Re: ath5k: problems during the connection to a sitecom AP

[Fabio Rossi <rossi.f@inwind.it>]

On Friday 21 November 2008, Bob Copeland wrote:

> On Wed, Nov 19, 2008 at 5:15 PM, Fabio Rossi <rossi.f@inwind.it> wrote:
> > I've attached a kernel log of what's happening and a commands log with
> > time references. I hope it's useful, tell me if you need other data.
>
> Ok, well at least we know we see beacons from the AP in question.
> Other than that, it doesn't help a whole lot, as all the log captured
> was beacons from various APs.  Can you try again without the 'trace'
> option?  Also if you turn on CONFIG_MAC80211_VERBOSE_DEBUG then we
> can see the probe requests etc.

CONFIG_MAC80211_VERBOSE_DEBUG was already set in the previous log (I 
used "echo -n "all" > /debug/ath5k/phy1/debug"). The problem is that there 
are no direct probe requests, the card doesn't transmit at all (there are no 
TX dumps).

I have compared the logs with the two access points (both are configured in 
the same way, no SSID broadcast, WEP and 802.11b&g mode). With the 3com AP at 
a certain point I see the following lines (with TX and RX dumps not reported 
here):

kernel: ath0: direct probe to AP 00:0d:54:fb:55:33 try 1
kernel: ath0 direct probe responded
kernel: ath0: authenticate with AP 00:0d:54:fb:55:33
kernel: ath0: authenticated
kernel: ath0: associate with AP 00:0d:54:fb:55:33
kernel: ath0: RX AssocResp from 00:0d:54:fb:55:33 (capab=0x431 status=0 aid=5)
kernel: ath0: associated
kernel: phy14: Allocated STA 00:0d:54:fb:55:33
kernel: phy14: Inserted STA 00:0d:54:fb:55:33

while with the Sitecom AP I see nothing similar.

I have also tried a PCMCIA card which uses the rtl8180 driver. The result is 
the same, I can associate to the 3com AP but not to the Sitecom one.

I'm suspecting that it's not an ath5k driver issue but an higher level issue 
in the mac80211 framework.

When I do a scan after having loaded the driver, the iwlist can't report the 
SSID because it's hidden. I don't know if this is a problem but I have 
noticed that the reported SSIDs of the two APs are a little bit different. 
With the 3com AP (the working one) I get ESSID:" " (1 char blank 
string) while with the Sitecom AP ESSID:"" (0 chars empty string).

> If you do have another wireless card, that would still be better.  You
> can use it like this:
>
>    # ifconfig wlan1 down
>    # iwconfig wlan1 mode monitor
>    # ifconfig wlan1 up
>    # tcpdump -s 1000 -w assoc.cap -i wlan1
>
> Then you can load assoc.cap into wireshark (you can capture from inside
> wireshark too if you prefer).

Now I'm able to use a second additional PCMCIA wireless card in RFmon mode. 
The capturing confirms that there is no network traffic generated by the 
ath5k wireless card during the authentication & association with the Sitecom 
AP (no packets with the source MAC address of the wireless card).

Regards,
Fabio