wpa supplicant roaming issues

[Jouni Malinen]

On Wed, Mar 07, 2012 at 12:33:26PM +0100, Fabio Coatti wrote:
> If the client uses only one AP, the connection is stable and free from
> problems. If the client is moved from one ap to another or if the
> client itself is in an area where two similar strenght ap are present,
> basically the newtork connection becomes unusable because wpa tries to
> roam and fails.

> wlan0: authenticate with **MAC**:b1 (try 1)
> wlan0: authenticated
> wlan0: associate with **MAC**:b1 (try 1)
> wlan0: RX ReassocResp from **MAC**:b1 (capab=0x1 status=17 aid=0)
> wlan0: **MAC**:b1 denied association (code=17)
> wlan0: deauthenticating from **MAC**:b1 by local choice (reason=3)
> 
> The interesting part here is that on the wificontroller there's no
> signs of overlcrowding (status 17 IIRC means that the AP refuses new
> clients) and all windws/mac clients on the same desk are working just
> fine.

This sounds like some proprietary load balancing mechanism on the
network side.. It can make life miserable for stations if implemented
incorrectly.

> If someone can give me some hints, at least on how to get more
> relevant debug data, it will make me happy :)

It could be easier to run wpa_supplicant on its own for a test run and
log more details (-ddt on command line) instead of using NetworkManager.
It would also be good to make sure that the nl80211 driver interface
gets used instead of WEXT.

> I've spotted several reports regarding problems with roaming but no
> solutions so far.
> 
> data:
> 
> wpa_supplicant 0.7.3

I would recommend testing the latest development branch snapshot (or
1.0-rc snapshots for that matter). There has been number of improvements
for roaming with nl80211 driver interface after 0.7.3.

-- 
Jouni Malinen                                            PGP id EFC895FA