Handbook Talk:AMD64/Installation/Networking

Wireless drivers
The networking guide is outdated in the "Preparing for wireless access" section. Setup for Wireless networks using WPA or WPA2 protocol could be introduced here for convenience. Networking is often necessary during setup, and having this step integrated to the guide would be helpful for many, since WPA and WPA2 are becoming more commonly used protocols in WiFi routers.

For example, basic usage of wpa_supplicant and wpa_passphrase could be introduced in spirit of Sakaki's excellent guide here --Laurenzo (talk) 19:45, 19 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Is there a useful number of wifi drivers, firmware and wpa_supplicant on the minimal CD?
 * My advice on the forums is still that if you need WiFi to install, start off with SystemRescueCD.
 * Then add wifi later. The root of the problem being that the minimal ISO is too minimal.
 * Has that changed?
 * NeddySeagoon (talk) 21:16, 20 September 2015 (UTC)


 * No, I don't think the discussion here has changed at all. Wifi support is hard because a lot of the drivers require binary blobs (usually included in package). When using systemd (which is becoming more common these days, even on Gentoo) these binary firmware files need to be built into the kernel (a safety feature prevents firmware blobs from being loaded after boot). Our current installation media does not support any build-in firmware at this time and I do not believe we will ever do so. Doing so even (for the free blobs) would make our kernel huge. It would not be worth the extra effort.


 * Looking at this practically this is more of a RelEng issue than a handbook issue. Our installation media needs to support the chipsets/firmware in the first place to even make adding wiki instructions possible. Take it up on Bugzilla with RelEng if you'd like to persist, but I doubt there's much anyone can do.


 * Marking this discussion is done because it's not very possible to do this well due to the nature of most wifi chipsets and the extra manpower involved. Not to mention RelEng's necessary involvement before steps could even be described. --Maffblaster (talk) 21:06, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

Contradictory device naming in "Preparing for wireless access": eth0
Currently the example wireless device name in the "Preparing for wireless access" section is eth0, which is unlikely to ever happen. We should use wlan0 or an example from the predictable naming w1NsNpN scheme, where N will be some integer. I know it was some kind of copy-paste error, but seemingly I do not have the right to edit this page.


 * Fixed. It was likely a copy/paste error; I used wlp9s0 as the example name for the references. I still see wlan0 used in another place, which is okay by me, because some in the Gentoo community disable predictable interface naming. You did the correct thing to open a discussion on this page. We don't have the Handbook open to non-devs because there's too much risk. Thank you! --Maffblaster (talk) 21:56, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Updating deprecated "Preparing for wireless access" instructions
The iwconfig commands on this page are deprecated.

I propose changing them to the equivalent iw commands. Perhaps also combining with the previous comment.

Info about a wireless device -  ->

Open (i.e. no password) network connection -  ->

WEP connection with hex key -

WEP connection with string key -


 * Go ahead and change them. You're a developer, so YOU do it! --Maffblaster (talk) 21:58, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Persistently and Globally setting proxy variables
Hi Handbook team, Under the section about setting a proxy there is only documentation on how to export the proxy variable for that specific bash session. What if a user wants to set a proxy globally and have it persist? Thank you for considering my suggestion. --Tom (talk) 01:47, 29 April 2018 (UTC)


 * Hi, . The suggestion for proxies here is to help our users get through the Gentoo installation. Post-installation proxy settings will depend on the network configuration software, which is semi-dependent on the init system and kernel settings (DHCPD, DHCP client, systemd-networkd, GNOME, Plasma, XFCE, NetworkManager, etc., etc.). Most network configuration software is outside of the scope of Handbook. I will follow up by adding a line that these settings could be added to in the chroot in order to make them persist.


 * You are welcome to add them to the respective articles. Kind regards, --Maffblaster (talk) 23:55, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

Note on manually configuring a network
In regards to:

Please be aware that if you are on a network with no DHCP dhcpd will still attempt to run, notable:

root    12528  0.0  0.0   2996  2136 ? Ss  15:37   0:00 dhcpcd -n -h livecd

This will make it so that wired network adaptors will carry the noprefixroute flag and will therefore not automatically add a route to any network that is assigned, so if you was to do the following:

ifconfig eth0 10.0.0.2/24 up

You would not as expected be able to ping 10.0.0.1, you would have to also do the following:

route add -net 10.0.0.0/24 gw 10.0.0.2

After this you will then be able to add you're network gateway as expected:

route add default gw 10.0.0.1

Suggestion for Improvement
This section is pretty good. And my hardwired ethernet configuration worked right from the git-go, so I was able to skip most of this chapter when I installed Gentoo. I do think a hint about later network configuration steps might be helpful -- probably near the end of 1.1.1 ifconfig command:

Be sure to make a note of your ethernet interface name. This datum will be needed when you reach chapter 8, Configuring the system.

That's the only suggestion I have right now. --Davidbryant (talk) 17:43, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Could use a dedicated section on wpa_supplicant setup
All modern wireless networks use at least wpa. Even if you could set up a temporary unencrypted network under some circumstances, I think a section here with a handbook-style step by step guide on configuring wpa_supplicant and authenticating with wpa_cli would save people from having to look through the networking page and external sources like the arch wiki.

Jmcb (talk) 16:05, 24 December 2021 (UTC)