Bug 721346

Summary:	RFE: early network configuration stage prevents WPA2 encrypted wireless install method
Product:	Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6	Reporter:	Joachim Frieben <jfrieben>
Component:	anaconda	Assignee:	Radek Vykydal <rvykydal>
Status:	CLOSED WONTFIX	QA Contact:	Release Test Team <release-test-team>
Severity:	unspecified	Docs Contact:
Priority:	unspecified
Version:	6.1	CC:	rvykydal, usurse
Target Milestone:	rc
Target Release:	---
Hardware:	x86_64
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version:		Doc Type:	Bug Fix
Doc Text:		Story Points:	---
Clone Of:		Environment:
Last Closed:	2011-07-19 13:54:11 UTC	Type:	---
Regression:	---	Mount Type:	---
Documentation:	---	CRM:
Verified Versions:		Category:	---
oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team:	---	Target Upstream Version:

Description Joachim Frieben 2011-07-14 10:53:00 UTC

Description of problem:
For current EL 6.1, installing the system using standard WPA2 encryption for the wireless connection is impossible because the network configuration stage precedes the launch of the graphical installer. Thus, only WEP encryption is possible by specifying the key as a boot option through "wepkey=<this_wepkey>".

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
anaconda-13.21.117-1.el6.x86_64

How reproducible:
Always.

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Boot netinstall.iso
  
Actual results:
The user is forced to configure a network interface before the graphical installer is launched.

Expected results:
The user can set up the network by means of the graphical installer giving a wider choice of configuration options like WPA2 encryption in the case of a wireless connection.

Additional info:
Identical Fedora bug 473803 was resolved during the F14 development cycle. Note that the fat netinstall.iso of EL6 contains stage2.img, too. Thus, the graphical installer can be launched without a working network connection, and once it is up, the advanced network configuration possibilities of the graphical installer icnluding WPA2 setup can be used.

Comment 2 Radek Vykydal 2011-07-14 11:51:48 UTC

Wireless networking configuration is not supported in RHEL 6. The option of using network configuration in installer GUI (with NetworkManager Connection Editor) is limited and sort of accidental. Even the wepkey= and essid= option probably do not work in RHEL 6.

The bug could be considered as a Request For Enhancement. It would require porting of related code from master branch. It should be noted that the master branch (Fedora) has diverged from RHEL 6 branch in that there is no more separate stage 2 (it became part of initrd) which can make porting of some of the wireless config paths (e.g. the one you are describing) to RHEL 6 very complicated.

Comment 3 David Cantrell 2011-07-19 13:54:11 UTC

As Radek stated in comment #2, installation over wireless networks is not supported in RHEL 6.  We are working on implementing this feature in Fedora, which will make it available in the next major release of RHEL.  However, given the huge code change, we will not be implementing this feature in RHEL 6.

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Anaconda/Features/WirelessSupport

Comment 5 Radek Vykydal 2014-06-26 09:41:46 UTC

The feature is available in RHEL 7.

Comment 7 Radek Vykydal 2014-07-15 07:12:49 UTC

The situation wrt wireless at early stage is:

- In RHEL 6, there is kickstart support for wepkey. There are patches for wpa support on master, but they never made it into RHEL 6.

- In RHEL 7, installer's loader (the early stage) was replaced by dracut (unification with regular system) which has no support for wireless networking. Adding the support would involve filing a RFE for dracut component.