[ath9k-devel] EEE PC with AR9280 using N mode with WPA2

[Luis R. Rodriguez <lrodriguez@atheros.com>]

On Sun, May 17, 2009 at 01:18:15PM -0700, Rob van Rijen wrote:
> Hi guys,
> 
> I have a EEE PC 1000H with a new MiniPCI-E wireless card: SparkLAN WPEA-110N, (AR9280).
> For weeks now I am trying to get it to work with my Linksys WAG160 wireless gateway using WPA2
> Wireless N with WEP works, but is no option for security reasons.

FYI 2.6.27..2.6.28 do not have aggregation enabled in mac80211 so you cannot use
802.11n properly. WPA should have worked on ath9k since 2.6.27 though, so if
it used to work on 2.6.27 and it stopped working on 2.6.29 its a regression
and needs to be fixed.

2.6.29 does have aggregation enabled in the kernel, however that version of
mac80211 and ath9k is still a bit old and I recommend at least 2.6.30-rc
material. More on this below.

> Here some of my settings:
> OpenSuse 11.1, KDE 4.2 with KNetworkmanager, with kernel:
>   Linux linux-e38b 2.6.29-rc8-48-pae #1 SMP 2009-03-20 14:41:33 +0100 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux
> with ath9k that came with this kernel, and I tried it with several of the latest drivers
> downloaded from wireless.kernel.org, over the last couple of weeks up to 17 april.
> 
> I get the following output from dmesg:
> ==============================================================================
> wlan0: direct probe to AP 00:21:29:79:c0:84 try 1
> wlan0 direct probe responded
> wlan0: authenticate with AP 00:21:29:79:c0:84
> wlan0: authenticated
> wlan0: associate with AP 00:21:29:79:c0:84
> wlan0: RX ReassocResp from 00:21:29:79:c0:84 (capab=0x431 status=0 aid=1)
> wlan0: associated
> wlan0: disassociating by local choice (reason=3)

I believe this is disassociating because we choose to leave ourselves.
At least in mac80211 I see we do this when we close our interface
(ip link set dev wlan0 down || ifconfig wlan0 down) but also when
we call (using latest wireless-testing):

ieee80211_ioctl_siwgenie()
ieee80211_ioctl_siwessid()
ieee80211_ioctl_siwap()

Hm, not sure why the supplicant would call this if already associated.
I am not sure if the above is the reason anyway but can you try upgrading
your supplicant?

> wlan0: direct probe to AP 00:21:29:79:c0:84 try 1
> wlan0 direct probe responded
> wlan0: authenticate with AP 00:21:29:79:c0:84
> wlan0: authenticated
> wlan0: associate with AP 00:21:29:79:c0:84
> wlan0: RX AssocResp from 00:21:29:79:c0:84 (capab=0x431 status=0 aid=1)
> wlan0: associated
> wlan0: disassociating by local choice (reason=3)
> ==============================================================================
> 
> This is what I got until I downloaded the driver from 16 may.
> With this driver I can actually connect using WPA2, but than the laptop freezes after a few
> seconds and I can only use the powerbutton to turn off.

Ok lets address this.

> I even tried the latest kernel:
>   Linux linux-e38b 2.6.30-rc5-git1-19-vanilla #1 SMP 2009-05-14 15:08:17 +0200 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux
> with the driver from 16 may, but still the computer freezes completely.
> 
> Ouput from: lsmod | grep ath9k
> ath9k                 236904  0
> mac80211              204596  1 ath9k
> rfkill                 10832  5 ath9k,eeepc_laptop
> led_class               4452  1 ath9k
> ath                     7332  1 ath9k
> cfg80211               75300  3 ath9k,mac80211,ath
> 
> Do you have any idea? Thanks in advance.

Can you please try 2.6.30-rc6. rc5 to rc6 shouldn't give you any changes
though, there was just a fix for minstrel in rc6 but ath9k doesn't use it.

If your computer is freezing please enable the NMI watchdog and see if
you can catch a trace. To enable that boot with this option added:

nmi_watchdog=1

Ensure its working by cat'ing /proc/interrupts and seeing if NMI interrupts
move.

You can add that to your /boot/grub/menu.lst file, on the kernel line.
For more information please read Documentation/nmi_watchdog.txt.

I recommend to also enable netconsole and set up a console server on a
another host. For netconsole use a separate subnet on ethernet. Here are
some quick steps to help you, mind you I have CONFIG_NETCONSOLE=m in my
kernel.

On the box that hangs write a script, call it say, netconsole:

mcgrof at crashing ~ $ cat bin/netconsole 
#!/bin/bash
IP=192.168.3.1
sudo dmesg -n 8
sudo modprobe netconsole netconsole=@/eth0,6666@${IP}/

Then on the console server box:

mcgrof at console-server ~ $ cat bin/netlog 
#!/bin/bash
echo "You should now run in another window: tail -f $HOME/log"
while true; do
        /bin/nc -u -l -p 6666 | tee -a $HOME/log
done

  Luis