Re: [PATCH] wifi: mac80211: defer AP-side FT key upload until association

[James Prestwood <prestwoj@gmail.com>]

Hi Andrea,

On 7/30/26 9:14 AM, andcov23@gmail.com wrote:
> From: Andrea Covelli <andcov23@gmail.com>
>
> During an AP-side Fast Transition, hostapd may install the PTK after
> creating a station entry but before marking it associated. The ASSOC gate
> in ieee80211_add_key() rejects the request with -ENOENT, producing:
>
>    nl80211: kernel reports: key addition failed
>
> Userspace may retry after association, but this race can instead break
> the roam, particularly with PMF.

How does this present itself on the station when this happens? I'm 
curious because over the years I've seen strange behavior from basically 
all vendors of access points like:

- Mysterious association timeouts despite good RSSI/utilization.
- Denied FT associations with reason code 53
- Successful FT roams immediately followed by a deauth with reason code 
6, 7, or 9.

I know the above could be from any host of issues, but I'm mostly 
curious what the client sees with this specific FT key upload failure.

Thanks,

James