Re: Problem preseeding wifi password
On Wed, Nov 10, 2021 at 12:13 PM Geert Stappers <stappers@stappers.nl> wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 10, 2021 at 11:27:37AM -0800, VDRU VDRU wrote:
> > On Wed, Nov 10, 2021 at 10:59 AM Steve McIntyre <steve@einval.com> wrote:
> > > On Wed, Nov 10, 2021 at 10:07:41AM -0800, VDRU VDRU wrote:
> > > >Hi.
> > > >
> > > >Using the Debian testing net installer iso. I have a wifi password
> > > >that is 60 chars long that contains underscores. When I preseed it
> > > >with "d-i netcfg/wireless_wpa <password>", the installer spits out an
> > > >error that the password is either too long (>64 chars) or too short
> > > >(<8 chars). Neither is true and if I enter it manually instead of
> > > >preseeding it, there's no problem. I have tried preseeding the
> > > >password with and without quotes around it with no success. The only
> > > >thing that comes to mind is maybe the underscores (or special chars in
> > > >general) are not handled correctly by the installer..? I'm not sure a
> > > >bug report is warranted just yet so I'm hoping to get feedback on the
> > > >above before going that route.
> > >
> > > Hmmm, that's odd. I have to ask - does your long password contain
> > > quotes (' or ") or $ symbols? Although the netcfg code here is in C,
> > > it may end up using backend interfaces that might be confused by those
> > > special characters. I have not tested this locally, but that would be
> > > my immediate suspicion based on what you're describing...
> > >
> > Hi, thanks for your reply! No, there are no single/double-quotes,
> > apostrophes, or dollar signs. The password contains a-z, A-Z, 0-9, and
> > _ only.
> >
> > Another thing I noticed but didn't mention is that in the ssid list,
> > it splits the ssid into two entries in the menu. There's a "," in the
> > ssid name and that's where the split occurs. No "," is shown in either
> > menu entry. Maybe the ssid list is comma-separated rather than using a
> > character that can't or is less likely to appear in a ssid? This seems
> > to just be a cosmetic issue but could confuse users as to which entry
> > to select in cases like that. Since my primary problem is the password
> > preseeding and unrelated to this, I didn't mention it before.
>
> And is (temporary) removing the , from the SSID tested?
Ok, I managed to make some time to do some wifi testing, much to my
family's disgust. :)
Regarding preseeding the wifi password, I tried in this order:
- removing the underscores from the password
- cutting the password from 60 to 33 chars (alphanumeric only)
- cutting the password down to 32 chars (alphanumeric only)
- cutting the password down to 8 chars (alphanumeric only)
- removing the "," from the ssid
- trying a ssid consisting of 11 lowercase chars only
- changed router security from "WPA2 - Personal" to "WPA/WPA2 - Personal"
- changed router encryption from AES to AES/TKIP
None of these worked. Preseeding the password failed in all cases,
even with a simple alphanumeric-only ssid and password.
Regarding an ssid with a "," in it creating two menu entries:
If there ssid is "heres a, test ssid", it will result in a menu that looks like:
heres a
test ssid
If I select either entry and enter the password, it fails. If I
manually enter "heres a, test ssid" and then enter the password, it
works fine. If I removed the "," so the ssid is "heres a test ssid",
selecting the single "heres a test ssid" entry works fine.
So, to summarize... Using an ssid with a comma in it causes the
installer to split the ssid into multiple menu entries at the comma,
but manually entering a ssid with a comma works fine. And, preseeding
just a wpa password fails in all cases.
Another discovery I made is that the wifi device wants nonfree
firmware "rtlwifi/rtl8192cufw.bin". If I copy
"rtlwifi/rtl8192cufw.bin" to the root dir of the usb stick, the
installer fails to find it when I select yes. If I unplug the usb
stick and connect it in a different usb port and select yes again, the
installer finds it but sometimes takes a few tries. Maybe it's a good
idea to have the installer automatically check the root dir of the usb
it booted from for any missing firmware before asking the user for it?
And the last thing I'll mention is the font used in the graphical
installer isn't great when it comes to entering passwords. I found
that at least the "I" (capital i) and "l" (lowercase L) look
identical. That makes it a pain to verify a password was entered
correctly.
Thanks for checking this stuff!
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