From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Jul 14 18:21:38 2005 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6291916A41C for ; Thu, 14 Jul 2005 18:21:38 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from oberman@es.net) Received: from postal1.es.net (postal1.es.net [198.128.3.205]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5A76743D4C for ; Thu, 14 Jul 2005 18:21:37 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from oberman@es.net) Received: from ptavv.es.net ([198.128.4.29]) by postal1.es.net (Postal Node 1) with ESMTP (SSL) id IBA74465 for ; Thu, 14 Jul 2005 11:21:35 -0700 Received: from ptavv (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by ptavv.es.net (Tachyon Server) with ESMTP id 071B35D07 for ; Thu, 14 Jul 2005 11:21:36 -0700 (PDT) To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2005 11:21:36 -0700 From: "Kevin Oberman" Message-Id: <20050714182136.071B35D07@ptavv.es.net> Subject: Problems with OpenBSD dhclient X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2005 18:21:38 -0000 Since switching from the ISC DHCP client to OpenBSD on my laptop, I've been having some issues with managing my network connection. I'm running 7.0-current built yesterday (kernel and world.) On a typical day I boot my system on wired connection with a static address and gateway. Everything works fine. DHCP is not playing, yet. When I go to a meeting, I want to switch to the wireless network. In the past I simply entered 'dhclient wi0' and I was up and running. The wireless uses DHCP, so dhclient would get the address and gateway along with DNS servers and instantiate these and I would be connected. The default route that had been in use previously was replaced with the DHCP supplied gateway. Switching back was a simple matter of '/etc/rc.d/netif start fxp0'. While on the wireless network, I could roam with only brief loss of connectivity when I moved from one AP to another, but the wireless system soon "finds" me and I continue on-line with the same address and gateway. Even my ssh sessions are maintained. Now life is not so nice with the OpenBSD dhclient. When I switch to wireless, dhclient no longer replaces the default route. I need to take down my wired connection and flush routes before starting dhclient. Not a big deal, but an annoyance. More serious is that I can't roam. When I move between APs, dhclient exits and I need to manually re-start it. I lose my SSH sessions. Ugh! Worse, I occasionally see my association drop momentarily when I am simply sitting and typing. Once again, dhclient dies and I must manually restart it and then re-establish my SSH and recover anything broken when the connection dropped. This is fairly serious! I don't understand what causes this, but it is infrequent which makes it hard to catch. It looks like killing dhclient when the interface drops is not a good idea. At very least, it needs to give a little time for re-association before dropping the DHCP client. -- R. Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer Energy Sciences Network (ESnet) Ernest O. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) E-mail: oberman@es.net Phone: +1 510 486-8634