DWL-650 rev. P with Xsupplicant

[Pavel Roskin]

On Wed, 11 Feb 2004, Andrew Barr wrote:

> I've got a DWL-650 rev. P up and running, using the same instructions for
> the DWL-520 rev. E, although I'm still having issues with Xsupplicant that
> appear to be related to bug in the code for that program.
>
> I have noticed a few odd messages when I've used this card at home:
>
> When I get an address for the card ("dhclient wlan0") this message is
> printed twice to stdout:
>
> wifi0: unknown hardware address type 801

I believe it's a message from dhclient and 801 comes from this definition
in linux/if_arp.h:

#define ARPHRD_IEEE80211 801            /* IEEE 802.11                  */

I guess dhclient tries to access wifi0 even though you tell is to use
wlan0.  I can reproduce this problem.  Either it's a bug in dhclient or
they have a reason to examine every interface.  In that case they should
know about 802.11 packets.  Report it to dhclient developers.

> On the second primary firmware download ("prism2_srec -gp wlan0
> /etc/prism-fw/pm010102.hex"), this is printed to stdout:
>
> Verifying update compatibility and combining data:
> Plug record length mismatch (PDR=0x0001): 6 != 16
> ==> extend from default
> OK.

Well known problem with primary firmware.  Despite what Intersil says in
its documentation (http://home.kpnqwest.cz/jt/wifi/RM0251.pdf, clause
8.2.1), they made the length of PDR 1 different in primary and secondary
firmware.  Fortunately, it's just the part number.

> And on the secondary firmware download ("prism2_srec -rp wlan0
> /etc/prism-fw/rf010800.hex"), this is part of the printout:
>
> Verifying update compatibility and combining data:
> Could not find data position for plugging PDR 0x0413 at 0x0000118e (len=2)
> PDR 0x0413 is not in wlan card PDA and there is no default data. Ignoring
> plug record.
> OK.

Maybe you should read the list archives for the last days.  It was
discussed in details.  Actually, I remember you started that discussion.
Again, that's a defect in the firmware.  prism2_srec ignores it, thanks to
a recent patch.

If you don't like those messages, you should (in theory) contact those who
made that firmware.  The problem is, they hardly want to hear from you.

prism2_srec could be modified to ignore _known_ issues and print nothing.
I don't think it's very important.  But if it turns out that we are
between rock and hard place (i.e. confused users and whatever the wireless
division of Intersil has become), that would be the way to go.

Maybe you should write that patch yourself.  It looks like you are
concerned about those warnings more than anybody else.

-- 
Regards,
Pavel Roskin