Re: Problems connecting to public WiFi with latest 80211 code

> Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2007 20:22:25 -0700
> From: Sam Leffler <sam_at_errno.com>
> 
> Kevin Oberman wrote:
> > I had not seen this problem because I do not use the wpa_supplicant to
> > connect to open networks when at home, but I am on travel this week and
> > it has been a real pain.
> > 
> > System is current as of this afternoon and is running on a ThinkPad T43
> > with an Atheros 5212 mini-PCI card.
> 
> mac+phy revs for card are always important; dmesg|grep ath
> 
> > 
> > When the system comes up, the wpa_supplicant starts, but the system
> > never scans except with 'authmode WPA1+WPA2/802.11i privacy ON' and
> > never tries to associate with an open AP even though I have an entry in
> > wpa_supplicant.conf for that network. I have to issue a 'ifconfig
> > wepmode off' to get it to associate.
> 
> I don't see a log from wpa_supplicant or console debug msgs as obtained
> with wlandebug.
> 
> > 
> > Even then, it still won't always associate until I ifconfig the
> > interface down and up. Once I do this, it seems to associate rather
> > quickly. 
> > 
> > I suspect that the problem reported on mobile by Matthias Apitz and jhb
> > may be a part of the problem, but I think the inability to get to
> > authmode OPEN is different.
> > 
> > I use the supplicant at home and it works fine, but that is NOT an open
> > network, so I don't need the interface to run in OPEN mode.
> > 
> > Any idea what is going on and if it can be fixed or worked around?
> 
> I can't help w/o the usual info: what os, card info (mac+phy), and how
> to reproduce (e.g. wpa_supplicant.conf and cmd line).

Sorry, this was a really bad report.

Here is the dmesg part:
ath_hal: 0.9.20.3 (AR5210, AR5211, AR5212, RF5111, RF5112, RF2413, RF5413)
ath0: <Atheros 5212> mem 0xb4000000-0xb400ffff irq 11 at device 2.0 on pci11
ath0: [ITHREAD]
ath0: using obsoleted if_watchdog interface
ath0: Ethernet address: 00:14:a4:60:f2:e3
ath0: mac 5.9 phy 4.3 radio 3.6

Do the following:
Boot up a current kernel WITHOUT 'device ath'
kldload if_ath
Interface continues to report 'authmode WPA1+WPA2/802.11i privacy ON'
and never associates.
/etc/rc.d/wpa_supplicant restart ath0

This fixes it all. I didn't realize that restarting wpa_supplicant
corrected the problem when I sent the initial message.

Because of the way this is working, I failed to get anything from
'wpa_supplicant -d' as any attempt to re-start the supplicant cause
things to work.

I did run wlandebug and I am attaching the output. The supplicant was
restarted at the point where the DHCP client exited.

I see the same behavior when I 'boot -s', 'kldload if_ath' and 'exit'.

Due to an IRQ issue that I have not had time to try to track down, I
can't load it from the loader and I don't want it in my kernel fro a
variety of reasons.

I might also mention that I am also seeing frequent drops in
associations that are working fine, but this has been reported by
others and so this is just a "me, too". But is annoying. I lost it
twice entering this message.
-- 
R. Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer
Energy Sciences Network (ESnet)
Ernest O. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab)
E-mail: oberman_at_es.net			Phone: +1 510 486-8634
Key fingerprint:059B 2DDF 031C 9BA3 14A4  EADA 927D EBB3 987B 3751