problems connecting to AP using WPA-PSK, Linux 2.6.16, ipw2200 card (wext driver)

[Ivan Tarasov]

Hello,

I've got persistent problems with using wpa_supplicant to connect to an AP
with WPA authentication. I did an extensive search on mailing lists and
Internet in general and didn't find any solution, although I've seen a lot
of reports of similar problems.

/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf contents is somewhat like this:

# the following 3 lines were changed and this configuration was the most
stable
eapol_version=1
ap_scan=2
fast_reauth=2
network={
    ssid="somessid"
    scan_ssid=1
    key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
    proto=WPA
    pairwise=TKIP
    group=TKIP
    psk="somepassword"
}

You can find the wpa_supplicant log here:
http://mediacast.sun.com/share/tarasov/supplicant.log.gz
I tried to send it as an attach but my messeges never got through some
filter on the way to the mailing list.

The access point is Linksys WRT54G. The WiFi card is Intel IPW2200. I tried
using both wpa_supplicant 0.4.8 and 0.5.4. This log is from 0.5.4, it shows
both the unsuccessful attempts to connect to the AP and a successful
attempt, which disconnected mysteriously at last. It seems that most often
situation is that after wpa_supplicant started ASSOCIATING it receives the
0x8b15 event with AP address 00:00:00:00:00:00, and thus it simply
blacklists the AP.

You might be interested looking at the following lines more thoroughly:
lines 840-965: wpa_supplicant started authenticating, but suddenly received
the 0x8b15 during the 4WAY_HANDSHAKE, which it considered to be the sign of
a wrong password, thus it got disconnected.
lines 1142-1261: same as above, but it passed the 4WAY_HANDSHAKE and
received the 0x8b15 event with zero AP address during the GROUP_HANDSHAKE.
lines 1855-2035: successful connection, I was able to work for some time and
everything worked fine until it received the 0x8b15 event with zero AP
address again.

I tried hacking the sources in some ways but it didn't really help.

I tried connecting to this access point from Windows (using the application
from the Intel driver pack, without wpa_supplicant) and the connection was
very stable and it didn't drop (and it connected almost immediately). While
I was recording the attached log another notebook was connected to the same
access point and had a stable connection (again, from Windows). No changes
were made to the access point configuration during the log recording, so no
side effects could be introduced this way.

I would appreciate any help on this, I can give more information and try
recording more logs (but they all are pretty similar to the one I attached
anyway), or try patching the source if you direct me.

-- 
Best regards,
Ivan Tarasov
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