Can't associate WLAN-card with WPA-access point

[Davy De Winter]

Hi all,

recently I've setup the following classic 802.1x infrastructure:
laptop ---> WPA Accesspoint ---> FreeRadius linux server 

I have a dual-boot laptop both with Windows XP and Linux Debian Sid.
On windows XP, everything works perfect and the authentication 
happens, but on Linux I have some problems. I'll give a short 
overview of my hardware/software:
- Acer 803 Lmi laptop with Intel Wireless 2100 802.11b WLAN
- Debian Sid Unstable distro 
- Drivers: 
 - the ipw2100-1.1.2 driver
 - the ieee80211-1.0.3 driver 
 - the ipw2100-fw-1.3 hotplug-firmware 
- Kernel 2.6.12 with all encryption libraries compiled in. (including RC4 and 
any other libraries).  

I have 2 problems (without finding any solution on google):
- I don't manage to associate the wlan-card with this configuration with
the access-point (WPA encryption). Normally, the association has to take
place before authentication if I understand everything and the led from 
the wlan-iface keeps flikkering. 
What I do is:
- iwconfig eth2 essid USR5450
but when i type iwconfig eth2 i always see the following:

laptop:/usr/src# iwconfig eth2
eth2      unassociated  ESSID:"USR5450"  Nickname:"ipw2100"
          Mode:Managed  Channel=0  Access Point: 00:00:00:00:00:00
          Bit Rate=0 kb/s   Tx-Power:off
          Retry min limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality:0  Signal level:0  Noise level:0
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

It's still unassociated, and I don't get it associated. (not even after
unloading and reloading the drivers). Without WPA enabled in the
access-point, it works like a charm. Do you have to use wpa-supplicant to 
associate in an 802.1x setup? 

- I someone has a solution for this problem, which tools do I have to use
to authenticate with the freeradius server via the access-point? Only
x-supplicant, only wpa-supplicant or both? 


Any help is very appreciated! 

regards,
davy. 

davy NO dewinter SPAM @ intec PLEASE ugent THANKS be