... I will check whether this is also needed for non-web-supported services such as nettweak and I will let you know.

Each web-interface supported service needs a hiden file. For example, for the hd-idle service, the following files are needed under init.d/:

* hdidle
* S20hdidle -> hdidle
* .S20hdidle -> hdidle

But nettweaks (with its symlink S30nettweaks) works perfectly for me without .S30nettweaks, execpt it can not be enabled/disabled by means of the web interface (I guess for this to be possible we just need to add the hidden file .S30nettweaks).

In summary, if you realy have the S30nettweaks -> nettweaks symlink, I do not see why it is not executed at boot, just after S20hdidle.

Please let me know if you have some idea as to how it may fail...
Best,

Heyyyy you cracked it!!!
Working now.
In fact, just adding the .S30netweak and started to work fine.
These are my ps just after some time lg reboots.

Código:


  518 root      0:00 /tmp/hdd/root/custom/sbin/lighttpd -f /tmp/hdd/root/custom/etc/lighttpd.conf
  519 root      0:00 /tmp/hdd/root/custom/bin/php-cgi
  527 root      0:00 /tmp/hdd/root/custom/bin/hd-idle -i 300
  529 root      0:00 /bin/sh /tmp/hdd/root/custom/etc/init.d/S30netweak start
  530 root      0:00 sleep 30
  532 root      0:00 /tmp/hdd/root/custom/bin/php-cgi


It is courious because the name of the script Process name is the S30netweak instead of the .S30netweak.


BUT........... always there is a but,
After the first minute or so, the process netweak daemon seems to die,
because it dissapear from the ps list, see below

Código:


 298 root      0:00 DvdPlayer -s power
  302 root      0:00 DvdPlayer -s power
  325 root      0:00 [Ieee80211/0]
  326 root      0:00 [wlan0/0]
  436 root      0:00 /sbin/udhcpc -p /var/lock/udhcpc_wlan0.pid -t 15 -b -s /etc/udhcpc.script -i wlan0
  456 root      0:00 [kjournald]
  471 root      0:00 telnetd
  472 root      0:00 -sh
  518 root      0:00 /tmp/hdd/root/custom/sbin/lighttpd -f /tmp/hdd/root/custom/etc/lighttpd.conf
  519 root      0:00 /tmp/hdd/root/custom/bin/php-cgi
  527 root      0:00 /tmp/hdd/root/custom/bin/hd-idle -i 300
  532 root      0:00 /tmp/hdd/root/custom/bin/php-cgi


Would need the netweak script a kind of loop inside ... ?
Thanks mate
cheers

vic1972 escribió:[...]After the first minute or so, the process netweak daemon seems to die, because it dissapear from the ps list, [...] Would need the netweak script a kind of loop inside ... ?

Vic, I think you have not get the idea... nettweaks is NOT a service; it just sets up, once for all, a couple of details that seem to have been forgoten by DvdPlayer when configuring wpa_supplicant. DvdPlayer itself correctly keeps scanning forever in search for the target wifi Access Point (AP), but if the AP is down when the LG boots, then it fails to do the search properly. This can be fixed by executing **just once**:

Código:

ifconfig wlan0 <yourIP> netmask <yourMask> broadcast <yourBroadcast>
route add default gw <yourAP-IP> dev wlan0


The 30 seconds delay of nettweaks is needed to allow DvdPlayer to do its (incomplete) job before executing these commands. Then after 30 s, the commands are executed and of course the process is finished. No loop needed (DvdPlayer do it for us ;). This was better explained in this post (above in this thread).

Another thing: the hidden file .S30nettweaks is NOT needed at all for the "pseudo-service" to work properly (it would be needed only if we want to allow the web-interface to enable/disable it). So removing .S30nettweaks should have no effect at all.

Just a final point (just in case ;): I am calling this script nettweaks, but you call it netweak. Please make sure that the symblink (S30nettweaks or S30netweak) is correctly set!

Best,

Hello,
thanks for the message.

So, all this stuff is for configuring the wifi only one time at boot time ....?
I thought this was a kind of mechanism to have always the wifi connected well to the AP.
I do not think then this is necessary;
just making sure the AP is switched on (this is always in my case),
then we just turn on LG and it will connect automatically without the need of extra scripts.

Would be possible to modify the script to be a kind of daemon to check every certain of time if the
wifi is down, then try to reconnect .... ?

Thanks man!!!
Back from the trip already?

vic1972 escribió:So, all this stuff is for configuring the wifi only one time at boot time ....?

Well, "all this staff" is just a script with a couple of commands ;)

I thought this was a kind of mechanism to have always the wifi connected well to the AP.

As I've said several times, this mechanism is included into DvdPlayer; only, it fails if the AP is not active when the LG boots. The couple of commands, executed at the right time, fix the problem.

I do not think then this is necessary; just making sure the AP is switched on (this is always in my case), then we just turn on LG and it will connect automatically without the need of extra scripts.

When I wrote the fix, I had Movistar telephony and ADSL and the router was switched on only when some computer was awakened. So I needed the fix. Now I have Yacom ADSL and IP telephony, and the router must be always on (otherwise I can not receive or make telephon calls). But the YAcom router has a button to swithch the wifi off, which roughly halves the router power consumption. So now, when the LG is connected the wifi is typically off, and the LG wireless fix is still needed. I guess many others are in a similar situation... Morever, the fix is free: it is simple, it does not use CPU power, it does not harm otherwise; it just fixes a detail forgotten by DvdPlayer programmers!

Would be possible to modify the script to be a kind of daemon to check every certain of time if the wifi is down, then try to reconnect .... ?

As I said, DvdPlayer does it for you (but it can fail without the two-commands fix executed at boot time).

Back from the trip already?

Yes, at last at home! (for the moment ;)

Best,

I'm too lazy to read all the thread but what about
- as first step - activate something in LGMenu web which tells "Hey, I'm on wifi network, so I need to check this every... 5... 10... 30... 60... seconds and if fails, try to reconnect"
- and second step - make a service which is activated/deactivated by previous and which performs the check (primary try to ping router, which is very proof test... if you don't disable ICMP in your network) and if ping fails (for defined number of fails) try to reconnect

The only what I need to know - parameters of wifi network to be connected to to perform reconnect

Hi Keltek,

Keltek escribió:I'm too lazy to read all the thread ;) [...]

Mmmm, but as much as you're too lazy, I'm tooooo tiiireeed to reeepeeeaaat the veeery saaameee thiiing soooooo maaaaaany tiiiiimeeeeessss:

DvdPlayer itself correctly keeps scanning forever in search for the target wifi Access Point (AP), but if the AP is down when the LG boots, then it fails to do the search properly. This is fixed by executing **just once** the couple of commands I've posted so mmmaaannnyyy times in this thread.

I packed these cople of comands into the "pseudo-service" S30nettweaks, which also includes an additional ifconfig commands to allow directly connecting to the LG from the PC using a crossover connection. All the details are very clearly and concisely explained in THIS SHORT POST, above in this same thread.

***** AND THIS IS MY VERY LAST POST IN THIS THREAD *****

All the best,

Yes, I agree.