Strange behavior with wpa_supplicant -u

[Mike Edenfield]

On 11/12/2009 1:07 PM, Dan Williams wrote:
> On Wed, 2009-11-11 at 18:14 -0500, Mike Edenfield wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I am having a connectivity issue with my wireless adapter that only
>> occurs when using wpa_supplicant's DBus interface, and only on one
>> specific AP.  My laptop has an internal Intel 3945ABG wireless adapter,
>> which I'm using via the Linux in-kernel iwlwifi driver.  When I try to
>> connect DLink AirPlus G 6000, using uses WPA-PSK with TKIP, that's in my
>> office, weird things happen.
>
> What kernel version?  This could be due to periodic scanning which is
> triggered by NM to keep an up-to-date list of APs available for various
> reasons (fast roaming, UI display, etc).  Drivers *should* be able to
> handle this, if they don't, then the driver needs to be fixed.
>
> Apparently you're running drivers that aren't :(

This looks like exactly the problem.  Once I realized I could run 
wpa_supplicant -u *before* running NM (thanks to Hogler), and saw the 
debug logs, it's pretty obvious.

> Kernel versions lower than 2.6.29 had various problems that caused them
> to fail in this case for software scans, and I've seen the iwlwifi
> hardware scans also fail here for some reason.  Recent kernels (2.6.30
> and later) work well here, and 2.6.32 has a "background scan"
> infrastructure that improves scan performance as well.

I'm using 2.6.31, so I guess I'll head back to the iwlwifi people and 
see whats up.  But if it's a driver problem, I still don't understand 
why just *this* AP is broken.  There are 3 different APs in this 
building, and two of them work fine.

On the network test lab's AP, which works, I get this:

CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-RESULTS
Selecting BSS from priority group 0
Try to find WPA-enabled AP
0: 00:18:f8:2f:7f:13 ssid='Informa-Guests' wpa_ie_len=22 rsn_ie_len=0 
caps=0x11
    skip - disabled
    selected based on WPA IE
    selected WPA AP 00:18:f8:2f:7f:13 ssid='Informa-Guests'
Already associated with the selected AP.

On the one that I need to use, the scan request results in this:

CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-RESULTS
Selecting BSS from priority group 0
Try to find WPA-enabled AP
0: 00:1e:58:04:1e:ec ssid='Informagration' wpa_ie_len=22 rsn_ie_len=0 
caps=0x11
    selected based on WPA IE
    selected WPA AP 00:1e:58:04:1e:ec ssid='Informagration'
Already associated with the selected AP.
RTM_NEWLINK: operstate=1 ifi_flags=0x1043 ([UP][RUNNING])
RTM_NEWLINK, IFLA_IFNAME: Interface 'wlan0' added
Wireless event: cmd=0x8b15 len=24
Wireless event: new AP: 00:00:00:00:00:00
Setting scan request: 0 sec 100000 usec
Added BSSID 00:1e:58:04:1e:ec into blacklist
CTRL-EVENT-DISCONNECTED - Disconnect event - remove keys

Is that 00:00:00:00:00:00 causing the problem?  Any way I can find out 
where its coming from?

Thanks,

--Mike