On Wednesday, July 18, 2012 06:28:28 AM Malcolm MacCallum wrote:
> I knew about and used ifup (the device is wlan0). It did not solve the problem.

First, make sure NetworkManager is running:
# service NetworkManager status

If it is not, start it:
# service NetworkManager start

(As to the wpa-suplicant service, I don't know if you'll need to manually start it or not, as I'm not at an EL6 machine with wireless right now, but I can be later).

Now, use:
# nmcli con list

to get a list of your connections.  You then can use:

# nmcli con up id 'Connection Identification from listing'

This may work in runlevel 3, and it may not, as I have not tried it.  According to the nmcli man page it still wants to talk to nm-applet for things, and it may have a hard time getting authentication information.  It would be interesting to see how it works.  I'm going to try this myself when I'm back at home with an EL6 laptop, putting it into runlevel 3 and trying to get the wireless up.