[Date Prev][Date Next] [Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Re: problems with deXlan (Intersil) wifi pcmcia card



Paolo wrote:

On Wed, Nov 05, 2008 at 01:02:05PM +0100, Bernard wrote:
...
pcmcia wifi card in its slot. So, I don't really know how to get away with the hostap module, unless I perform a 'apt-get remove hostap' but then it might lead me into unexpected problems. In any case, in my

no problems, unless you want your machine to act like an AP.
Removing the pkg is the simplest way to get rid of it, else check pkg's
docs to learn how to configure/disable it.

wpa-driver wext

check 'wpa_supplicant --help' for drivers wpa_supp understands; however,
wext should be the safe choice on recente kernels.

wifi0: unknown hardware address type 801

no news here, remove/disable hostap.

I have somewhat moved forward... I mean that I have read quite a bit of doc here and there, and I know a little more about wifi. However, nothing works still, and I now wonder if I can get this to work.

If I am not mistaking, the reason why I can't wirelessly connect to my DSL box is that I don't provide the appropriate password : the pasword that I send is a wpa pasword, and hostap does not support wpa as is ; it may support wpa when associated with wpa_supplicant with an appropriate config file, AND a running daemon 'hostapd'. Besides my DSL box, I don't have any other network that I could test and try to connect to : I can see three other networks that appear during scanning, but they are also encrypted. I could try to change the settings of my DSL box so as to set it for WEP paswords, but I am not keen to do that, even for a test : I bet it would work, but then it is not my purpose to have that DSL box WEP encrypted. I intend to be able to occasionnally connect to WEP encrypted Access Points when travelling, but none of that at home. In any case, if I can't connect my laptop to my DSL box at home using WPA encryption, my pcmcia wifi card will be of no use, except maybe 5 or 6 times a year during travels.

According to what I have read, the 'orinoco' driver that is supposed to also work for my 'intersil prism2' pcmcia card, does not support WPA. Before I learnt that, I did try to remove 'hostap'. I tried several times, with no success. I have removed the 'hostap-utils' packages (apt-get remove hostap-utils). This removal seemed to have worked all right. But then, once the pcmcia card was introduced into its slot, the hostpad and hostpad_cs modules came back into action, with exactly the same results as previously. I believe that the internal firmware of the wifi card does download a few hostap files onto my system. Still, the latter said, whenever queryed, that the 'hostap-utils' package was not installed. Then I thought that I had better install it properly again, and see if that made a difference : the package got newly installed all right, but there was no difference in the behaviour of my pcmcia wifi card. As soon as you introduce that card in its slot, dmesg and other reports tell you that hostpad driver has been started, whether or not the debian package is installed. Later on, I realized that I could have tried to change files in /etc/pcmcia/ : config, config.opts, hostap_cs.conf, so as to bind my intersil card to orinoco, but, by then, I had realized that in any case this was not wpa compatible, so I didn't bother.

So, now, I have read some more doc about wpa_supplicant. I have written an /etc/wpa_supplicant.config file, a very simple one for a test :

begin copy/paste
**************************************

ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant

### Example of basic WPA-PSK secured AP
network={
   	ssid="Livebox-46db"
	key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
       proto=WPA
       pairwise=TKIP
       group=TKIP	
   	psk="7799****************73**ad"
}

### Associate with any open access point
###  Scans/ESSID changes can be done with wpa_cli
network={
       key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
}
**********************************************

end copy/paste

From there on, I tried a wpa_supplicant command as suggested in one of the readme files or man pages so as to test the system and debug :

#wpa_supplicant -iwlan0 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -d

Here is what I got. At first, a copy/paste of what bears the most important information : Driver does not support WPA !

SIOCGIWRANGE: WE(compiled)=20 WE(source)=18 enc_capa=0xf
 capabilities: key_mgmt 0xf enc 0xf
Added alternative ifindex 5 (wifi0) for wireless events
WEXT: Operstate: linkmode=1, operstate=5
Added alternative ifindex 5 (wifi0) for wireless events
Own MAC address: 00:02:6f:05:f4:41
wpa_driver_hostap_set_wpa: enabled=1
IOCTL[PRISM2_IOCTL_PRISM2_PARAM]: Operation not supported
Driver does not support WPA.


then the whole of it :

begin copy/paste
********************************

Initializing interface 'wlan0' conf '/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf' driver 'default' ctrl_interface 'N/A' bridge 'N/A'
Configuration file '/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf' -> '/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf'
Reading configuration file '/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf'
ctrl_interface='/var/run/wpa_supplicant'
Priority group 0
  id=0 ssid='Livebox-46db'
  id=1 ssid=''
Initializing interface (2) 'wlan0'
EAPOL: SUPP_PAE entering state DISCONNECTED
EAPOL: KEY_RX entering state NO_KEY_RECEIVE
EAPOL: SUPP_BE entering state INITIALIZE
EAP: EAP entering state DISABLED
EAPOL: External notification - portEnabled=0
EAPOL: External notification - portValid=0
SIOCGIWRANGE: WE(compiled)=20 WE(source)=18 enc_capa=0xf
 capabilities: key_mgmt 0xf enc 0xf
Added alternative ifindex 5 (wifi0) for wireless events
WEXT: Operstate: linkmode=1, operstate=5
Added alternative ifindex 5 (wifi0) for wireless events
Own MAC address: 00:02:6f:05:f4:41
wpa_driver_hostap_set_wpa: enabled=1
IOCTL[PRISM2_IOCTL_PRISM2_PARAM]: Operation not supported
Driver does not support WPA.
wpa_driver_hostap_set_key: alg=none key_idx=0 set_tx=0 seq_len=0 key_len=0
wpa_driver_hostap_set_key: alg=none key_idx=1 set_tx=0 seq_len=0 key_len=0
wpa_driver_hostap_set_key: alg=none key_idx=2 set_tx=0 seq_len=0 key_len=0
wpa_driver_hostap_set_key: alg=none key_idx=3 set_tx=0 seq_len=0 key_len=0
wpa_driver_hostap_set_countermeasures: enabled=0
wpa_driver_hostap_set_drop_unencrypted: enabled=1
Setting scan request: 0 sec 100000 usec
Added interface wlan0
RTM_NEWLINK: operstate=0 ifi_flags=0x1002 ()
Wireless event: cmd=0x8b06 len=8
RTM_NEWLINK: operstate=0 ifi_flags=0x1003 ([UP])
RTM_NEWLINK, IFLA_IFNAME: Interface 'wifi0' added
RTM_NEWLINK: operstate=0 ifi_flags=0x1003 ([UP])
RTM_NEWLINK, IFLA_IFNAME: Interface 'wlan0' added
RTM_NEWLINK: operstate=0 ifi_flags=0x1003 ([UP])
RTM_NEWLINK, IFLA_IFNAME: Interface 'wlan0' added
State: DISCONNECTED -> SCANNING
Starting AP scan (broadcast SSID)
Trying to get current scan results first without requesting a new scan to speed up initial association
Received 332 bytes of scan results (2 BSSes)
Scan results: 2
Selecting BSS from priority group 0
0: 00:90:4b:c3:7d:42 ssid='Livebox-46db' wpa_ie_len=0 rsn_ie_len=0 caps=0x11
  skip - no WPA/RSN IE
1: 00:16:41:65:93:51 ssid='Alice-c685' wpa_ie_len=0 rsn_ie_len=0 caps=0x11
  skip - no WPA/RSN IE
No suitable AP found.
Setting scan request: 0 sec 0 usec
Starting AP scan (broadcast SSID)
RTM_NEWLINK: operstate=0 ifi_flags=0x1003 ([UP])
Wireless event: cmd=0x8b19 len=8
Received 332 bytes of scan results (2 BSSes)
Scan results: 2
Selecting BSS from priority group 0
0: 00:90:4b:c3:7d:42 ssid='Livebox-46db' wpa_ie_len=0 rsn_ie_len=0 caps=0x11
  skip - no WPA/RSN IE
1: 00:16:41:65:93:51 ssid='Alice-c685' wpa_ie_len=0 rsn_ie_len=0 caps=0x11
  skip - no WPA/RSN IE
No suitable AP found.
Setting scan request: 5 sec 0 usec
Starting AP scan (broadcast SSID)
RTM_NEWLINK: operstate=0 ifi_flags=0x1003 ([UP])
Wireless event: cmd=0x8b19 len=8
Received 332 bytes of scan results (2 BSSes)
Scan results: 2
Selecting BSS from priority group 0
0: 00:90:4b:c3:7d:42 ssid='Livebox-46db' wpa_ie_len=0 rsn_ie_len=0 caps=0x11
  skip - no WPA/RSN IE
1: 00:16:41:65:93:51 ssid='Alice-c685' wpa_ie_len=0 rsn_ie_len=0 caps=0x11
  skip - no WPA/RSN IE
No suitable AP found.
Setting scan request: 5 sec 0 usec
Starting AP scan (broadcast SSID)
RTM_NEWLINK: operstate=0 ifi_flags=0x1003 ([UP])
Wireless event: cmd=0x8b19 len=8
Received 332 bytes of scan results (2 BSSes)
Scan results: 2
Selecting BSS from priority group 0
0: 00:90:4b:c3:7d:42 ssid='Livebox-46db' wpa_ie_len=0 rsn_ie_len=0 caps=0x11
  skip - no WPA/RSN IE
1: 00:16:41:65:93:51 ssid='Alice-c685' wpa_ie_len=0 rsn_ie_len=0 caps=0x11
  skip - no WPA/RSN IE
No suitable AP found.
Setting scan request: 5 sec 0 usec
CTRL-EVENT-TERMINATING - signal 2 received
Removing interface wlan0
State: SCANNING -> DISCONNECTED
wpa_driver_wext_set_operstate: operstate 0->0 (DORMANT)
WEXT: Operstate: linkmode=-1, operstate=5
No keys have been configured - skip key clearing
EAPOL: External notification - portEnabled=0
EAPOL: External notification - portValid=0
wpa_driver_hostap_set_wpa: enabled=0
Failed to disable WPA in the driver.
wpa_driver_hostap_set_drop_unencrypted: enabled=0
wpa_driver_hostap_set_countermeasures: enabled=0
No keys have been configured - skip key clearing
WEXT: Operstate: linkmode=0, operstate=6
cancelling scan request

********************************
end copy/paste

I must point out that, in any case, the conditions for the support of wpa encryption were not met : it is being said that you need, on top of the hostap_cs driver, a running daemon 'hostapd'. Even though I have installed and configured that daemon using debian packages, I can't launch it, even though I have done many trials fiddling with the daemon config file

#'/usr/sbin/hostapd /etc/hostapd.conf' tells me the following :

ioctl(SIOCGIFINDEX): No such device
hostap driver initialisation failed
rmdir[ctrl_interface]: no such file or directory

My hostapd.conf does not contain much, I left the minimum in it for a start:

interface=wlan0
debug=3
dump file=/tmp/hostapd.dump (nothing in it)
ctrl_interface=/var/run/hostapd
ssid=Livebox46db
.....

if, in the config file, I don't disable 'passive scanning', I get this reply: "Could not set passive scanning. Unknown error 4294967295"

So, 'hostapd' is not running, which could be a good reason why I can't connect to my network (DSL box/router). There may also be another reason : in the doc written by the author of hostap, I have picked this :

"Station firmware version needs to be 1.7.0 or newer to work in WPA mode"

I suppose that the so called 'station firmware', or 'STA firmware', is the peace of software that is inside the pcmcia card... ? How am I to know which version it is ? There is nothing written on it for that matter.

Thanks in advance for some more help

Bernard


Reply to: