Deauthentication cycles

Deauthentication cycles

[Larry Finger]

In my network using WPA-PSK TKIP with mac80211 and b43, I see several of these cycles per day:

eth1: RX deauthentication from 00:1a:70:46:ba:b1 (reason=7)
eth1: deauthenticated
eth1: authenticate with AP 00:1a:70:46:ba:b1
eth1: RX authentication from 00:1a:70:46:ba:b1 (alg=0 transaction=2 status=0)
eth1: authenticated
eth1: associate with AP 00:1a:70:46:ba:b1
eth1: RX ReassocResp from 00:1a:70:46:ba:b1 (capab=0x431 status=0 aid=1)
eth1: associated
eth1: switched to short barker preamble (BSSID=00:1a:70:46:ba:b1)

In searching through the various 802.11-related header files, the only reason code of 7 that I could
find is

WLAN_REASON_CLASS3_FRAME_FROM_NONASSOC_STA

Is this the correct code? If so, any ideas on why this deauthentication is happening? As can be
seen, it isn't fatal and the system always recovers.

Thanks,

Larry

Re: Deauthentication cycles

[Johannes Berg]

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> WLAN_REASON_CLASS3_FRAME_FROM_NONASSOC_STA
> 
> Is this the correct code? If so, any ideas on why this deauthentication is happening? As can be
> seen, it isn't fatal and the system always recovers.

I think that's correct. I'd guess what happens is that the AP sends you
a disassoc frame but you for some reason miss it, then the AP has you
disassociated. The next time you send a data (class three) frame it
tells you that you're not associated by sending you a deauth and
mac80211 recovers by associating again.

johannes

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Re: Deauthentication cycles

[Michael Wu]

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On Friday 09 November 2007 11:53:52 Larry Finger wrote:
> WLAN_REASON_CLASS3_FRAME_FROM_NONASSOC_STA
>
> Is this the correct code? If so, any ideas on why this deauthentication is
> happening? As can be seen, it isn't fatal and the system always recovers.
>
I think some APs automatically disconnect clients after a period of 
inactivity. After all, clients aren't guaranteed to deauthenticate when 
they're done. Though.. some APs seem to deauthenticate really fast.

-Michael Wu


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