Wired networking problems after guix system reconfigure

[Chris Marusich <cmmarusich@gmail.com>]

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Hi,

I recently reconfigured my GuixSD system by running the following
commands (I've attached all logs mentioned below, in their entirety, in
files.tar.gz):

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
sudo guix pull
sudo guix system reconfigure my_config_file.scm
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

The commands completed successfully, but the next time I booted my
laptop, I found that I had no network connectivity.

Before the change, I saw messages like this when running "dmesg -T -x"
after boot (b44 is my ethernet driver):

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
kern  :info  : [Mon Feb 15 21:48:05 2016] b44: Broadcom 44xx/47xx 10/100 PCI ethernet driver version 2.0
kern  :info  : [Mon Feb 15 21:48:05 2016] b44 ssb0:0 eth0: Broadcom 44xx/47xx 10/100 PCI ethernet driver 00:19:b9:7e:b4:cd
kern  :info  : [Mon Feb 15 21:49:03 2016] b44 ssb0:0 eth0: Link is up at 100 Mbps, full duplex
kern  :info  : [Mon Feb 15 21:49:03 2016] b44 ssb0:0 eth0: Flow control is off for TX and off for RX
kern  :info  : [Mon Feb 15 21:49:12 2016] b44 ssb0:0 eth0: powering down PHY
kern  :info  : [Mon Feb 15 21:49:12 2016] b44 ssb0:0 eth0: powering down PHY
kern  :info  : [Mon Feb 15 21:49:19 2016] b44 ssb0:0 eth0: Link is up at 100 Mbps, full duplex
kern  :info  : [Mon Feb 15 21:49:19 2016] b44 ssb0:0 eth0: Flow control
is off for TX and off for RX
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

After the change, b44 only emitted these lines in dmesg:

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kern  :info  : [Mon Feb 15 22:20:16 2016] b44: Broadcom 44xx/47xx 10/100 PCI ethernet driver version 2.0
kern  :info  : [Mon Feb 15 22:20:16 2016] b44 ssb0:0 eth0: Broadcom 44xx/47xx 10/100 PCI ethernet driver 00:19:b9:7e:b4:cd
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

Digging deeper, I noticed that my system appears to be using wicd to
manage the network interfaces. When I checked the wicd logs, I found
that before the reconfigure, it was successfully doing its job, but
after the reconfigure, it was failing.

Here, before the reconfigure, you can see wicd successfully configuring
eth0:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
2016/02/15 21:48:54 :: automatically detected wired interface eth0
2016/02/15 21:48:54 :: setting wired interface eth0
[ ... some lines omitted ... ]
2016/02/15 21:49:00 :: Autoconnecting...
2016/02/15 21:49:02 :: No wired connection present, attempting to autoconnect to wireless network
2016/02/15 21:49:02 :: Unable to autoconnect, you'll have to manually connect
2016/02/15 21:49:05 :: Autoconnecting...
2016/02/15 21:49:12 :: Attempting to autoconnect with wired interface...
2016/02/15 21:49:12 :: Putting interface down
2016/02/15 21:49:12 :: Releasing DHCP leases...
2016/02/15 21:49:17 :: Setting false IP...
2016/02/15 21:49:17 :: Stopping wpa_supplicant
2016/02/15 21:49:17 :: Flushing the routing table...
2016/02/15 21:49:17 :: Putting interface up...
2016/02/15 21:49:19 :: Running DHCP with NO hostname
2016/02/15 21:49:19 :: Internet Systems Consortium DHCP Client 4.3.1
2016/02/15 21:49:19 :: Copyright 2004-2014 Internet Systems Consortium.
2016/02/15 21:49:19 :: All rights reserved.
2016/02/15 21:49:19 :: For info, please visit https://www.isc.org/software/dhcp/
2016/02/15 21:49:19 :: 
2016/02/15 21:49:20 :: Listening on LPF/eth0/00:19:b9:7e:b4:cd
2016/02/15 21:49:20 :: Sending on   LPF/eth0/00:19:b9:7e:b4:cd
2016/02/15 21:49:20 :: Sending on   Socket/fallback
2016/02/15 21:49:20 :: DHCPDISCOVER on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 3
2016/02/15 21:49:23 :: DHCPDISCOVER on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 7
2016/02/15 21:49:24 :: DHCPREQUEST on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67
2016/02/15 21:49:24 :: DHCPOFFER from 192.168.1.1
2016/02/15 21:49:24 :: DHCPACK from 192.168.1.1
2016/02/15 21:49:24 :: bound to 192.168.1.112 -- renewal in 38530 seconds.
2016/02/15 21:49:24 :: DHCP connection successful
2016/02/15 21:49:24 :: Connecting thread exiting.
2016/02/15 21:49:24 :: Sending connection attempt result success
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

However, after the reconfigure, wicd fails to configure eth0:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
2016/02/15 22:20:49 :: automatically detected wired interface eth0
2016/02/15 22:20:49 :: setting wired interface eth0
[ ... some lines omitted ... ]
2016/02/15 22:20:55 :: Autoconnecting...
2016/02/15 22:21:03 :: Error checking link using /sys/class/net/eth0/carrier
2016/02/15 22:21:03 :: Wired Interface is down, putting it up
2016/02/15 22:21:07 :: No wired connection present, attempting to autoconnect to wireless network
2016/02/15 22:21:07 :: Unable to autoconnect, you'll have to manually connect
[ ... repeats forever ... ]
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

So, it seems wicd is having trouble with /sys/class/net/eth0/carrier. As
it turns out, before the reconfigure, I could read this file just fine:

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[0] marusich@garuda:~
$ cat /sys/class/net/eth0/carrier
1
[0] marusich@garuda:~
$ 
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

However, after the reconfigure, something is wrong with the file:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
[0] marusich@garuda:~/guix
$ cat /sys/class/net/eth0/carrier
cat: /sys/class/net/eth0/carrier: Invalid argument
[1] marusich@garuda:~/guix
$ 
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

This is pretty weird. My understanding is that the sysfs entries are a
userspace interface to the kernel data structures, so my guess is that
something is wrong with the Linux-libre kernel or the b44 driver. I'm
not sure how to investigate further, though.

What can I do? My goal is to have network access even after running
"guix system reconfigure". All the data I've gathered so far, including
the system configuration file that I used to instantiate the new GuixSD
system, is contained in the attached file (files.tar.gz). I hope with
your help I can figure out what the problem is and fix it.

Thank you,
Chris Marusich


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