Starting Wireless On Boot With systemd

I didn't want to use a GUI to manage my wireless network. Majority of the time I will be at known locations, and when needing to join a new network doing it via command line is not difficult.

I have known networks configured, with dhcpcd and wpa_supplicant started during bootup by systemd. I also chose to log, and rotate, wpa_supplicant to help debug any network issues I might encounter. The following was done in Arch.

A few files must exist, the first is a .service file under /usr/lib/systemd/system/. The Type=forking is required since we are starting a daemon, the PIDFile is optional. If you include it, make sure you actually create a pid file when starting the process.

#cat /usr/lib/systemd/system/wireless.service  
[Unit]  
Description=Wireless

[Service]  
Type=forking  
PIDFILE=/var/run/wireless.pid  
ExecStart=/usr/lib/systemd/scripts/wirelessStart  
ExecReload=/usr/lib/systemd/scripts/wirelessRestart  
ExecStop=/usr/lib/systemd/scripts/wirelessStop

[Install]  
WantedBy=multi-user.target

I chose to make individual Start, Restart and Stop scripts as seen above. You may do this differently. Here are mine:

#Start Script  
#cat /usr/lib/systemd/scripts/wirelessStart  
#!/bin/bash  
ps aux | grep wpa_supplicant | grep -v grep &>/dev/null || {  
wpa_supplicant -f /var/log/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.log -B -i
wlp8s0 -P/var/run/wireless.pid -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -d  
}

#Stop Script - I haven't had an issue with pkill failing to get the job done.  
#cat /usr/lib/systemd/scripts/wirelessStop  
#!/bin/bash  
pkill wpa_supplicant

#Restart Script  
#cat /usr/lib/systemd/scripts/wirelessRestart  
#!/bin/bash  
/usr/lib/systemd/scripts/wirelessStop  
sleep 3  
/usr/lib/systemd/scripts/wirelessStart

logrotate:

#cat /etc/logrotate.d/wpa_supplicant  
/var/log/wpa_supplicant/*log {  
copytruncate  
compress  
notifempty  
missingok  
}

Enabling the new service, and checking status:

#enable the service  
[jpyth@arch-jpyth ~]$ sudo systemctl enable wireless  
ln -s '/usr/lib/systemd/system/wireless.service'
'/etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/wireless.service'  
#start the service  
[jpyth@arch-jpyth ~]$ sudo systemctl start wireless  
#status of service  
[jpyth@arch-jpyth ~]$ sudo systemctl status wireless  
wireless.service - Wireless  
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/wireless.service; enabled)  
Active: active (running) since Wed 2013-03-27 07:29:19 PDT; 3s ago  
Process: 1574 ExecStart=/usr/lib/systemd/scripts/wirelessStart
(code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)  
Main PID: 1579 (wpa_supplicant)  
CGroup: name=systemd:/system/wireless.service  
└─1579 wpa_supplicant -f /var/log/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.log
-B -i wlp8s0 -P/var/run/wireless.pid -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -d

Mar 27 07:29:18 arch-jpyth systemd[1]: Starting Wireless...  
Mar 27 07:29:19 arch-jpyth systemd[1]: Started Wireless.  
[jpyth@arch-jpyth ~]$ psg wpa_supplican  
root 1579 0.0 0.0 32328 1344 ? Ss 07:29 0:00 wpa_supplicant -f
/var/log/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.log -B -i wlp8s0
-P/var/run/wireless.pid -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -d  
#log file  
[jpyth@arch-jpyth ~]$ tail
/var/log/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.log  
EAP: EAP entering state DISABLED  
EAPOL: SUPP_PAE entering state AUTHENTICATED  
EAPOL: Supplicant port status: Authorized  
EAPOL: SUPP_BE entering state IDLE  
EAPOL authentication completed successfully  
RTM_NEWLINK: operstate=1 ifi_flags=0x11043
([UP][RUNNING][LOWER_UP])  
RTM_NEWLINK, IFLA_IFNAME: Interface 'wlp8s0' added  
WEXT: if_removed already cleared - ignore event  
EAPOL: startWhen --> 0  
EAPOL: disable timer tick  
[jpyth@arch-jpyth ~]$

*note if you need dhcpcd enable/verify:

#enable the service  
[jpyth@arch-jpyth ~]$ sudo systemctl enable dhcpcd  
ln -s '/usr/lib/systemd/system/dhcpcd.service'
'/etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/dhcpcd.service'  
#start the service  
[jpyth@arch-jpyth ~]$ sudo systemctl start dhcpcd  
#status of the service  
[jpyth@arch-jpyth ~]$ sudo systemctl status dhcpcd  
dhcpcd.service - dhcpcd on all interfaces  
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/dhcpcd.service; enabled)  
Active: active (running) since Wed 2013-03-27 07:32:06 PDT; 4s ago  
Process: 1697 ExecStart=/sbin/dhcpcd -q -b (code=exited,
status=0/SUCCESS)  
Main PID: 1698 (dhcpcd)  
CGroup: name=systemd:/system/dhcpcd.service  
└─1698 /sbin/dhcpcd -q -b

Mar 27 07:32:06 arch-jpyth systemd[1]: Started dhcpcd on all
interfaces.  
Mar 27 07:32:06 arch-jpyth dhcpcd[1698]: wlp8s0: sending IPv6 Router
Solicitation  
Mar 27 07:32:06 arch-jpyth dhcpcd[1698]: wlp8s0: rebinding lease of
192.168.1.42  
Mar 27 07:32:06 arch-jpyth dhcpcd[1698]: enp7s0: waiting for carrier  
Mar 27 07:32:06 arch-jpyth dhcpcd[1698]: wlp8s0: acknowledged
192.168.1.42 from 192.168.1.1  
Mar 27 07:32:06 arch-jpyth dhcpcd[1698]: wlp8s0: checking for
192.168.1.42  
Mar 27 07:32:10 arch-jpyth dhcpcd[1698]: wlp8s0: sending IPv6 Router
Solicitation  
[jpyth@arch-jpyth ~]$

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