3com 3crusb20075 can't associate using WPA

[Elias Lovén Larsson]

Hello,

I'm having trouble getting my 3com 3crusb20075 USB dongle to associate 
with protected networks. This is all done on Ubuntu 9.10 using 
ndiswrapper and a Windows2k/XP driver I found at
http://forum.ubuntuusers.de/topic/ubuntu-7.04-und-atheros-5523-3com-usb-wlan-st/ 
alleged to work with WPA.
The device can successfully associate with open networks, but as soon as 
WEP or WPA is required, the association fails. The AP is a Thomson TG787 
router, sadly devoid of all forms of debugging and logging tools.
wpa_supplicant is version 0.6.9 from Ubuntu repos and ndiswrapper 1.55 
compiled from source.

I run wpa_supplicant with:
sudo wpa_supplicant -Dwext -iwlan2 -dd -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf

And the config file looks like this:
network={
 ssid="Eter"
 psk="**********"
}

The output of wpa_supplicant is here: http://pastebin.com/d35551793
(282 lines, so though I'd spare this list all the gruesome details)
The interesting(?) bits are these (from line 237):

WPA: Key negotiation completed with 00:1f:9f:4c:a1:7f [PTK=CCMP GTK=TKIP]
Cancelling authentication timeout
State: GROUP_HANDSHAKE -> COMPLETED
EAPOL: External notification - portValid=1
EAPOL: External notification - EAP success=1
EAP: EAP entering state DISABLED
RTM_NEWLINK: operstate=1 ifi_flags=0x11043 ([UP][RUNNING][LOWER_UP])
RTM_NEWLINK, IFLA_IFNAME: Interface 'wlan2' added
Wireless event: cmd=0x8c09 len=32
PMKID candidate wireless event: flags=0x0 index=0 bssid=00:1f:9f:4c:a1:7f
RSN: PMKID candidate event - bssid=00:1f:9f:4c:a1:7f index=0 preauth=0
RSN: Ignored PMKID candidate without preauth flag
RTM_NEWLINK: operstate=1 ifi_flags=0x11043 ([UP][RUNNING][LOWER_UP])
RTM_NEWLINK, IFLA_IFNAME: Interface 'wlan2' added
Wireless event: cmd=0x8c09 len=32
PMKID candidate wireless event: flags=0x0 index=0 bssid=00:1f:9f:4c:a1:7f
RSN: PMKID candidate event - bssid=00:1f:9f:4c:a1:7f index=0 preauth=0
RSN: Ignored PMKID candidate without preauth flag
RTM_NEWLINK: operstate=1 ifi_flags=0x11043 ([UP][RUNNING][LOWER_UP])
RTM_NEWLINK, IFLA_IFNAME: Interface 'wlan2' added
Wireless event: cmd=0x8c09 len=32
PMKID candidate wireless event: flags=0x0 index=0 bssid=00:1f:9f:4c:a1:7f
RSN: PMKID candidate event - bssid=00:1f:9f:4c:a1:7f index=0 preauth=0
RSN: Ignored PMKID candidate without preauth flag

And so it continues perpetually. I don't claim to know a lot about the 
inner workings of WPA and 802.11, but the device appears to have just 
about associated with the AP.
Using dhclient to request an IP address on the interface is fruitless: 
just a bunch of DHCPDISCOVER messages followed by "No DHCPOFFERS received.".
The router claims no knowledge of the presence of the device either.

iwconfig outputs:
wlan2     IEEE 802.11g  ESSID:"Eter"
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.462 GHz  Access Point: 00:1F:9F:4C:A1:7F
          Bit Rate=54 Mb/s
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality:92/100  Signal level:-37 dBm  Noise level:-96 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

I have confirmed the router works using a Netgear WG511T cardbus device 
as well,which uses madwifi instead, but wpa_supplicant succeeds to 
associate with the AP using wext and the config file displayed above.
The output from wpa_supplicant for that device is here, for comparison: 
http://pastebin.com/f2175fbe7

I suspect the driver is at fault, although upon insertion, dmesg claims:
"wlan2: encryption modes supported: WEP; TKIP with WPA, WPA2, WPA2PSK; 
AES/CCMP with WPA, WPA2, WPA2PSK"
and there are no errors in dmesg or in the wpa_supplicant output to 
suggest something is being tried that the driver/device cannot handle.
The device works in Windows XP using the drivers from 3com.

I am very eager to get this working, and any help I could get would be 
very appreciated!

Elias
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.shmoo.com/pipermail/hostap/attachments/20091203/b5ec3ed7/attachment.htm