Hostap refuses to associate when in master mode.

[Matt]

I am trying to set up HostAP on a RH Linux 7.3 machine. iwconfig reports
the NIC as:

[root at localhost hostap-driver-0.1.2]# iwconfig wlan0
Warning: Driver for device wlan0 recommend version 13 of Wireless
Extension,
but has been compiled with version 12, therefore some driver features
may not be available...

wlan0     IEEE 802.11b  Mode:Master  Frequency:2.422GHz  
          Access Point: 00:04:E2:0E:98:53  Bit Rate:11Mb/s  
Sensitivity=1/3  
          Retry min limit:8   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          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:6  Invalid misc:1   Missed beacon:0


I have tried to set an essid however it never tells me what the ESSID is
once it's been set. If i slap another wireless NIC in and run Kismet
against it, I pick it up as an AP, yet when I try to get the seccond
wireless NIC to associate with the first one, it just sits
there.Additionally, I have a windows 2000 box with a PCMCIA adapter in
it that also can not associate while the NIC is in managed mode. As soon
as i set the hostap nic to ad-hoc, everything clicks together and it
works.

I have read through the mailing list archives but have yet to come up
with any suggestions on what could be causing this issue. I also don't
know what is causing the 'Driver for device wlan0...' message.

My cards: SMC2632W (I don't know how to get the firmware revisions)
Running RedHat Linux 7.3 running kernel 2.4.18-3
HostAP driver v 0.1.2
wireless-tools v26?

iwconfig --version shows me:

[root at localhost root]# iwconfig --version
iwconfig  Version 26
          Compatible with Wireless Extension v16 or earlier,
          Currently compiled with Wireless Extension v12.

wlan0     Recommend Wireless Extension v13 or later,
          Currently compiled with Wireless Extension v12.

I am unclear as to where the wireless extensions are and how to go about
updating them. Is this a kernel thing or am I missing software?

Thanks for your help!

FIRESTORM_v1