Re: [PATCH] mac80211: fix races between siwessid and siwencode

[Helge Hafting <helgehaf@mail.aitel.hist.no>]

Dan Williams wrote:
>> I am not sure what you mean by the question.
>> This network uses WEP encryption (some users have older wireless equipment)
>> there is one essid and a single shared password that everybody uses.
>> Security is not that important, this is mostly to keep out outside bandwith
>> wasters/pirates.
>>     
>
> WEP has two authentication modes, "Shared Key" and "Open System".  He
> wants to know which method your access point is using.  During
> authentication, Open System is a simple two-frame request/response.  For
> Shared Key, there's an additional challenge/response where the AP sends
> a block of data, the client encrypts it with the WEP key, and sends it
> back to the AP where it's verified.  Only if it verifies does the AP
> complete association with the client.
>   
Well, how can I know? The access point at home is set to support
WEP and WPA, and of course I can specify the key. There doesn't
seem to be much more than that. I have no control over the
access points at work, although I could ask the people involved.

> You need to ensure that the mode matches between clients and the AP.
> Some APs have an "Auto" option that just accepts both methods from the
> client.
>   
I have to ensure this? I thought this was a driver-internal thing, I 
have not
seen any mention of this in wireless documentation before.
'man iwconfig' doesn't seem to mention this, and it used to be sufficient
to get a connection before.

If this is debug stuff, please tell how I can get the information. I can
add debugging options to the kernel command line if need be. (The driver
is compiled-in, modules tend to cause bootup delays.)

I tried to sniff wlan0 with wireshark. I did not get anything there until
after the association completed. Then I got normal stuff like dhcp
and other traffic. So I don't have any sniff of the association itself.
Is there some special options for enabling this, or do I need a 
different tool?

The siwencode/siwessid patch has helped a lot. The machine sometimes
succeed to connect at first try (during bootup) and almost
always at the second try.  The driver is not perfect yet, but it improved
a _lot_ for me.  Thanks - and I hope this gets into the next regular 
linux kernel. :-)

Another problem is that going out of range for an hour means I have to
do something to get a net connection again. This does not seem to
happen automatic, although I have not yet checked if it merely is
a dhcp timeout problem.

Helge Hafting