Cannot connect to eduroam university wifi

I am able to connect to other wifi networks such as my home network, however I cannot connect to my university’s eduroam network.

When I try to connect, the computer becomes unresponsive to inputs such as moving the mouse and keyboard presses. The only way to fix this is to force shutdown.

I am using Fedora 36 and the computer has a Mediatek MT7921adapter. Where should I start with troubleshooting this issue?

Thank you

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eduroam can be particularly frustrating. You might try connecting with:

  • Security: WPA/WPA2 Enterprise
  • Authentication: Protected EAP (PEAP)
  • PEAP Version: Version 0 (yes, there is a version 0)
  • Inner authentication: MSCHAPv2
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Welcome to the community @caliminity ! Please take a look at the introductory posts in the #start-here category if you haven’t had a chance yet.

Two eduroam related posts (both solved):

https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/cannot-connect-to-eduroam-on-f36-due-to-openssl-error/70534

https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/cannot-connect-to-wpa2-enterprise-university-wifi-eduroam-on-fedora-36/72395

The system hang is new. None of these posts have reported that yet. Are you able to get anything from the logs at all about these hangs?

https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/quick-docs/viewing-logs/

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This is the log output I got from journalctl for the times around when the error happens

Logs
Nov 08 07:37:32 zephyrus systemd[2416]: Finished grub-boot-success.service - Mark boot as successful.
Nov 08 07:37:32 zephyrus gnome-character[4394]: JS LOG: Characters Application exiting
Nov 08 07:37:32 zephyrus systemd[2416]: dbus-:1.2-org.gnome.Characters@0.service: Consumed 1.329s CPU time.
Nov 08 07:37:43 zephyrus supergfxd[1422]: INFO: Notify: dGPU status = Unknown
Nov 08 07:37:44 zephyrus supergfxd[1422]: INFO: Notify: dGPU status = Suspended
Nov 08 07:37:52 zephyrus systemd[1]: systemd-timedated.service: Deactivated successfully.
Nov 08 07:37:52 zephyrus audit[1]: SERVICE_STOP pid=1 uid=0 auid=4294967295 ses=4294967295 subj=system_u:system_r:init_t:s0 msg='unit=systemd-timedated comm="systemd" exe="/usr/lib/systemd/systemd" hostname=? addr=? terminal=? res=success'
Nov 08 07:37:52 zephyrus audit: BPF prog-id=0 op=UNLOAD
Nov 08 07:37:52 zephyrus audit: BPF prog-id=0 op=UNLOAD
Nov 08 07:37:52 zephyrus audit: BPF prog-id=0 op=UNLOAD
Nov 08 07:37:53 zephyrus systemd[2416]: Started dbus-:1.2-org.gnome.Settings@0.service.
Nov 08 07:37:53 zephyrus gnome-control-c[4713]: BluetoothHardwareAirplaneMode: 0
Nov 08 07:37:54 zephyrus supergfxd[1422]: INFO: Notify: dGPU status = Unknown
Nov 08 07:37:55 zephyrus audit: BPF prog-id=93 op=LOAD
Nov 08 07:37:55 zephyrus audit: BPF prog-id=94 op=LOAD
Nov 08 07:37:55 zephyrus systemd[1]: Starting systemd-hostnamed.service - Hostname Service...
Nov 08 07:37:55 zephyrus systemd[1]: Started systemd-hostnamed.service - Hostname Service.
Nov 08 07:37:55 zephyrus audit[1]: SERVICE_START pid=1 uid=0 auid=4294967295 ses=4294967295 subj=system_u:system_r:init_t:s0 msg='unit=systemd-hostnamed comm="systemd" exe="/usr/lib/systemd/systemd" hostname=? addr=? terminal=? res=success'
Nov 08 07:37:55 zephyrus supergfxd[1422]: INFO: Notify: dGPU status = Active
Nov 08 07:37:58 zephyrus wpa_supplicant[1808]: wlp4s0: Reject scan trigger since one is already pending
-- Boot 866af643463c4636a06e3e4f177af27c --
Nov 08 07:38:39 zephyrus systemd-journald[343]: Received SIGTERM from PID 1 (systemd).
Nov 08 07:38:39 zephyrus kernel: SELinux:  policy capability network_peer_controls=1
Nov 08 07:38:39 zephyrus kernel: SELinux:  policy capability open_perms=1
Nov 08 07:38:39 zephyrus kernel: SELinux:  policy capability extended_socket_class=1

I started the computer at 7:35, and tried to connect to eduroam at 7:37, which caused the system to hang. Then forced shutdown at 7:38. I don’t see any mention of eduroam in this section of the log nor the rest of the log. Maybe due to the force shutdown the logs are incomplete?

Those logs don’t immediate indicate what’s going on or a connection of the dots to the wifi network. Can you please paste the output of inxi -SCMn so we can have a better idea of your machine’s environment?

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I think when the hardware becomes unresponsive like that, the problem tends to be something deep in the kernel. My first instinct would be to try a different kernel(s).

Edit: I think I found another report of this problem: https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=337398&start=20

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The output of the command is

inxi output

System:
Host: zephyrus Kernel: 6.0.5-200.fc36.x86_64 arch: x86_64 bits: 64
Desktop: GNOME v: 42.5 Distro: Fedora release 36 (Thirty Six)
Machine:
Type: Laptop System: ASUSTeK product: ROG Zephyrus G15 GA503QS_GA503QS
v: 1.0 serial:
Mobo: ASUSTeK model: GA503QS v: 1.0 serial:
UEFI: American Megatrends LLC. v: GA503QS.413 date: 11/03/2021
CPU:
Info: 8-core model: AMD Ryzen 9 5900HS with Radeon Graphics bits: 64
type: MT MCP cache: L2: 4 MiB
Speed (MHz): avg: 1106 min/max: 400/4680 cores: 1: 400 2: 400 3: 400
4: 400 5: 400 6: 400 7: 2841 8: 2615 9: 2615 10: 400 11: 2614 12: 400
13: 400 14: 2615 15: 400 16: 400
Network:
Device-1: Realtek driver: r8169
IF: enp3s0 state: down mac: 04:42:1a:85:f2:83
Device-2: MEDIATEK MT7921 802.11ax PCI Express Wireless Network Adapter
driver: mt7921e
IF: wlp4s0 state: up mac: 48:e7:da:53:a7:17

I am not familiar with this, when I run the command uname -r, the result is 6.0.5-200.fc36.x86_64, does this mean I am currently on kernel 6.0.5?

Yes, that is correct.

You should be able to access the grub menu and select a different kernel by following the directions here:

If … you need to access the GRUB menu … press ESC or F8 while GRUB loads (simply press the key repeatedly directly after power on until you are in the menu).

I was able to use a different kernel by pressing F8. Aside from 6.0.5 which I was previously using, I also had the option for 5.17 kernel. However, the 5.17 kernel had the same issue, is there a way to get more kernels to try?

They can be downloaded and installed from koji. It’s slightly non-trivial to do though because you have to download a small set of packages (whatever you have on your current system that begins with “kernel” less the “kernel-headers” package). Then you install the packages as a set with something like rpm -ivh *.rpm. You can also do it with dnf which is easier, but it won’t let you pick an exact kernel version. Instead, dnf will let you pick a release version from which to fetch the packages and if you specify an earlier release of Fedora Linux, you will get an earlier kernel. You might try (first) dnf downgrade kernel and if that doesn’t give you an old enough kernel that works, try dnf downgrade kernel --releasever=35 (it won’t downgrade the entire OS; just the “kernel” packages).

I’ll try the dnf route first and see. If I run dnf downgrade kernel, is it reversible?

It is reversible. Just the normal dnf upgrade command will remove it when you are not using it.

I was able to connect to eduroam by :

  1. dnf downgrade kernel command, which gave me kernel version 5.14
  2. Rebooting and pressing F8 during start up to boot to kernel 5.14
  3. Connecting to eduroam while running kernel 5.14
  4. Rebooting computer again

After the final reboot, I was able to connect to eduroam despite running kernel 6.0.5

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