wpa_supplicant does not connect to my access point

[caste]

Hi there,

I have an Intel 3945ABG wireless card, the driver is installed and working, the problem arrives when I encrypt my wlan using WPA.

According to the log (see below) it seems I'm having problems with the wext driver, any ideas? has anybody dealt with the same problem?

My system is FC6.

Thanks!!

Caste

Here is the output of iwlist eth0 scanning:


eth0 Scan completed :
Cell 01 - Address: 00:04:0E:61:B5:1F
ESSID:"tatooine"
Protocol:IEEE 802.11bg
Mode:Master
Channel:6
Encryption key:on
Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 6 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s
11 Mb/s; 12 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s; 22 Mb/s; 24 Mb/s
36 Mb/s; 48 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s
Quality=62/100 Signal level=-70 dBm Noise level=-70 dBm
IE: WPA Version 1
Group Cipher : TKIP
Pairwise Ciphers (1) : TKIP
Authentication Suites (1) : PSK
Extra: Last beacon: 304ms ago



And here is the debug information coming from wpa_supplicant


Initializing interface 'eth0' conf '/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf' driver 'wext' ctrl_interface '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'
ctrl_interface_group=0 (from group name 'root')
Priority group 0
id=0 ssid='tatooine'
Initializing interface (2) 'eth0'
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
Could not configure driver to use managed mode
Own MAC address: 00:18:de:30:d3:97
wpa_driver_wext_set_wpa
Driver does not support WPA.
wpa_driver_wext_set_key: alg=0 key_idx=0 set_tx=0 seq_len=0 key_len=0
Driver did not support SIOCSIWENCODEEXT
wpa_driver_wext_set_key: alg=0 key_idx=1 set_tx=0 seq_len=0 key_len=0
Driver did not support SIOCSIWENCODEEXT
wpa_driver_wext_set_key: alg=0 key_idx=2 set_tx=0 seq_len=0 key_len=0
Driver did not support SIOCSIWENCODEEXT
wpa_driver_wext_set_key: alg=0 key_idx=3 set_tx=0 seq_len=0 key_len=0
Driver did not support SIOCSIWENCODEEXT
wpa_driver_wext_set_countermeasures
wpa_driver_wext_set_drop_unencrypted
Setting scan request: 0 sec 100000 usec
Added interface eth0
RTM_NEWLINK, IFLA_IFNAME: Interface 'eth0' added
RTM_NEWLINK, IFLA_IFNAME: Interface 'eth0' added
State: DISCONNECTED -> SCANNING
Starting AP scan (broadcast SSID)
Failed to initiate AP scan.
Setting scan request: 10 sec 0 usec
Scan timeout - try to get results
Scan results: -1
Failed to get scan results
Failed to get scan results - try scanning again
Setting scan request: 1 sec 0 usec
Starting AP scan (broadcast SSID)
Scan timeout - try to get results
Scan results: -1
Failed to get scan results
Failed to get scan results - try scanning again
Setting scan request: 1 sec 0 usec
Starting AP scan (broadcast SSID)
Scan timeout - try to get results
IWEVGENIE overflow
Received 264 bytes of scan results (1 BSSes)
Scan results: 1
Selecting BSS from priority group 0
0: 00:04:0e:61:b5:1f ssid='' wpa_ie_len=0 rsn_ie_len=0 caps=0x1
skip - no WPA/RSN IE
No suitable AP found.

[JonC]

sorry, can't really help. All i can say is that i was having trouble with the wife's laptop, so i commented out the driver line and now it works much better.

[stevea]

Hmmm - it works for me. All I can suggest is that you review the settings on "tatooine" and make sure that the setings aren't excluding your laptop, and checkit's logs.

Also use the NetworkManager and pull up it's "New Connection settings and verify that the security settings are exactly right. 802.11 authentication is unforgiving.

[DamianS]

wpa_supplicant is completely unneccessary - you only need NetworkManager which will handle the WPA/WPA2/WEP authentication for you.

[Iron_Mike]

wpa_supplicant is completely unneccessary - you only need NetworkManager which will handle the WPA/WPA2/WEP authentication for you.


Not quite entirely correct, if you are using Gnome then "Yes" NM will handle WEP/WPA/WPA2 passphrases. KDE still relies on wpa_supplicant since it uses kwifimanager, wlassistant which hasn't progressed as far as NM. EAP/PEAP will still require wpa_supplicant no matter which way the wind blows.....

[DamianS]

In that case, if using KDE, knetworkmanager is available.
Problem solved! :p

[caste]

Hi Guys!

Thanks for your answers...

JonC:

I'm really jealous not because your connection works, but because you have one of the few wifes able to run a linux machine!!! ;-) I've got dual boot, FC6 by default ,and my girlfriend gets mad every time she miss the OS selection screen.

Regarding your comments, which file did you comment??


Stevea:

When I boot windows it works, so I guess that this issue about excluding it is not possible.


DamianS:

Thanks, will try Knetworkmanager.


Caste

[caste]

Hi again, I've been trying your suggestion and I run on the following problems:

1.- I've realized that even when unprotecting the wlan I might have problems to connect to it, if the signal according to "iwlist eth0 scanning" is less than 62/100 when typing ifup eth0 i got a Can't connect error.
However when booting windows and connecting, I have no problems even in the areas of the house where the connection quality is lower than 62/100 (linux).
It's possible to find a solution to this problem? is the sensitivity level configurable?

2.- I've tried knetworkmanager, when I start it it appears the icon on my taskbar, but when clicking on it I see "Network manager is not running".


Thanks,
Caste

[Iron_Mike]

Hi again, I've been trying your suggestion and I run on the following problems:

1.- I've realized that even when unprotecting the wlan I might have problems to connect to it, if the signal according to "iwlist eth0 scanning" is less than 62/100 when typing ifup eth0 i got a Can't connect error.
However when booting windows and connecting, I have no problems even in the areas of the house where the connection quality is lower than 62/100 (linux).
It's possible to find a solution to this problem? is the sensitivity level configurable?

2.- I've tried knetworkmanager, when I start it it appears the icon on my taskbar, but when clicking on it I see "Network manager is not running".


Thanks,
Caste


Is that a typo? "ifup eth0" usually eth0 is your ethernet. Try this, reboot the computer, open a terminal window and change to root with su - and type:

wpa_supplicant -dwext -ieth1 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf -dd

Post the results, If it connects and stays connected, open another terminal window and change to root and type:

ifup eth1

If it connects, try tp open a browser window.....

[caste]

Hi Iron Mike,

Is that a typo? "ifup eth0" usually eth0 is your ethernet. .


No it's not a typo, actually that's a second problem I want to solve, I'd really like to set the wire less interface as wlan0, however in my /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ I only have ifcfg-eth0, and is useless if I create a ifcfg-wlan0 with the same settings as ifcfg-eth0 and type "service network restart". I don't have an ethernet cable available, I've to connect by wireless. Is it possible to set my wireless interface as wlan0, and leave eth0 for the network port even if it's unused? how?

By the way I managed to connect, and I've identified the problem, the signal is not strong enough, under linux, in order to connect I need at least an output from iwlist scanning of 80/100 (regarding signal quality). What stuns me is that using windows I'm able to connect to the wlan even with signal qualities of 40/100, why not with linux???
Should I touch some parameter on the Intel 3945 device driver??

Some debugging information and some config files follow:

The debug information of wpa_supplicant is too long to be posted here, but I can send the email to you mailbox.

wpa_supplicant.conf:


ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant
ctrl_interface_group=root

network={
ssid="tatooine"
key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
psk="**removed**"
}






iwlist eth0 scanning output:



eth0 Scan completed :
Cell 01 - Address: 00:04:0E:61:B5:1F
ESSID:"tatooine"
Protocol:IEEE 802.11bg
Mode:Master
Channel:6
Encryption key:on
Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 6 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s
11 Mb/s; 12 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s; 22 Mb/s; 24 Mb/s
36 Mb/s; 48 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s
Quality=62/100 Signal level=-70 dBm Noise level=-70 dBm
IE: WPA Version 1
Group Cipher : TKIP
Pairwise Ciphers (1) : TKIP
Authentication Suites (1) : PSK
Extra: Last beacon: 304ms ago



ifcfg-eth0:



DEVICE=eth0
USERCTL=yes
ONBOOT=yes
BOOTPROTO=dhcp

TYPE=Wireless
MODE=Managed
ESSID=tatooine
RATE=54Mb/s



Thanks,
Caste

[Iron_Mike]

Go to your system ->administration ->network, gui and select your wireless, and hit edit. I think under the devices tab, there is a drop down window that will allow you rename your connection. Just remember to delete the old one when you do or you will have a conflict.

It should connect down around at least 40/100, have you tried removing the drivers and re-installing, maybe something got borked during the install.....

There is also an issues with "eth0" being randomly assign a device name of:

_tmp7474936yr42 or _dev9825866

or such. A fix is to create and file in the /etc directory called:

iftab

and should contain

eth0 mac 00:0D:60:B2:19:9D <-this is your mac address

[caste]

Hi Iron Mike,

Thanks for your answer, but even recompiling the driver I find the same problem, right now I have unprotected the net temporarily to avoid as maximum problem sources as possible.

Checking the documentation I've found that perhaps there's a problem between my AP and the card due to and old firmware on the AP not able to manage with PSP (Power safe protocol), however under windows it works... and trying to get whether it is enabled or not I typed "iwpriv get mode", however instead of retrieving the expected output I get:
"no private ioctls"

Does this message tell something to you?

I've also tried to set the Tx power to the maximum allowed using iwconfig power XX, the maximum accepted by the card was 14dbM, it didn't work.

I've also tried to change the "RATE" param in ifcfg-eth0 to different rates and deleted it with no success.

I've just written to the driver's developers to get some support, though I don't have too much hope to be honest ;-)

I came to another idea, do you know if could be possible to use the Buffalo Turbo G router as repeater?? to make the signal stronger close to my normal laptop position?

Thanks,
Caste

[Iron_Mike]

Are you trying to put the card into "Monitor Mode" ??? The first error will do that. For the "RATE" issue, edit your ifcfg-eth0 file change it to read this:

RATE=Auto

Notice the Caps, it has to be exactly like above. One other option to add to your ifcfg-eth0 is to set your card as "master"

MODE=Auto

Also you can try "Master"

Does the Buffalo have a repeater mode, like a wireless access point.

[caste]

I don't really know what's the monitor mode...

In my ifcfg I have MODE=Managed.

I guess if these configuration issues may have related to the signal quality, the RATE issue could be, but considering that I'm able to connect when the signal has a quality of 80/100 I suppose that MODE should be properly set, however I guess it can be better to set it to "Auto" as you suggest.

Do you know about any good tutorial about MODES and their functions??

I think that the problem might be related to some driver tunning, I've found in ipw3945.sourceforge.net some specific rpm's for FC6, however one of the required packages is a 16Mb /boot/vmlinuz rpm, it provides mainly drivers not only for my card but for a lot of other devices. I haven't installed it coz I don't have previous experience with such kernel image packages and I'm a bit worried about breaking down my system. Do you know if it is safe to do so? I mean if something gets down may I just uninstall with rpm -e like any other rpm package?

Anyway, thanks for your help
Caste

[caste]

Hi!
At last I've managed to make my intel 3945 working.

Iron Mike:
You were right, I'm able to connect even with low qualities. After struggling quite a lot with the problem I came out with the idea to check /var/log/messages, and I realized that when the card tried to connect the dhcp client was busy giving an error back.
I think that my ifcfg file was set ONBOOT=yes and therefore the driver launched a dhcp client process, but the regulatory daemon ipw3945d wasn't starting at boot time and I guess that the DHCP process was not able to get the IP but kept on trying to stablish connection every certain time. After loading the ipw3945d by hand and typing "ifup ethX", the driver tried to launch another DHCP process, both processes worked against each other resulting in connection problems. I guess that when I was close to the WIFI AP, the negotiation would be faster for one of the processes, so an IP could be obtained by one process before the other one tried again.
That might explain also why even getting close to the source I had connection cuts.

After connecting I did yum update, and the kernel update has overriden my set up, so I decided to use the rpm's from freshrpm. Here is a summary of what I did, following partially Duli's instructions (steps 2, 3, 4 and 5): http://www.fedor....?t=148278 (http://www.fedoraforum.org/forum/showthread.php?t=148278)
And after rebooting it worked.

My laptop is an ASUS Z92J

By the way ,I've added the freshrpms repo to my yum.repos.d adding the file freshrpms.repo


[freshrpms]
name=Fedora Linux $releasever - $basearch - freshrpms
baseurl=http://ayo.freshrpms.net/fedora/linux/$releasever/$basearch/freshrpms
includepkgs=*ipw3945*


The other problem that I had, I wanted the wlan to be eth1 instead of eth0, was coz my ethernet card:
Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet
was not supported by FC6, after downloading and installing the drivers from Realtek I was able to set the wifi card as eth1.

Thanks for your help!
Caste

[Iron_Mike]

Good to see that you have it working. since you mentioned FreshRPMS do a quick search here for "repo conflicts" There are some issues with the mixing and matching of repos....