Relevance of GTK key index?

[Harshal Chhaya]

Hello,

Should the key index used for the GTK (with WPA2-PEAP) matter?

I am seeing that my clients have problems if the GTK is at index 2 but
connect just fine if the GTK is at index 1. The connection manager on
these clients (custom code), restarts the connection process if the
GTK is at index 2 because it seems that the radio firmware expects the
GTK at index 1. After a few such tries, the connection succeeds
because hostapd somehow switches the GTK index to 1 and my connection
manager is happy.

BTW, the PTK is always set at index 0.

I am trying to understand what causes hostapd to use a different index
and if I can influence it to use index 1 to start with? This will
avoid all the retries and improve the connection time.

Thanks,
- Harshal