A frustrating issue with AP association ipw2200 gentoo iwconfig

stardotstar · 03-03-2006, 04:18 AM

Hi guys, I have exhausted the suggestions at Gentoo and wonder if someone here might have a brain wave on how I can approach this issue:

Basically I am running Gentoo, 2.6.15 and have the ipw2200 wifi card working fine on my two networks. It is a IBM Thinkpad R51, latest bios 512MB Ram and only Linux installed (I run XP in a VM)

I have a network at home called "skink" (D-Link, channel 6, WEP ascii 5 char key, g, managed, broadcasting)

I have a network at work called "Casper" (D-Link, channel 6, WEP ascii 5 char key, g, managed, hidden)

So the only difference is that Casper is hidden (policy)

I am using iwconfig to drive my AP associations and the two files that control this as per standard Gentoo are:

/etc/conf.d/net
/etc/conf.d/wireless

The basic problem is this:

I can automatically associate with "skink" without specifying anything in the wireless config file (except prefered APs) - see the fact that the essid_eth1="skink" and essid_eth1="Casper" are commented out in the config that works whenever I power on in range of skink.

However, when I go to work each day my automatic association fails with Casper on boot and I have to uncomment the essid_eth1="Casper" line and rerun the /etc/init.d/net.eth1 again.

This has happened with such infuriating regularity that I have written the following two scripts to activate my connections depending on what site I am at:

Code:

geko wparker # cat /bin/casper_up
#!/bin/sh

cp -f /etc/conf.d/wireless /etc/conf.d/wireless_skink
cp -f /etc/conf.d/wireless_casper /etc/conf.d/wireless
/etc/init.d/net.eth1 restart
geko wparker # cat /bin/skink_up
#!/bin/sh

cp -f /etc/conf.d/wireless /etc/conf.d/wireless_casper
cp -f /etc/conf.d/wireless_skink /etc/conf.d/wireless
/etc/init.d/net.eth1 restart

Now this is probably bad scripting (first time I've resorted to it actually) but it works. The differences in the two conf files is simply that skink has no essid_eth1 association at the beginning and Casper does:

Code:

geko wparker # grep ^[A-Za-z0-9] /etc/conf.d/skink
mode_eth1="auto"
iwconfig_eth1="nick geko"
key_Casper="s:***** enc open"
key_skink="s:***** enc open"
preferred_aps=( "Casper" "skink" "Telstra" )
preferred_aps_eth1=( "Casper" "skink" )
associate_order_eth1="forcedprefered"
blacklist_aps=( "Moller" )

geko wparker # grep ^[A-Za-z0-9] /etc/conf.d/wireless_casper
essid_eth1="Casper"
mode_eth1="auto"
iwconfig_eth1="nick geko"
key_Casper="s:R0t0r enc open"
key_skink="s:R0t0r enc open"
preferred_aps=( "Casper" "skink" "Telstra" )
preferred_aps_eth1=( "Casper" "skink" )
associate_order_eth1="forcedprefered"
blacklist_aps=( "Moller" )

There is nothing too remarkable about my conf.d/net:

Code:

geko wparker # grep ^[A-Za-z0-9] /etc/conf.d/net
modules_eth1=( "iwconfig" )
modules_eth0=( "ifconfig" )
fallback_eth0=( "192.168.0.200 netmask 255.255.255.0" )
fallback_route_eth0=( "default via 192.168.0.1" )
config_casper=( "dhcp" )
config_skink=( "dhcp" )
config_eth0=( "dhcp" )
config_eth1=( "dhcp" )
dhcpcd_eth0="-t 6"

I have tried just about every possible configuration in wireless for each network, including adhoc scanning modes, auto vs managed, preferred only and forcepreferredonly, having both Casper and skink assigned at the beginning, changing channels, unhiding Casper, changing the sleep times for scan and dhcp - read and reread the comments and manuals but I am confounded...

I don't even really know where else to look. The messages log only gives me some information about the ipw2200 firmware erroring and restarting sometimes - this is widely reported and has something to do with hardware crypto settings (which I don't know how to set with iwconfig) but I can't see how this would be causing the association problem. Surely any managed network with the essid set and correct encryption configured should negotiate an association in a very straightforward way... After all this is what happens when I specify the essid.

here is iwconfig for skink (am not at work so I don't have the associaiton iwconfig for casper)

Code:

eth1      IEEE 802.11g  ESSID:"skink"  Nickname:"geko"
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.437 GHz  Access Point: 00:13:46:BD:49:16
          Bit Rate=36 Mb/s   Tx-Power=20 dBm
          Retry limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:5230-7430-72   Security mode:open
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=61/100  Signal level=-64 dBm  Noise level=-79 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:6  Invalid misc:3   Missed beacon:11

here is ifconfig

Code:

eth1      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:12:F0:35:4E:7E
          inet addr:192.168.0.103  Bcast:192.168.0.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST NOTRAILERS RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:11213 errors:2 dropped:5 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:5945 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:8314238 (7.9 Mb)  TX bytes:2134368 (2.0 Mb)
          Interrupt:11 Base address:0xe000 Memory:c0214000-c0214fff

some of the messages that are a bit worrying (except of course that the network is fine once associated - I don't even really notice any service interruptions)

Code:

Mar  3 09:36:17 geko default.hotplug[31003]: arguments (firmware) env (PHYSDEVPATH=/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1e.0/0000:02:02.0 SUBSYSTEM=firmware OLDPWD=/ DEVPATH=/class/firmware/0000:02:02.0 FIRMWARE=ipw-2.4-bss_ucode.fw ACTION=remove PWD=/etc/hotplug TIMEOUT=10 UDEV_LOG=0 UDEVD_EVENT=1 SHLVL=1 PHYSDEVDRIVER=ipw2200 DEBUG=yes PHYSDEVBUS=pci SEQNUM=1763 _=/bin/env)
Mar  3 09:36:17 geko default.hotplug[31049]: arguments (firmware) env (PHYSDEVPATH=/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1e.0/0000:02:02.0 SUBSYSTEM=firmware OLDPWD=/ DEVPATH=/class/firmware/0000:02:02.0 FIRMWARE=ipw-2.4-bss.fw ACTION=remove PWD=/etc/hotplug TIMEOUT=10 UDEV_LOG=0 UDEVD_EVENT=1 SHLVL=1 PHYSDEVDRIVER=ipw2200 DEBUG=yes PHYSDEVBUS=pci SEQNUM=1765 _=/bin/env)
Mar  3 09:36:18 geko default.hotplug[31305]: arguments (net) env (PHYSDEVPATH=/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1e.0/0000:02:02.0 SUBSYSTEM=net OLDPWD=/ DEVPATH=/class/net/eth1 ACTION=add PWD=/etc/hotplug UDEV_LOG=0 UDEVD_EVENT=1 SHLVL=1 PHYSDEVDRIVER=ipw2200 INTERFACE=eth1 DEBUG=yes PHYSDEVBUS=pci SEQNUM=1766 _=/bin/env)
Mar  3 17:57:15 geko ipw2200: Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2200/2915 Network Driver, git-1.0.8
Mar  3 17:57:15 geko ipw2200: Copyright(c) 2003-2005 Intel Corporation
Mar  3 17:57:15 geko ipw2200: Detected Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG Network Connection
Mar  3 18:03:05 geko ipw2200: Unknown notification: subtype=40,flags=0xa0,size=40
Mar  3 18:08:20 geko ipw2200: Unknown notification: subtype=40,flags=0xa0,size=40
Mar  3 18:13:26 geko ipw2200: Firmware error detected.  Restarting.
Mar  3 18:13:26 geko ipw2200: Sysfs 'error' log captured.

some ipw stuff from dmesg

Code:

ipw2200: Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2200/2915 Network Driver, git-1.0.8
ipw2200: Copyright(c) 2003-2005 Intel Corporation
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:02:02.0[A] -> Link [LNKC] -> GSI 11 (level, low) -> IRQ 11
ipw2200: Detected Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG Network Connection

And I don't know what else to put out there for help.

This is really annoying - perhaps someone will relate and can help me track it down.

JunctaJuvant · 03-03-2006, 07:23 AM

I'm afraid I can't see any obvious reason for the problem, you seem to have tried just about everything already. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why the handbook recommends using wpa_supplicant for managing your wireless networking (includes support for <static/dynamic> WEP, hidden essids, WPA-PSK, etc) instead of wireless-tools. Sorry I can't be of any more help, in spite of the abundance of info you provided. Maybe someone else will have a better suggestion. Hope you get it working.

stardotstar · 03-03-2006, 06:32 PM

Thanks for the reply and your encouragement - BTW those scripts caused problems so I have fixed them - simpler and better:

Code:

#!/bin/sh

cp -f /etc/conf.d/wireless_casper /etc/conf.d/wireless
/etc/init.d/net.eth1 restart
geko wparker # cat /bin/skink_up
#!/bin/sh

cp -f /etc/conf.d/wireless_skink /etc/conf.d/wireless
/etc/init.d/net.eth1 restart

I will try wpa_sup soon

stardotstar · 03-05-2006, 08:36 PM

As per your suggestion I have switched to wpa_supplicant - easy emerge, changed the module in etc/conf.d/net and confirgured wpa_supp from the examples - so far no drama - worked flawlessly on the Work essid so I will see how auto association goes this evening when I get home ...

Thanks again
Will