Package: debian-installer
Version: 20250809
Severity: wishlist
Tags: d-i
X-Debbugs-Cc: debian-amd64@lists.debian.org, charlescurley@charlescurley.com, debian-boot@lists.debian.org
User: debian-amd64@lists.debian.org
Usertags: amd64
User: debian-boot@lists.debian.org
Usertags: amd64

Dear Maintainer,

The new automated install option is great; thank you. I believe there is a defect which should be repaired.

The target hardware here is a Lenovo T-520, manufactured in 2011 or so. The WiFi is:

root@jhegaala:~# lspci -vs 3:0
03:00.0 Network controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8188CE 802.11b/g/n WiFi Adapter (rev 01)
	Subsystem: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. Device 8195
	Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 17, IOMMU group 12
	I/O ports at 5000 [size=256]
	Memory at f2500000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
	Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 3
	Capabilities: [50] MSI: Enable- Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit+
	Capabilities: [70] Express Endpoint, IntMsgNum 0
	Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting
	Capabilities: [140] Virtual Channel
	Capabilities: [160] Device Serial Number 01-91-81-fe-ff-4c-e0-00
	Kernel driver in use: rtl8192ce
	Kernel modules: rtl8192ce

root@jhegaala:~#


After booting d-i, and going to the Automated installation (Advanced -> Automated) and launching that, the system proceeds as usual through a number of steps, one of which is to get a network link. I get a prompt for the two network interfaces, Ethernet and WiFi. I select the WiFi. I then get "Invalid passphrase: The WPA/WPA2 PSK passphrase was either too long (more than 64 characters) or too short (less than 8 characters).".

I hit Continue and get the same screen several times.

I hit "go Back", and get the main menu. I hit "Configure the Network", and I go through the same song and dance as above.

At no time do I get the opportunity to configure the WiFi interface manually, all of which is in my preseed file.

I can start d-i for a manual expert installation, and successfully set up the WiFi interface. However, since that offers no option to use the preseed file, that doesn't really help.

Possible solutions:

Option 1: Allow the user to manually set up the WiFi interface: SSID, passphrase, et cetera, during the network setup.

Option 2: Allow the user to specify and "download" a local preseed file which presumably includes WiFi setup, e.g. "file://".

Option 3: Allow the user to provide the WiFi setup as a command line option prior to booting d-i.

Obviously I can (and did) use the Ethernet interface. But not all users will have that option.

Charles Curley <charlescurley@charlescurley.com> writes:

How are you providing the preseed file?

(I presume not via url=... (with a network URI) as that would mean that
it would only be available after the network comes up, which would be
too late to configure the wifi.)

I forget the exact details of the wifi settings that need to be
preseeded, but it sounds like the use of Automatic install (which sets
auto-install/enable=true and debconf/priority=critical for you) is
preventing the prompt for the passphrase from appearing, and as a result
of that it's then effectively complaining about an unset value.

I'd suggest that you try again, while adding 'DEBCONF_DEBUG=5' on the
kernel command line, and when you get to the point where you'd hope to
be able to set the wifi settings, flip to the console on Ctrl-Alt-F4 to
see what the syslog is showing regarding the questions it's not asking
you -- you can see the same thing on e.g. Ctrl-Alt-F2 and editing the
/var/log/syslog (with nano or maybe vi), which has the advantage of
letting you search and move about.

That should allow you to see if my guess is correct, and will hopefully
provide clues on how to get it working for you.

Cheers, Phil.

Hi,

Am 26. August 2025 23:51:18 MESZ schrieb Charles Curley <charlescurley@charlescurley.com>:

This feature is not new, I'm unsure why you think so.

Could you try the same with a bookworm image, to check if it's a regression?


Holger

Your presumption is correct. "file:///media/<hostname>.cfg" The file
being on a USB stick.

Well, going to the Automated install menu entry and hitting "e" to edit
it didn't work. So instead I went to the Help menu and entered:

expert DEBCONF_DEBUG=5 auto=true auto=true file=/media/jhegaala.cfg

That got me to "Network autoconfiguration failed". I hit "continue",
then "Retry network autoconfiguration". That also failed. I then went
to "Configure network manually". That then prompted for an IP address,
leading me to wonder if WiFi had been configured. It looks like it had
not been. This is probably because the firmware failed to load.

The device is an rtl8192ce, and its firmware is in firmware-realtek,
which I see in the file /var/log/firmware-summary, and which is
installed. The kernel tries to load rtlwifi/rtl8192cfw.bin

Continuing, I gave it an IP address, and it set up the Ethernet IF,
which was not connected. At that point, installation continued to the
disk partitioner, which I do not preseed. I then aborted the
installation.

I will attach the syslog to this bug.

You are right; I guess I didn't notice it. Thanks.

I ran "Debian GNU/Linux 12.6.0 "Bookworm" - Official amd64 NETINST with
firmware 20240629-10:18" and got the same error I found with trixie,
firmware failed to load. See my reply to Philip Hands <phil@hands.com>
above.

Attached is the syslog I mentioned in message # 20.

Was there a solution found for this?

I'm experiencing the same problem, with Debian 13.2.

The host in my case is using a MEDIATEK Corp. MT7922 wireless adapter.

I notice in the system log that after activating the interface and
scanning for networks, it reports:

"netcfg[7643]: INFO: Network Chosen: [REDACTED]. Proceeding to connect."

The network it chooses appears to be the one with the strongest signal
-- which happens in my case to be an extender of another network.

I attempted to retry this by changing the extender network to require
no PSK;  that did not seem to help.

The same error message appears, reporting that the PSK is invalid, even
though I was never asked to enter one.

In this case the onboard wired ethernet device also doesn't have native
support in the mainline kernel at this version, so it appears I can't
use a wired connection directly... I'll have to somehow bundle the DKMS
drivers for this one into a remastered ISO, if I can't get the wireless
approach to work.

Advice would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

In further debugging efforts, I was able to manually, through a shell (on
CtrlAlt-F2) join a network by writing a wpa_supplicant config file using
nano, execute wpa_supplicant on the correct interface, run udhcpc, and then
ping an external name on the internet successfully.

So in my case, I’ve proven that the drivers and network stack are
altogether functional.

The problem seems to be in d-i, using the automatic install option.

I also found a few other bug reports that seem oddly similar…

https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=999771

https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1034072

I also tried setting kernel cmdline arguments in the bootloader, for both
`interface=<iface>` and `BOOTIF=<iface>`, and these had no observable
effect on the problem. (Obviously with “<iface>” replaced with the
applicable device…)

To reiterate, using automatic install mode, it appears to select a wireless
network interface, select an SSID, and attempts to join without a PSK. At
no time am I (the user) prompted to select an interface, a network, or
enter a PSK.  The process stops with the error message:

‘’’
The WPA/WPA2 PSK passphrase was either too long (more than 64 characters)
or too short (less than 8 characters).
‘’’

The option “continue” appears to retry the same loop, continuously failing.

Again, advice appreciated.


- Sam B

(Sent from my mobile phone)


On Wed, Nov 19, 2025 at 21:16 Sam Briesemeister <sam.briesemeister@gmail.com> wrote: