[Rocky Linux 9] No Internet connection after install

Rocky Linux General
1

I’ve just made a baremetal installation with Rocky Linux 9 using the boot image.
Actually, the only way I have to connect to the Internet is through a WIFI connection. So, during the install, I’ve configured my wireless connection using my Intel Wireless Card (recognized as wlp4s0) and I’ve started the installation.

After the final reboot, no internet connection.
nmcli device status says my wlp4s0 is unmanaged and it writes (in red) “missing plugin”

Now I can’t download any other package because the connection is not working. So, what could I do?

Regards.

2

Hello @mjordan79

run this

nmcli device to get the device name

then run this nmcli device set <deviceName> managed yes replace the deviceName with your wifi device name that will make nmcli manage the device

if that work then to make the presist

go to /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/99-unmanaged-devices.conf and check if you have this in the file

[keyfile]
unmanaged-devices=interface-name:<deviceName>

if it there then remove it then reload the networkManager by

systemctl reload NetworkManager

here are the rhel9 doc for more info

hope that help and have a nice day :slight_smile:

3

I cover this in my https;//srobb.net/rhel9.html page. For whatever reason, if you do a minmal install, even if it successfully connects while doing the installation, you have to, on first reboot, connect via ethernet and do dnf -y install NetworkManager-wifi. It’s poor design in my rather arrogant opinion. Of the laptops I have, one has an ethernet port and I have a USB-to-ethernet dongle on the other. I keep meaning to see if I can just build the rpm and install it after installation, but I’ve been too lazy as the other method is so easy.
Also, after installing NetworkManager-wfi, in my case, systemctl restart or reload didn’t work. I had to stop systemctl stop and then systemctl start. On the other hand, I only tested it once, usually I just reboot, but none of this was on a production system.

If you have no way of connection through ethernet, I guess I would try to download the package from rpmfind and see if it will install without providing dependencies. As your posting here, I imagine you have some way of reaching the Internet…

rpmfind page for x86_64
https://rpmfind.net/linux/RPM/centos-stream/9/baseos/x86_64/NetworkManager-wifi-1.39.6-1.el9.x86_64.html

4

I’m curious during installation when choosing minimal, can you go through the list of packages available and add NetworkManager-wifi?

Minimal generally tends to be for servers, which don’t usually have a wifi interface (although I do realise for example a Raspberry PI would use wifi and be a headless server without graphical install so in some cases would be handy). Desktops/laptops that do have wifi, would normally get a workstation type install, so this would then never become an issue.

Might boot up a VM later to see if the wifi package can be selected during installation alongside the minimal install option.

5

I looked and there was, in Alma a change to add Network Server tools or something similar but it would include a bunch of other stuff I didn’t want.

6

Another alternative, would be a kickstart file to use during the boot/install process to reduce the amount of deps as you could specify the particular package so minimal+NetworkManager-wifi, without choosing the Network Tools group. I know, a few more hoops to go through, but possible nonetheless.

Adding the wifi to the minimal wouldn’t be ideal either, since for those that want a true minimal install wouldn’t want the wifi option being installed if they don’t have wifi. Would be something unnecessary being installed.

Nice write-up on your page @scottro I tend to prefer KVM + virt-manager than Virtualbox, but then I know some like VMware Workstation too, but that aside a lot of what you wrote can be used irrespective of the VM environment.

7

Laziness. Also, at the moment, I’m at a FreeBSD shop and my main workstation is FreeBSD, which has a VirtualBox package. There’s also its native hypervisor, bhyve, but again, laziness. :slight_smile:

Edit. I just checked, and the NetworkManager-wifi rpm has unmet dependencies after minimal install. So, you’d have to either find or rebuild a few other rpms for it work, meaning, IMHO, the easiest way is to make an ethernet connection and install NetworkManager-wifi with DNF.

8

All packages listed by dnf rq --requires --resolve NetworkManager-wifi are in ‘baseos’. (The lists differ in EL8 and EL9.)
dnf rq --groupmember NetworkManager-wifi says: “@networkmanager-submodules”, aka “Common NetworkManager submodules”, presumably.

Is the “boot image” the small one that activates network and downloads all packages from online repository, or one of the larger that have at least the packages of ‘baseos’ on the image? The latter can be mounted and packages installed from it with DNF.

Agreed, the installer should offer NM-wifi via those “optional, additional sets” for those, who do need it.

9

I have the minimal install image on a USB. I tried booting Rocky and after installation, mounted the USB image on /media. In /media/minimal/packages I looked and didn’t see any NetworkManager-wifi rpm, (nor the dependencies that my test install said that it needed, I only saw NetworkManager-{libnm,team,tui}. What would be the name of the package(s) I’d be looking for to install? I am assuming that this would have to be done after intallation, via mounting the image, rather than during the installation itself though going through the install, and cd-ing into /mnt/install/repo/minimal/Packages had the same issue, no NetworkManager-wifi

10

I did just download the “Minimal” Rocky 8.6’s image. It has ‘NetworkManager-wifi’ in BaseOS/Packages/n/

$ ls -l
total 14
dr-xr-xr-x. 4 jlehtone jlehtone 2048 May 16 00:06 BaseOS
dr-xr-xr-x. 3 jlehtone jlehtone 2048 May 16 00:06 EFI
dr-xr-xr-x. 3 jlehtone jlehtone 2048 May 16 00:06 images
dr-xr-xr-x. 2 jlehtone jlehtone 2048 May 16 00:06 isolinux
-r--r--r--. 1 jlehtone jlehtone 2204 Mar 30 03:02 LICENSE
-r--r--r--. 1 jlehtone jlehtone   86 May 16 00:05 media.repo
dr-xr-xr-x. 3 jlehtone jlehtone 2048 May 16 00:06 Minimal
-r--r--r--. 1 jlehtone jlehtone  883 May 16 00:06 TRANS.TBL

$ df -h .
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/loop0p1    2.2G  2.2G     0 100% /run/media/jlehtone/Rocky-8-6-x86_64-dvd
11

Maybe it’s not yet included in Rocky9? On my image, I had BaseOS and Packages was empty. This is both after booting a working system and mounting the USB image and booting from the USB. As that’s what I have up as type, I’ll use that.
cd /mnt/install/repo
ls BaseOS/Packages

cd minimal/Packages
ls
This has a list of packages, but just the ones I mentioned earlier, no NetworkManager-wifi. Thank you for checking and getting back to us. For the heck of it, I also downloaded an almalinux 9 minimal install CD.
On that one, it does have |NetworkManager-wifi. I mounted the image and under its root directory, there was a Minimal/Packages/ directory, which had NetworkManager-wifi. So, i guess if installing Alma, one can either install and mount the install iso after boot or even install it during installation, though I’m not sure how well that would work. Or possiibly after installation of Rocky, mount an Alma9 minimal install image. Anyway, thanks very much. Now I know.

12

Hi,

Same problem here after a minimal install for a podman server, I need the WIFI operational.

Thanks to your discussion and other sources, I managed to connect to USB tethering and to install NetworkManager-wifi. The computer connected automatically to the Wifi used at install after reboot.

Hereunder the commands I used:

  1. Connect the phone through USB for tethering
# find the device and mac address of the phone
ip a
# Add the interface for autoconnection
sudo nmtui

In the menu that opens: Edit a connection > Add
Type = Ethernet
Name = Phone
Device = enp0s20f0u (ee:ee:ee…)
It is the device and mac address i got using ip a
Ensure that ip is set to automatic and that “Automatically connect” is checked, then select OK and quit

Once on the system again, I restarted NetworkManager and internet with my phone was working:
systemctl restart NetworkManager

  1. Download NetworkManager-wifi
sudo dnf install NetworkManager-wifi
sudo reboot now

I disconnected my phone and after reboot, I was automatically connected to the Wifi I used at install :slight_smile:

I hope this helps other that want to install Rocky minimal and still want to use Wifi

Note: To activate your local ethernet port (deactivated with minimal install…) in the menu that opens with nmtui, edit your ethernet interface and check the option “Automatically Connect”

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