DLink DWL-520 + hostap in STA mode

[Denis Vlasenko]

DLink DWL-520
2.4.20-pre11, wireless extensions 14, hostap-2002-10-12

We (my father and me) made a fairly long helical aerial.
We are trying to communicate over ~15 km with a small wireless cell.
(~10 hosts, one AP).

Mainline kernel's orinoco_pci module works but seems to lose
an association within ~30 secs and is not able to restore it without
ifconfig down/up cycle. Win98 driver fares better but dies too
after ~3 mins.

I am trying hostap now. It loads without problems but does not work,
I am unable to switch the node into STA mode.
Looks like card's firmware is old. Where can I find newer one?
(I'll go googling to try and find it myself...)
--
vda

modprobe hostap_pci
===================
kernel: hostap_crypt: registered algorithm 'NULL'
kernel: hostap_pci: hostap_pci.c 0.0.0 2002-10-12 (SSH Communications Security Corp, Jouni Malinen)
kernel: hostap_pci: (c) Jouni Malinen <jkmaline at cc.hut.fi>
kernel: PCI: Found IRQ 11 for device 00:0f.0
kernel: PCI: Sharing IRQ 11 with 00:07.5
	*** 00:07.5 is an onboard sound. Not used (sound modules aren't loaded)
kernel: hostap_pci: Registered netdevice wlan0
kernel: prism2_hw_init()
kernel: prism2_hw_config: initialized in 19879 iterations
kernel: wlan0: NIC: id=0x8013 v1.0.0
kernel: wlan0: PRI: id=0x15 v1.0.7
kernel: wlan0: STA: id=0x1f v1.3.6
	*** This looks like firmware revisions. Firmware is old.
	Where can I find newer ones?
kernel: wlan0: defaulting to host-based encryption as a workaround for firmware bug in Host AP mode WEP
kernel: wlan0: LinkStatus=2 (Disconnected)
kernel: wlan0: Intersil Prism2.5 PCI: mem=0xd8000000, irq=11

iwconfig wlan0 mode monitor 3
(forgot to capture exact error message, syslog only :( )
========================================================
kernel: prism2: wlan0: operating mode changed 3 -> 6
kernel: Enabling monitor mode
kernel: wlan0: hfa384x_cmd: entry still in list? (entry=cf6d4854, type=0, res=0)
kernel: wlan0: hfa384x_cmd: command was not completed (res=0, entry=cf6d4854, type=0, cmd=0x0002, param0=0x0000)
kernel: Setting monitor mode failed
kernel: wlan0: hfa384x_cmd: entry still in list? (entry=cf6d4854, type=0, res=0)
kernel: wlan0: hfa384x_cmd: command was not completed (res=0, entry=cf6d4854, type=0, cmd=0x0121, param0=0xfc00)
kernel: wlan0: hfa384x_set_rid: CMDCODE_ACCESS_WRITE failed (res=-110, rid=fc00, len=2)

I rebooted and decided to go straight to switching
the card in Managed mode. No luck:

iwconfig wlan0 mode managed
===========================
Error for wireless request "Set Mode" (8B06) :
    SET failed on device wlan0 ; Invalid argument.
in syslog:
kernel: prism2: wlan0: operating mode changed 3 -> 2
kernel: wlan0: hfa384x_cmd: entry still in list? (entry=cf61089c, type=0, res=0)
kernel: wlan0: hfa384x_cmd: command was not completed (res=0, entry=cf61089c, type=0, cmd=0x0002, param0=0x0000)
kernel: wlan0: hfa384x_cmd: entry still in list? (entry=cf61089c, type=0, res=0)
kernel: wlan0: hfa384x_cmd: command was not completed (res=0, entry=cf61089c, type=0, cmd=0x0021, param0=0xfdc6)
kernel: wlan0: hfa384x_get_rid: CMDCODE_ACCESS failed (res=-110, rid=fdc6, len=12)
kernel: wlan0: hfa384x_cmd_issue: cmd reg was busy for 1000 usec
kernel: wlan0: hfa384x_cmd_issue - timeout - reg=0x8021
kernel: wlan0: hfa384x_cmd: entry still in list? (entry=cf61089c, type=0, res=-1)
kernel: wlan0: hfa384x_cmd: interrupted; err=-110
kernel: wlan0: hfa384x_get_rid: CMDCODE_ACCESS failed (res=-110, rid=fdc6, len=12)
kernel: wlan0: hfa384x_cmd_issue: cmd reg was busy for 1000 usec
kernel: wlan0: hfa384x_cmd_issue - timeout - reg=0x8021
kernel: wlan0: hfa384x_cmd: entry still in list? (entry=cf61089c, type=0, res=-1)
kernel: wlan0: hfa384x_cmd: interrupted; err=-110
kernel: wlan0: hfa384x_get_rid: CMDCODE_ACCESS failed (res=-110, rid=fdc1, len=2)
kernel: wlan0: hfa384x_cmd_issue: cmd reg was busy for 1000 usec
kernel: wlan0: hfa384x_cmd_issue - timeout - reg=0x8021
kernel: wlan0: hfa384x_cmd: entry still in list? (entry=cf61089c, type=0, res=-1)
kernel: wlan0: hfa384x_cmd: interrupted; err=-110
kernel: wlan0: hfa384x_get_rid: CMDCODE_ACCESS failed (res=-110, rid=fc06, len=2)
kernel: wlan0: hfa384x_cmd_issue: cmd reg was busy for 1000 usec
kernel: wlan0: hfa384x_cmd_issue - timeout - reg=0x8021
kernel: wlan0: hfa384x_cmd: entry still in list? (entry=cf61080c, type=0, res=-1)
kernel: wlan0: hfa384x_cmd: interrupted; err=-110
kernel: wlan0: hfa384x_get_rid: CMDCODE_ACCESS failed (res=-110, rid=fd41, len=34)
kernel: wlan0: hfa384x_cmd_issue: cmd reg was busy for 1000 usec
kernel: wlan0: hfa384x_cmd_issue - timeout - reg=0x8021
kernel: wlan0: hfa384x_cmd: entry still in list? (entry=cf61089c, type=0, res=-1)
kernel: wlan0: hfa384x_cmd: interrupted; err=-110
kernel: wlan0: hfa384x_get_rid: CMDCODE_ACCESS failed (res=-110, rid=fd42, len=6)
kernel: wlan0: hfa384x_cmd_issue: cmd reg was busy for 1000 usec
kernel: wlan0: hfa384x_cmd_issue - timeout - reg=0x8021
kernel: wlan0: hfa384x_cmd: entry still in list? (entry=cf61080c, type=0, res=-1)
kernel: wlan0: hfa384x_cmd: interrupted; err=-110
kernel: wlan0: hfa384x_get_rid: CMDCODE_ACCESS failed (res=-110, rid=fc0e, len=34)
kernel: wlan0: hfa384x_cmd_issue: cmd reg was busy for 1000 usec
kernel: wlan0: hfa384x_cmd_issue - timeout - reg=0x8021
kernel: wlan0: hfa384x_cmd: entry still in list? (entry=cf61089c, type=0, res=-1)
kernel: wlan0: hfa384x_cmd: interrupted; err=-110
kernel: wlan0: hfa384x_get_rid: CMDCODE_ACCESS failed (res=-110, rid=fc84, len=2)
	*** this continues until I rmmod