current CVS hostap problem with management frames (0.0.3 OK)

[Petr Novak]

Dear Jouni,

> I do not remember any changes that should cause something like this, but
> then again, quite a lot has changed since 0.0.3.. Anyway change of you
> being able to narrow this to a bit shorter time period? For example,
> does this work with v0.0.4?

I will check this overnight, so I will have the answer hopefully tomorrow 
morning. It is a live network not to be messed with during social hours.

> Would you be able to use a wireless sniffer to capture some of the
> authentication attempts? I would be interested in finding out whether
> the authentication frames are being sent out correctly from the AP and
> how much time is used between the authentication frame from the STA and
> the reply from the AP. Many client cards seemed to not ACK
> authentication frames if they came "too late" (however that is defined;
> Wi-Fi certification seems to allow up to 100 ms delay).

I will give that a try at the same time, but the logistics of that will not 
be trivial. We have no wired backbone and once the WLAN does not work, I 
cannot easily acess the nodes and the distances several kilometers using 
directional or sector antennas.

> What kind of client cards are you using? Is any of them able to
> associate with the AP when using a CVS version of the Host AP driver?

The client cards are mostly XI-626 Prism 2.5 PCI, with STA 1.7.4 or older. 
Those in the log which did not authenticate were all running CVS HostAP (same 
version) and definitely STA 1.7.4, but in client mode. We do not use WDS here.

The history was as follows: it looked like NONE of the clients were 
associating, once I have changed the TxRate (it was several days later, so I 
am not sure it was related to that, the whole problem might be related to 
interference, but our scan did not show any new other networks in the area), 
only 1 of the 3 master mode cards has this problem. The one card with the 
remaining problems happens to have only hostAP client mode clients (other APs 
we manage, all same hostaAP and STA versions), the other cards have a mixture 
of clients (Windows, Linux, HW AP, ...) of our members. We are a non-profit 
rural broadband ISP.

If I do not send the details tomorrow, I will have had some pleasant duties 
to perform (to assist my wife to deliver a baby), these tasks are not as easy 
to plan as network maintenance and have higher priority.

Thanks for your help so far.
--
Petr Novak
pen at dobnet.cz
+420 776 204 526
+420 603 870 101