Problems making WPA work with ndiswrapper/broadcom

[Donald Teed]

On Tue, 17 Aug 2004, Jouni Malinen wrote:

> However, IEEE 802.11 association did not succeed in five seconds.
>
>[snip]
> This can be increased, but five seconds should be enough time for
> association.. If you like to test this, you would need to change the
> following call in wpa_supplicant_associate() function of
> wpa_supplicant.c:
>
>        /* Timeout for IEEE 802.11 authentication and association */
>        wpa_supplicant_req_auth_timeout(wpa_s, 5, 0);

I've increased it to 20 seconds.  It might sound strange, but
we've seen DHCP timeouts with broadcom hardware that have
never been experienced with other brands.  Even on Windows
and PXE boot.  So I've learned that this hardware can be
clunky to get started.

I've also installed ndiswrapper .10 rc1 and rebooted to be
sure I'm getting the current module.

Here is the trace I see now:

Priority group 0
    id=0 ssid='acadia-test'
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
Setting scan request: 0 sec 100000 usec
Starting AP scan (broadcast SSID)
EAPOL: Port Timers tick - authWhile=0 heldWhile=0 startWhen=0 idleWhile=0
EAPOL: Port Timers tick - authWhile=0 heldWhile=0 startWhen=0 idleWhile=0
EAPOL: Port Timers tick - authWhile=0 heldWhile=0 startWhen=0 idleWhile=0
Scan timeout - try to get results
Received 247 bytes of scan results (1 BSSes)
Scan results: 1
Selecting BSS from priority group 0
0: 00:40:96:49:35:20 ssid='acadia-test' wpa_ie_len=24 rsn_ie_len=0
    selected
Trying to associate with 00:40:96:49:35:20 (SSID='acadia-test' freq=2412 MHz)
Cancelling scan request
WPA: using IEEE 802.11i/D3.0
WPA: Own WPA IE - hexdump(len=24): dd 16 00 50 f2 01 01 00 00 50 f2 02 01 00 00 50 f2 02 01 00 00 50 f2 01
Setting authentication timeout: 20 sec 0 usec
EAPOL: External notification - portControl=Auto
EAPOL: Port Timers tick - authWhile=0 heldWhile=0 startWhen=0 idleWhile=0
EAPOL: Port Timers tick - authWhile=0 heldWhile=0 startWhen=0 idleWhile=0
EAPOL: Port Timers tick - authWhile=0 heldWhile=0 startWhen=0 idleWhile=0
EAPOL: Port Timers tick - authWhile=0 heldWhile=0 startWhen=0 idleWhile=0
EAPOL: Port Timers tick - authWhile=0 heldWhile=0 startWhen=0 idleWhile=0
EAPOL: Port Timers tick - authWhile=0 heldWhile=0 startWhen=0 idleWhile=0
EAPOL: Port Timers tick - authWhile=0 heldWhile=0 startWhen=0 idleWhile=0
EAPOL: Port Timers tick - authWhile=0 heldWhile=0 startWhen=0 idleWhile=0
EAPOL: Port Timers tick - authWhile=0 heldWhile=0 startWhen=0 idleWhile=0
EAPOL: Port Timers tick - authWhile=0 heldWhile=0 startWhen=0 idleWhile=0
EAPOL: Port Timers tick - authWhile=0 heldWhile=0 startWhen=0 idleWhile=0
EAPOL: Port Timers tick - authWhile=0 heldWhile=0 startWhen=0 idleWhile=0
EAPOL: Port Timers tick - authWhile=0 heldWhile=0 startWhen=0 idleWhile=0
EAPOL: Port Timers tick - authWhile=0 heldWhile=0 startWhen=0 idleWhile=0
EAPOL: Port Timers tick - authWhile=0 heldWhile=0 startWhen=0 idleWhile=0
EAPOL: Port Timers tick - authWhile=0 heldWhile=0 startWhen=0 idleWhile=0
EAPOL: Port Timers tick - authWhile=0 heldWhile=0 startWhen=0 idleWhile=0
EAPOL: Port Timers tick - authWhile=0 heldWhile=0 startWhen=0 idleWhile=0
EAPOL: Port Timers tick - authWhile=0 heldWhile=0 startWhen=0 idleWhile=0
EAPOL: Port Timers tick - authWhile=0 heldWhile=0 startWhen=0 idleWhile=0
Authentication with 00:00:00:00:00:00 timed out.
Setting scan request: 0 sec 0 usec

I don't know why the process starts with a good MAC for the AP
and then ends with 00:00...

> IEEE 802.11 association seems to be failing for some reason. The best
> way for debugging this would be to use a wireless sniffer to verify
> whether the client is sending out association request. Since ndiswrapper
> has been successfully used with a Broadcom card and wpa_supplicant, I
> would also consider testing with another NDIS driver. Please also let me
> know which NDIS driver you are using (URL for a download site would be
> useful) and which ndiswrapper version you have tested.

Wow.  OK, wireless sniffers for Windows cost about $1700 and
we don't have the budget for it.  What is the state of wireless
sniffers in Linux?  Will they work over ndiswrapper with a half
working set up, or should I use a PC card that is natively supported
in Linux like the truemobile 1150 (hermes chipset based)?
I last tried a sniffer package called Kismet about 2 years ago
and I gave up.  I was able to use the wireless device OK, but
Kismet was just busted (at the time).

There are many broadcom chips, but today I've tested both the
truemobile 1300 and 1350 (also known as rev 2 and rev 3 of the same
chip to lspci), and there is no difference.

I've visited Dell's web site and there is a new Windows driver (aug 4).
So I'll give you that link and I will also test ndiswrapper with it 
this morning and report back here on any difference or sameness.

http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/download.aspx?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&releaseid=R81433&SystemID=LAT_PNT_PM_D600&category=5&os=WW1&osl=en&deviceid=4394&devlib=5&fileid=106908

--Donald Teed