Re: realtek 8185

Re: realtek 8185

[Wade Berrier]

Hi Michael,

I'm also copying the linux wireless list...

On 10/17/07, Michael Wu <flamingice@sourmilk.net> wrote:
> On Wednesday 17 October 2007 18:52:28 Wade Berrier wrote:
> > Another thing I'm noticing is that I can't connect to an 802.11b open
> > network with a hidden essid.
> >
> For those, you should specify the channel, and bssid in one iwconfig command,
> and then ssid in another command. Everything needs to be specified for hidden
> networks. Never tried connecting to hidden networks with network manager so I
> dunno if that's suppose to work.

I've been able to connect to this hidden network via network manager.
>From a users experience, I enter in the essid from the "Connect to
other wireless network" dialog, and it connects.  I'm not sure how
networkmanager makes the connection between the essid and the ap.

I did get it working from using your suggested method though:

moby:/etc # iwlist wlan0 scanning
wlan0     Scan completed :
          Cell 02 - Address: 00:02:2D:2E:64:FE
                    ESSID:""
                    Mode:Master
                    Channel:4
                    Frequency:2.427 GHz
                    Signal level=52/65
                    Encryption key:off
                    Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s
                    Extra:tsf=000002ae8691fbab

iwconfig wlan0 ap 00:02:2D:2E:64:FE channel 4
iwconfig wlan0 essid onenet

moby:/home/wberrier # iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

wmaster0  no wireless extensions.

wlan0     IEEE 802.11g  ESSID:"onenet"
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.427 GHz  Access Point: 00:02:2D:2E:64:FE
          Retry min limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr=2346 B
          Encryption key:off
          Link Signal level=42/65
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

wlan0 dhclient

Internet Systems Consortium DHCP Client V3.0.6
Copyright 2004-2007 Internet Systems Consortium.
All rights reserved.
For info, please visit http://www.isc.org/sw/dhcp/

wmaster0: unknown hardware address type 801
wmaster0: unknown hardware address type 801
Listening on LPF/wlan0/00:c0:a8:f4:7e:00
Sending on   LPF/wlan0/00:c0:a8:f4:7e:00
Sending on   Socket/fallback
DHCPREQUEST on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67
DHCPACK from 151.155.11.254
bound to 151.155.10.138 -- renewal in 10908 seconds.

moby:/home/wberrier # ping www.google.com
PING www.l.google.com (72.14.235.104) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from tw-in-f104.google.com (72.14.235.104): icmp_seq=1
ttl=242 time=174 ms


NetworkManager uses wpa_supplicant, even for connecting to networks
without encryption, but I'm not sure why it's not working in this
case.  It actually never sets the essid.

Thanks for your driver and the help,

Wade

Re: realtek 8185

[John W. Linville]

On Thu, Oct 18, 2007 at 11:13:00AM -0600, Wade Berrier wrote:
> On 10/17/07, Michael Wu <flamingice@sourmilk.net> wrote:
> > On Wednesday 17 October 2007 18:52:28 Wade Berrier wrote:
> > > Another thing I'm noticing is that I can't connect to an 802.11b open
> > > network with a hidden essid.
> > >
> > For those, you should specify the channel, and bssid in one iwconfig command,
> > and then ssid in another command. Everything needs to be specified for hidden
> > networks. Never tried connecting to hidden networks with network manager so I
> > dunno if that's suppose to work.
> 
> I've been able to connect to this hidden network via network manager.
> >From a users experience, I enter in the essid from the "Connect to
> other wireless network" dialog, and it connects.  I'm not sure how
> networkmanager makes the connection between the essid and the ap.

If anything, I usually find that I can connect to the hidden networks
using iwconfig but _not_ with NetworkManager.  FWIW, mac80211 will
send probe requests for unknown SSIDs when trying to associate.

Unfortunately, I'm not really sure how this relates to the problem
you are having.  Perhaps probe responses are being lost somehow?

John
-- 
John W. Linville
linville@tuxdriver.com

Re: realtek 8185

[Wade Berrier]

Hi,

On 10/18/07, John W. Linville <linville@tuxdriver.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 18, 2007 at 11:13:00AM -0600, Wade Berrier wrote:
> > On 10/17/07, Michael Wu <flamingice@sourmilk.net> wrote:
> > > On Wednesday 17 October 2007 18:52:28 Wade Berrier wrote:
> > > > Another thing I'm noticing is that I can't connect to an 802.11b open
> > > > network with a hidden essid.
> > > >
> > > For those, you should specify the channel, and bssid in one iwconfig command,
> > > and then ssid in another command. Everything needs to be specified for hidden
> > > networks. Never tried connecting to hidden networks with network manager so I
> > > dunno if that's suppose to work.
> >
> > I've been able to connect to this hidden network via network manager.
> > >From a users experience, I enter in the essid from the "Connect to
> > other wireless network" dialog, and it connects.  I'm not sure how
> > networkmanager makes the connection between the essid and the ap.
>
> If anything, I usually find that I can connect to the hidden networks
> using iwconfig but _not_ with NetworkManager.  FWIW, mac80211 will
> send probe requests for unknown SSIDs when trying to associate.

I can connect to this same network with an intel 2200.  The network
comes up in the networkmanager list, but without and essid.

Is a hidden network the same thing as a network that doesn't broadcast
the essid?

>
> Unfortunately, I'm not really sure how this relates to the problem
> you are having.  Perhaps probe responses are being lost somehow?

I'd assume it was driver related since I can with the intel 2200, but
not with the realtek 8185.  I'm not sure; I guess I'd have to do some
more digging.

Wade

Re: realtek 8185

[Dan Williams]

On Thu, 2007-10-18 at 22:54 -0600, Wade Berrier wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> On 10/18/07, John W. Linville <linville@tuxdriver.com> wrote:
> > On Thu, Oct 18, 2007 at 11:13:00AM -0600, Wade Berrier wrote:
> > > On 10/17/07, Michael Wu <flamingice@sourmilk.net> wrote:
> > > > On Wednesday 17 October 2007 18:52:28 Wade Berrier wrote:
> > > > > Another thing I'm noticing is that I can't connect to an 802.11b open
> > > > > network with a hidden essid.
> > > > >
> > > > For those, you should specify the channel, and bssid in one iwconfig command,
> > > > and then ssid in another command. Everything needs to be specified for hidden
> > > > networks. Never tried connecting to hidden networks with network manager so I
> > > > dunno if that's suppose to work.
> > >
> > > I've been able to connect to this hidden network via network manager.
> > > >From a users experience, I enter in the essid from the "Connect to
> > > other wireless network" dialog, and it connects.  I'm not sure how
> > > networkmanager makes the connection between the essid and the ap.
> >
> > If anything, I usually find that I can connect to the hidden networks
> > using iwconfig but _not_ with NetworkManager.  FWIW, mac80211 will
> > send probe requests for unknown SSIDs when trying to associate.
> 
> I can connect to this same network with an intel 2200.  The network
> comes up in the networkmanager list, but without and essid.
> 
> Is a hidden network the same thing as a network that doesn't broadcast
> the essid?

Yes.

> >
> > Unfortunately, I'm not really sure how this relates to the problem
> > you are having.  Perhaps probe responses are being lost somehow?
> 
> I'd assume it was driver related since I can with the intel 2200, but
> not with the realtek 8185.  I'm not sure; I guess I'd have to do some
> more digging.
> 
> Wade
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Re: realtek 8185

[Dan Williams]

On Thu, 2007-10-18 at 13:41 -0400, John W. Linville wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 18, 2007 at 11:13:00AM -0600, Wade Berrier wrote:
> > On 10/17/07, Michael Wu <flamingice@sourmilk.net> wrote:
> > > On Wednesday 17 October 2007 18:52:28 Wade Berrier wrote:
> > > > Another thing I'm noticing is that I can't connect to an 802.11b open
> > > > network with a hidden essid.
> > > >
> > > For those, you should specify the channel, and bssid in one iwconfig command,
> > > and then ssid in another command. Everything needs to be specified for hidden
> > > networks. Never tried connecting to hidden networks with network manager so I
> > > dunno if that's suppose to work.
> > 
> > I've been able to connect to this hidden network via network manager.
> > >From a users experience, I enter in the essid from the "Connect to
> > other wireless network" dialog, and it connects.  I'm not sure how
> > networkmanager makes the connection between the essid and the ap.
> 
> If anything, I usually find that I can connect to the hidden networks
> using iwconfig but _not_ with NetworkManager.  FWIW, mac80211 will
> send probe requests for unknown SSIDs when trying to associate.

NM always uses wpa_supplicant for connections, so whatever
wpa_supplicant is (not) doing is probably the culprit here.
wpa_supplicant does use IW_SCAN_THIS_ESSID, but only a few drivers
implement that.  I was also not able to consistently connect to a
non-broadcasting AP with plain wpa_supplicant and an ipw2200 (which
AFAIK does support IW_SCAN_THIS_ESSID).

What _should_ be happening here is that, if the SSID doesn't show up in
the scan list that wpa_supplicant has, it will ask the driver to scan
with the specific SSID it wants to connect to using IW_SCAN_THIS_ESSID.
The driver should then send out active probe requests on all channels
for that SSID.  If it gets a result it should notify userspace via
SIOCGIWSCAN events, but with only _one_ event after the entire scan is
complete.  If the SSID was found, wpa_supplicant will get the new scan
result and connect to the previously hidden SSID that is now known to
the driver.

FWIW, Bill Moss reports that disabling hardware scan on iwl3945 (with
the module parameter) lets NM connect to hidden networks with high
success.

Dan

> Unfortunately, I'm not really sure how this relates to the problem
> you are having.  Perhaps probe responses are being lost somehow?
> 
> John