Re: Wireless NICs not obeying 'SSID' setting.

Weird, one of the issues it appears I'm having is that when it's set to
-bgscan and roaming device, the device will just get stuck on "no carrier"
and not even attempt to reconnect to the AP it's assigned to.

ral0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
        ether 00:16:b6:XX:XX:XX
        inet 192.168.3.99 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.3.255
        media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet autoselect (OFDM/54Mbps)
        status: no carrier
        ssid router channel 1 (2412 Mhz 11g)
        authmode OPEN privacy OFF txpowmax 100 bmiss 7 scanvalid 60
        protmode CTS roaming DEVICE bintval 100

ath0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
        ether 00:13:46:XX:XX:XX
        media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet autoselect (OFDM/36Mbps)
        status: no carrier
        ssid linksys channel 1 (2412 Mhz 11g)
        authmode OPEN privacy OFF txpowmax 36 bmiss 7 scanvalid 60
        protmode CTS burst roaming DEVICE bintval 100

Now, if I ifconfig XXX0 down / up then, I'm associated with the APs
instantly... Until another 2ish hour period then they're back to no carrier.

Any ideas here? I'd point at the AP usually or the NIC... However, these are
two different WLAN cards/chipset/brands and two different APs.

On 6/30/07, Kevin Gerry <sfpoof_at_gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Well, I attempted ifconfig ral0 -bgscan and that didn't help as it just
> switched SSIDs on me... Attempting ifconfig ral0 roaming device now in hopes
> that will work! =)
>
> Thanks for the assistance.
>
> On 6/28/07, Sam Leffler <sam_at_errno.com> wrote:
> >
> > Sam Leffler wrote:
> > > Kevin Gerry wrote:
> > >> I've noticed that in a recent patch that when you set a NIC with
> > ifconfig
> > >> ath0 ssid "This One" that it won't always honor that and jump on the
> > >> strongest one.
> > >>
> > >> Example:
> > >>
> > >> 3 WAPs: SSIDs WAP1, WAP2, WAP3
> > >>
> > >> I have set ath0's ssid to "WAP2" and ral0's ssid to "WAP3". They both
> > will
> > >> honor the ssid setting for the first connection. However, after a few
> > >> hours/etc the drivers both associate with WAP1.
> > >>
> > >> The settings to require the specific SSID are in
> > >> /etc/start_if.ral0/start_if.ath0. There aren't any conflicting
> > >> directives to
> > >> force it to go blank and select a random AP.
> > >
> > > You're probably roaming.  wlandebug roam will verify what's going on.
> > > You can disable roaming several ways:
> > >
> > > ifconfig ral0 roaming device
> > >
> > > should do the trick (if you set it to manual then you won't do what
> > you
> > > want if your beacon is turned off).  Alternatively you can do
> > >
> > > ifconfig ral0 -bgscan
> > >
> > > as roaming won't take place w/o bg scanning.
> >
> > If you are roaming you can also just fiddle with the roaming thresholds;
> >    e.g. roam:rssi11g and roam:rate11g.  I haven't updated the man page
> > for ifconfig for these yet; they are threshold settings that when
> > crossed cause the system to consider roaming to a different ap.
> >
> > The handling of ssid changed when roaming went in; it's now a "desired
> > ssid".  That is, if the scan doesn't see an ap with the desired ssid
> > then it'll associate to another ap if possible.  Should the ap w/ the
> > desired ssid re-appear and roaming is enabled then you'll switch over to
> >
> > it.  There is also hysteresis to this algorithm so you don't just bounce
> > around from one ap to another.
> >
> >         Sam
> >
>
>