Problems making WPA work with ndiswrapper/broadcom

[Donald Teed]

I've now tested the R81433 driver against the truemobile 1300 model
machine with ndiswrapper .10rc1.  It still does not connect
to the AP to authenticate.  The trace is the same as previous.

I moved the hard drive to the model with the truemobile 1350,
and it behaves the same.

I'm running a 2.6.7 kernel if that matters.

The broadcom windows driver is also known as 3.40.73.0, dated
June 25, 2004.  I loaded it under the AR directory from what
is extracted on a Win XP install run of R81433.exe
I'm not sure which .inf file is meaningful, but
I figured they must include the range of hardware supported,
so I installed bcmwl5.inf and bcmwl5a.inf from the AR directory.

I guess the next thing to look into is the wireless sniffer...

--Donald Teed


On Wed, 18 Aug 2004, Donald Teed wrote:

> 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 
> WPA: 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
>
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