Ubuntu – Intel 8260 and Ubuntu 16.04

16.04intelnetworkingwireless

I am having trouble getting the 8260 card to work with Ubuntu 16.04. I have 2 computers running kernel 4.13.0.38. One computer can connect to my wireless network, and the other cannot.

On the malfunctioning computer – the network interface is up according to ifconfig:

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
      inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
      inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
      UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:65536  Metric:1
      RX packets:2734 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
      TX packets:2734 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
      collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
      RX bytes:283045 (283.0 KB)  TX bytes:283045 (283.0 KB)

wlp3s0    Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:c2:c6:dc:1d:83  
      UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
      RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
      TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
      collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
      RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

The chipset is an Intel 8260 which appears to have many problems in Ubuntu. According to lshw, firmware v31 is loading:

*-network               
   description: Wireless interface
   product: Wireless 8260
   vendor: Intel Corporation
   physical id: 0
   bus info: pci@0000:03:00.0
   logical name: wlp3s0
   version: 3a
   serial: 00:c2:c6:dc:1d:83
   width: 64 bits
   clock: 33MHz
   capabilities: bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
   configuration: broadcast=yes driver=iwlwifi driverversion=4.13.0-38-generic firmware=31.560484.0 latency=0 link=no multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11
   resources: irq:127 memory:dc000000-dc001fff

I have restarted the iwlwifi using modprobe:

sudo modprobe -r iwlwifi
sudo modprobe iwlwifi

I can see wireless networks, but I cannot connect to them. I have duplicated the network settings on the functioning computer, but to no avail. I have also copied the firmware ucode from /lib/firmware, and this also did not work.

Any ideas on how to perform a "diff" between the two computers?

Best Answer

The problem was resolved by setting the regulatory domain on my computers and reflashing my router with country specific firmware. I noticed that I could set my regulatory domain and connect to the router, but once I pinged a device on the network, my regulatory domain would revert to global (00).

I started with the standard discussion of setting the reg domain. I had some problems using crda to set the regulatory domain, so I added options to the cfg80211 module, as other users have done. To make these changes permanent, I had to create the file /etc/modprobe.d/cfg80211.conf and add the following:

options cfg80211 ieee80211_regdom=US

Anyone searching for a diff tool to compare network configurations should use this script.

Related Question