wpa_supplicant does not associate till it is restarted ?

[B Thomas]

Hi,

I am using Debian/Sarge with kernel 2.6.17, ipw3945 
(1.0.5), ipw3945d (1.7.19), ieee80211 (1.1.13) and
wpasupplicant (0.5.4). I need to restart the wparoamd
deamon every time I boot up my computer for wpa_supplicant
to associate. No other change are required just this
restart. Could you kindly help me pin point the problem.
Also my office network takes a very long time (5 mins)
to associate if at all) without the restart.

Here is some information relating to my setup :
----------------------------------------------------------
/etc/networking/interfaces :
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

iface eth0 inet dhcp
	metric 1

iface eth1 inet dhcp
        wpa-conf /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
        wpa-action /etc/wpa_supplicant/dhclient
	metric 2
-----------------------------------------------------------
/etc/init.d/wparoamd: 
is the same file that comes with wpa_suplicant (i.e.
examples/wpasupplicant.roaming-daemon ) in the 
examples directory but with ENABLE_ROAMING_MODE=1,
CONFIG="/etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf", 
INTERFACE="eth1", and DRIVER="wext"
-----------------------------------------------------------
/etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf:
is the same file that comes with wpa_supplicant in the 
examples (i.e. examples/wpa_supplicant.conf.gz ) directory
but with driver_param="associate=1" and the two network blocks :
# coffee shop
network={
        ssid=""
        key_mgmt=NONE
        priority=0
}
# office
network={
        ssid="office"
        scan_ssid=1
        key_mgmt=WPA-EAP
        eap=PEAP
        identity="MYID"
        password="MYPSSWD"
        phase1="peaplabel=0"
        phase2="auth=MSCHAPV2"
        priority=2
}
------------------------------------------------------------
/etc/defaults/ifplugd:
INTERFACES="eth0 eth1"
HOTPLUG_INTERFACES=""
ARGS="-q -f -u0 -d10 -w -I"
SUSPEND_ACTION="stop"
-------------------------------------------------------------
/etc/modprobe.d/ipw3945:
alias eth1 ipw3945
install ipw3945 /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install ipw3945; sleep 0.5 ; /sbin/ipw3945d --quiet
remove ipw3945  /sbin/ipw3945d --kill ; /sbin/modprobe -r --ignore-remove ipw3945
-------------------------------------------------------------
/etc/hotplug/blacklist.d/ipw3945:
ipw3945
-------------------------------------------------------------

Note blacklisting ipw3945 with hotplug is necessary to ensure
that it is loaded only when requested by wpa_supplicant . 
In anycase removing this does not make a difference but makes 
things worse in that now I have to reload the module after bootup.

I understand I don't need to use ifplugd but again not doing so
does not solve my problem. Another person suggested I use
a wpa-roam stanza in my /etc/network/interfaces. But I could not
find this documented anywhere and am not sure how it is used.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
If I set eth1 to auto in /etc/network/interfaces I get the following
error message :
ipw3945: Copyright(c) 2003-2006 Intel Corporation
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:0c:00.0[A] -> GSI 17 (level, low) -> IRQ 17
ipw3945: Detected Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection
ioctl[SIOCGIFFLAGS]: No such device
setsockopt: No such device
ioctl[SIOC{ADD/DEL}MULTI]: No such device
ioctl[SIOCGIFFLAGS]: No such device
wpa_driver_wired_init: Could not get interface flags
Failed to initialize driver interface
wpa_supplicant: failed to locate ctrl_interface socket, exiting
run-parts: /etc/network/if-pre-up.d/wpasupplicant exited with return
code 1
Internet Software Consortium DHCP Client 2.0pl5
Copyright 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999 The Internet Software Consortium.
All rights reserved.

Please contribute if you find this software useful.
For info, please visit http://www.isc.org/dhcp-contrib.html

eth1: ERROR while getting interface flags: No such device
Bind socket to interface: No such device
exiting.
Failed to bring up eth1.
done.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
sincerely
B Thomas