Problems and [possibly] bugs with WDS

[Ricardo Galli]

Hi Jouni,
	last days I've playing with WDS and bridging (with 2002-10 estable version) on several computers. 
I followed your examples in README.Prism2. Find the report below.

CONFIGURATION OF BOTH APs

AP-A: ----------------------------------------------------
ponti:~# iwconfig
wlan0     IEEE 802.11-b  ESSID:"Antoli"
          Mode:Master  Frequency:2.437GHz  Access Point: 00:50:C2:01:96:14
          Bit Rate:2Mb/s   Tx-Power:7 dBm   Sensitivity=1/3
          Retry min limit:8   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:7569-6264-6D69-6C74-696D-3332-31   Encryption mode:restricted
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality:0  Signal level:0  Noise level:0
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:1656  Invalid misc:1309   Missed beacon:0

wlan0wds  IEEE 802.11-b  ESSID:"Antoli"
          Mode:Master  Frequency:2.437GHz  Access Point: 00:50:C2:01:96:14
          Bit Rate:2Mb/s   Tx-Power:7 dBm   Sensitivity=1/3
          Retry min limit:8   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:7569-6264-6D69-6C74-696D-3332-31   Encryption mode:restricted
          Power Management:off

ponti:~# brctl show
bridge name     bridge id               STP enabled     interfaces
br0             8000.0050c2019614       yes             eth0
                                                        wlan0
                                                        wlan0wds0
----------------------------------------------------

AP-B ------------------------------------------------
raquel:~# iwconfig
wlan0     IEEE 802.11-b  ESSID:"Antoli"  Nickname:"raquel"
          Mode:Master  Frequency:2.437GHz  Access Point: 00:05:5D:D6:4B:DA
          Bit Rate:11Mb/s   Tx-Power:-6 dBm   Sensitivity=1/3
          Retry min limit:8   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:7569-6264-6D69-6C74-696D-3332-31   Encryption mode:restricted
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality:0  Signal level:0  Noise level:0
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:482  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:338  Invalid misc:1312   Missed beacon:0

wlan0wds  IEEE 802.11-b  ESSID:"Antoli"  Nickname:"raquel"
          Mode:Master  Frequency:2.437GHz  Access Point: 00:05:5D:D6:4B:DA
          Bit Rate:11Mb/s   Tx-Power:-5 dBm   Sensitivity=1/3
          Retry min limit:8   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:7569-6264-6D69-6C74-696D-3332-31   Encryption mode:restricted
          Power Management:off

raquel:~# brctl show
bridge name     bridge id               STP enabled     interfaces
br0             8000.00055dd64bda       yes             wlan0
                                                        wlan0wds0
----------------------------------------------------------------------


PROBLEMS

1. When there is traffic, which is very slow, among the two AP I get the following 
errors in both APs:
...
Dec 14 22:56:18 ponti kernel: wlan0: adding automatic WDS connection to AP 00:05:5d:d6:4b:da
Dec 14 22:56:18 ponti kernel: wlan0: using pre-allocated WDS netdevice wlan0wds0
...
Dec 14 23:16:50 ponti kernel: wlan0: STA 00:05:5d:d6:4b:da TX rate raised to 55
Dec 14 23:16:50 ponti kernel: wlan0: STA 00:05:5d:d6:4b:da TX rate raised to 110
Dec 14 23:16:51 ponti kernel: wlan0: STA 00:05:5d:d6:4b:da TX rate lowered to 55
...
...
Dec 14 23:16:31 raquel kernel: wlan0: STA 00:30:65:1d:e6:3a TX rate lowered to 55
Dec 14 23:16:31 raquel kernel: wlan0: STA 00:30:65:1d:e6:3a TX rate raised to 110
Dec 14 23:16:51 raquel kernel: wlan0: STA 00:50:c2:01:96:14 TX rate lowered to 55
...


2. Sometimes it seems they try to "bypass" wds: 
Dec 14 23:22:07 raquel kernel: wlan0: deauthentication: 00:50:c2:01:96:14 len=2, reason_code=3

3. Sometimes gives the following error:
Dec 14 22:51:27 ponti kernel: AP: packet to non-associated STA 00:40:43:05:66:00
But 00:40:43:05:66:00 is an ethernet! (Nokia ethernet router).

4. If a wireless station C is connected to AP-B:
C ~~~~~ AP-B ~~~wds~~~~~ AP-A
AP-A cannot connect to C for a long period (more than 5 minutes) if 
before was connected to AP-A. I'm not sure if it's a problem of the STP or WDS...


And one not related to WDS: if hostap is compiled as module against 2.4.20 and the 
last pcmcia modules version, hostap_crypt_wep is not loaded automatically.


Regards,

-- 
  ricardo galli       GPG id C8114D34