[CentOS] Wireless Interface Does Not Connect Automatically At StartUp

[Manish Kathuria]

On Mon, Jul 18, 2011 at 11:06 PM, Cody Jackson <supertanker13 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Manish;
>
> I've never tried NM during boot. (Personally, I dislike NM at all.)
> You might find a system similar to this to be more of your liking:
>
> http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/Laptops/WpaSupplicant
>
> I use this in place of my CentOS 6 backup server, which has an
> rt2500pci card in it--which, by the way, is a horrible shoddy card
> that I do not recommend. It doesn't play nice with Netgear APs. But I
> digress.
>
> CentOS 6 appears to have made some changes to the above document. What
> I've discovered is:
>
> 1. You don't need to edit ifup-wireless.
> 2. You don't need to edit ifconfig-* (although one should be
> created--I can post mine if it'll help you.)
> 3. All you need in /etc/rc.local is an 'ifup wlan0' line.
> 4. You DO need to edit /etc/sysconfig/wpa_supplicant and add the
> interface of your wireless card to the options there (example:
> -iwlan0).
> 5. wpa_supplicant should be ENABLED on boot.

> Cheers,
> Cody Jackson
>
>
> On 7/18/11, Manish Kathuria <mkathuria at tuxtechnologies.co.in> wrote:
>> I have recently installed CentOS 6 on a system with  a Realtek 8180L
>> wireless card. The wireless card is detected properly and uses the
>> rtl8180 driver. But it connects to our wireless network only after
>> logging to the Desktop Environment (GNOME) and using the Network
>> Manager Applet. In order to make the wireless card connect to the
>> network automatically at system start up, I edited the Connection
>> using the Network Manager Applet and checked "Connect Automatically"
>> and "Available to all users" options.  However, while booting the
>> system, the following error message is displayed when the wireless
>> network interface is brought up.
>>
>> Device does not seem to be present, delaying initialization
>>
>> But as soon as a user logs on to the Desktop, he can connect to the
>> network using the NM Applet.
>>
>> I have also toggled between using DHCP and Static IP Address for the
>> the wireless card but it makes no difference. The SSID is not being
>> broadcast and the Wireless Access Point / Router uses WPA-PSK.
>> --
>> Manish Kathuria

Thanks for the tip. While searching for a solution, I also read about
wicd (http://wicd.sourceforge.net/) which can help, but will try
wpa_supplicant first since its a part of the distro.