Endless loop of association & de-auth

[Jouni Malinen]

On Sat, Jan 29, 2011 at 10:45:36PM -0800, Ben Greear wrote:
> I have 129 stations trying to connect to hostap.  This is the hostapd
> that isn't sending wmm_params, so hostapd is configured for HT40-,
> but clients are running 'NO HT'.  Rates for associated stations are
> low (13.5 mostly).

> Driver is ath9k, kernel 2.6.37 wireless-testing.  Client side is 2.6.38-rc2-wireless testing.

I'm assuming this is with the client side using virtual station
interfaces with a shared radio and running wpa_supplicant. Is that the
case?

> Here is a snippet of hostapd logs.

> 1296369318.329355: mgmt::auth
> 1296369318.330644: 1296369318.344601: vap0: mgmt::deauth
> 1296369318.344678: vap0: deauthentication: STA=00:0c:42:61:00:0e reason_code=4

That is the station deauthenticating and wpa_supplicant doesn't use that
reason code. As such, it would need to be coming from somewhere in
cfg80211 or mac80211. The only place where I can see these reason codes
being used in in net/mac80211/mlme.c for the case where the connection
to the AP has been lost (Beacon loss?). That reason code seems quite
bogus for that particular case, but anyway, I would assume something
prevents the station from receiving Beacon frames from the AP and
directed polls would also be failing.. This should show up in mac80211
debug on the station.

-- 
Jouni Malinen                                            PGP id EFC895FA