wpa_supplicant needs to be restarted to associate

[B Thomas <thomas.1037@osu.edu>]

Hi,

I have two network blocks in my wpa_supplicant.conf

# Public access networks
   network={
   ssid=""
   key_mgmt=NONE
   priority=0
}

# Office Wireless
network={
   ssid="office"
   scan_ssid=1
   key_mgmt=WPA-EAP
   eap=PEAP
   identity="MyID"
   password="MyPasswod"
   phase1="peaplabel=0"
   phase2="auth=MSCHAPV2"
   priority=2
}

In either case wpa_supplicant does not associate with
the network without some manual tweaking each time after
booting. 

For the Office network I need to restart the
wpa_supplicant daemon (/etc/init.d/wparoamd) even
though it does get started once at boot time and does
load the ipw3945 module and binary daemon. Without
this restart iwconfig shows no associated network. 
After restarting the wireless network is correctly
configured.

In case of the public access network, though iwconfig
shows association with the AP but networking does not
get configured. I need to manually run dhclient for this
to happen (note this is not necessary in the office network).

Here is some information relating to my setup :
----------------------------------------------------------
/etc/networking/interfaces :
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

iface eth0 inet dhcp
	metric 1

iface eth1 inet manual
        wpa-conf /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
        wpa-action /etc/wpa_supplicant/dhclient
	metric 2
-----------------------------------------------------------
/etc/init.d/wparoamd: 
is the same file that comes with wpa_suplicant
in the examples directory but with ENABLE_ROAMING_MODE=1,
CONFIG="/etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf", 
INTERFACE="eth1", and DRIVER="wext"
-----------------------------------------------------------
/etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf:
is the same file that comes with wpa_supplicant in the 
examples directory but with driver_param="associate=1" 
and the above two network blocks.
------------------------------------------------------------
/etc/defaults/ifplugd:
INTERFACES="eth0 eth1"
HOTPLUG_INTERFACES=""
ARGS="-q -f -u0 -d10 -w -I"
SUSPEND_ACTION="stop"
-------------------------------------------------------------
/etc/modprobe.d/ipw3945:
alias eth1 ipw3945
install ipw3945 /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install ipw3945; sleep 0.5 ; /sbin/ipw3945d --quiet
remove ipw3945  /sbin/ipw3945d --kill ; /sbin/modprobe -r --ignore-remove ipw3945
-------------------------------------------------------------
/etc/hotplug/blacklist.d/ipw3945:
ipw3945
-------------------------------------------------------------
Note blacklisting ipw3945 with hotplug is necessary to ensure
that it is loaded only when requested by wpa_supplicant . 
In anycase removing this does not make a difference but makes 
things worse in that now I have to reload the module after bootup.

I am running kernel 2.6.17 patched with ipw3945 version
1.0.5 and ieee802.11 version 1.1.13. My distribution is
Debian/Sarge with wpa_supplicant version 0.54.

I have run out of ideas, on how to make my wireless system
self configure the network. I would be greatful for your
suggestions. It used to work perfectly but stopped after kernel and
ipw3945 upgrade, without change in config.

sincerely
B Thomas