hostap problems with Macintosh 802.11g users

[Jouni Malinen]

On Wed, Feb 26, 2003 at 04:09:55PM -0800, DMZ wrote:

>   I am having a problem with my dlink 520+ running host_ap 2002-10-12 on linux 2.4.18 kernel. 
> The problem only appears with Macintosh OSX users using the new AirPort Extreme 802.11G adapter card.
> The card is suppose to step down to 802.11b compatable if it doesn't find a G network.
> However it doesn't appear to be doing that.

> One of the MAC users who also has a home d-link router suggested the following:
> The problem is that it has a Tx rate of 22, which apparently  Airport Extreme
> tries to interpret as a 11G signal.  The  configuration panel for the DLink
> allows you to change from  1-2-5.5-11-22 to 1-2-5.5-11.  Then Airport
> Extreme works fine.

I do not see how this is related to the first problem. Prism2 does not
use 22 Mbps rate.

> wlan0: 00:03:93:e9:68:e4 auth (alg=0 trans#=1 stat=0 len=6fc=00b0) ==> 0 (authenticated)
> wlan0: 00:03:93:e9:68:e4 assoc (len=32 prev_ap=00:00:00:00:00:00) => 1(0) (SUPP_RATES len error)

IEEE 802.11g has not yet been released and the current "802.11g"
products are using sme draft version of it. The version used by this
client has a problem of generating invalid Supported Rates element in
the association request frame. Host AP drops such invalid frames. Proper
fix would be to wait for the 802.11g be finalized and then upgrade the
station cards. As a workaround, you can also update Host AP driver to
the latest cvs version which allows AssocReq frames with more than 8
rates even though this kind of frame is not compliant with IEEE 802.11.

-- 
Jouni Malinen                                            PGP id EFC895FA