wpa-supplicant v0.7.2 stops roaming after a while

[Michel Marti]

On 04/28/2010 11:37 PM, Dan Williams wrote:
> On Wed, 2010-04-28 at 22:56 +0200, Michel Marti wrote:
>> On 04/28/2010 09:03 PM, Dan Williams wrote:
> I'd also suggest you try using the ath5k driver and see if that works
> better for you?  madwifi is a dead-end for most use-cases as ath5k and
> ath9k is the preferred upstream driver for that hardware, and Atheros is
> actively involved in both drivers, but not in madwifi.
I followed your advice and switched to the ath5k driver. The new driver seems to 
have it's issues too... When connecting to my access point (a Symbol AP5131, 
WPA2-PSK-CCMP) with the ath5k driver and wpa_supplicant, the AP usually responds 
with a Deauthentication Frame during the 4WAY_HANDSHAKE phase (Reason code: 
Previous authentication no longer valid (0x0002)). On second try, the connection 
succeeds. This causes wpa_supplicant to later blacklist the AP when trying to 
roam between this and another AP.

The 'regular' output of wpa_supplicant can be found below, debug output is here: 
http://pastebin.ca/1876534

Interestingly, this problem does not occur *at all* when using a Intel IWL-1000 
card (iwlagn driver) with the same wpa_supplicant binary and identical 
wpa-supplicant configuration.

I'm currently using wpa-supplicant from git (a63063b4f6). I tried both the ath5k 
driver that comes with Debian Squeeze (Linux v2.6.32-5) and the one from 
2.6.35-rc1-git1 (which behaves slightly different). HW is an Atheros AR5413 
based MiniPCI card. I can provide a TCP dump from the communication between 
ath5k and the AP on request.

Is this a driver-, Supplicant-, or AP bug (or a combination)?

I'm not sure if this is the proper list for my issue - should I report this to 
the linux-wireless-mailing list instead?

- Michel

--------- 8< ------- 8< ------- 8< ---------
Multiple invocations of wpa_suppliant, IWL-1000 card:

# ./wpa_supplicant -c wpa.conf -i wlan0
Trying to associate with 00:15:70:56:ff:90 (SSID='4YEO' freq=2437 MHz)
Associated with 00:15:70:56:ff:90
WPA: Key negotiation completed with 00:15:70:56:ff:90 [PTK=CCMP GTK=CCMP]
CTRL-EVENT-CONNECTED - Connection to 00:15:70:56:ff:90 completed (auth) [id=0 
id_str=]
^CCTRL-EVENT-TERMINATING - signal 2 received
# ./wpa_supplicant -c wpa.conf -i wlan0
Trying to associate with 00:15:70:56:ff:90 (SSID='4YEO' freq=2437 MHz)
Associated with 00:15:70:56:ff:90
WPA: Key negotiation completed with 00:15:70:56:ff:90 [PTK=CCMP GTK=CCMP]
CTRL-EVENT-CONNECTED - Connection to 00:15:70:56:ff:90 completed (auth) [id=0 
id_str=]
^CCTRL-EVENT-TERMINATING - signal 2 received
# ./wpa_supplicant -c wpa.conf -i wlan0
Trying to associate with 00:15:70:56:ff:90 (SSID='4YEO' freq=2437 MHz)
Associated with 00:15:70:56:ff:90
WPA: Key negotiation completed with 00:15:70:56:ff:90 [PTK=CCMP GTK=CCMP]
CTRL-EVENT-CONNECTED - Connection to 00:15:70:56:ff:90 completed (auth) [id=0 
id_str=]
^CCTRL-EVENT-TERMINATING - signal 2 received

--------- 8< ------- 8< ------- 8< ---------
Multiple invocations of wpa_suppliant using ath5k (v2.6.32-5):

# ./wpa_supplicant -c wpa.conf -i wlan0
Trying to associate with 00:15:70:56:ff:90 (SSID='4YEO' freq=2437 MHz)
Associated with 00:15:70:56:ff:90
WPA: 4-Way Handshake failed - pre-shared key may be incorrect
CTRL-EVENT-DISCONNECTED bssid=00:15:70:56:ff:90 reason=0
Trying to associate with 00:15:70:56:ff:90 (SSID='4YEO' freq=2437 MHz)
Associated with 00:15:70:56:ff:90
WPA: Key negotiation completed with 00:15:70:56:ff:90 [PTK=CCMP GTK=CCMP]
CTRL-EVENT-CONNECTED - Connection to 00:15:70:56:ff:90 completed (auth) [id=0 
id_str=]
^CCTRL-EVENT-TERMINATING - signal 2 received
# ./wpa_supplicant -c wpa.conf -i wlan0
Trying to associate with 00:15:70:56:ff:90 (SSID='4YEO' freq=2437 MHz)
Associated with 00:15:70:56:ff:90
WPA: 4-Way Handshake failed - pre-shared key may be incorrect
CTRL-EVENT-DISCONNECTED bssid=00:15:70:56:ff:90 reason=0
Trying to associate with 00:15:70:56:ff:90 (SSID='4YEO' freq=2437 MHz)
Associated with 00:15:70:56:ff:90
WPA: Key negotiation completed with 00:15:70:56:ff:90 [PTK=CCMP GTK=CCMP]
CTRL-EVENT-CONNECTED - Connection to 00:15:70:56:ff:90 completed (auth) [id=0 
id_str=]
^CCTRL-EVENT-TERMINATING - signal 2 received
# ./wpa_supplicant -c wpa.conf -i wlan0
Trying to associate with 00:15:70:56:ff:90 (SSID='4YEO' freq=2437 MHz)
Associated with 00:15:70:56:ff:90
WPA: 4-Way Handshake failed - pre-shared key may be incorrect
CTRL-EVENT-DISCONNECTED bssid=00:15:70:56:ff:90 reason=0
Trying to associate with 00:15:70:56:ff:90 (SSID='4YEO' freq=2437 MHz)
Associated with 00:15:70:56:ff:90
WPA: Key negotiation completed with 00:15:70:56:ff:90 [PTK=CCMP GTK=CCMP]
CTRL-EVENT-CONNECTED - Connection to 00:15:70:56:ff:90 completed (auth) [id=0 
id_str=]
^CCTRL-EVENT-TERMINATING - signal 2 received

--------- 8< ------- 8< ------- 8< ---------
Multiple invocations of wpa_suppliant using ath5k (v2.6.35-rc1-git1):

# ./wpa_supplicant -c wpa.conf -i wlan0
Trying to associate with 00:15:70:56:ff:90 (SSID='4YEO' freq=2437 MHz)
Authentication with 00:15:70:56:ff:90 timed out.
Trying to associate with 00:15:70:56:ff:90 (SSID='4YEO' freq=2437 MHz)
Associated with 00:15:70:56:ff:90
WPA: 4-Way Handshake failed - pre-shared key may be incorrect
CTRL-EVENT-DISCONNECTED bssid=00:15:70:56:ff:90 reason=0
Trying to associate with 00:15:70:56:ff:90 (SSID='4YEO' freq=2437 MHz)
Associated with 00:15:70:56:ff:90
WPA: Key negotiation completed with 00:15:70:56:ff:90 [PTK=CCMP GTK=CCMP]
CTRL-EVENT-CONNECTED - Connection to 00:15:70:56:ff:90 completed (auth) [id=0 
id_str=]
^CCTRL-EVENT-TERMINATING - signal 2 received
# ./wpa_supplicant -c wpa.conf -i wlan0
Trying to associate with 00:15:70:56:ff:90 (SSID='4YEO' freq=2437 MHz)
Authentication with 00:15:70:56:ff:90 timed out.
Trying to associate with 00:15:70:56:ff:90 (SSID='4YEO' freq=2437 MHz)
Associated with 00:15:70:56:ff:90
WPA: 4-Way Handshake failed - pre-shared key may be incorrect
CTRL-EVENT-DISCONNECTED bssid=00:15:70:56:ff:90 reason=0
Trying to associate with 00:15:70:56:ff:90 (SSID='4YEO' freq=2437 MHz)
Associated with 00:15:70:56:ff:90
WPA: Key negotiation completed with 00:15:70:56:ff:90 [PTK=CCMP GTK=CCMP]
CTRL-EVENT-CONNECTED - Connection to 00:15:70:56:ff:90 completed (auth) [id=0 
id_str=]
^CCTRL-EVENT-TERMINATING - signal 2 received