driverloader and wpa_supplicant
 

Hi

Last night I downloaded driverloader, wpa_supplicant and the Dell drivers (the versions on the linuxant website) for use on my Mandrake 10.1 install running on a Dell Inspiron 9100 laptop (Dells truemobile 1300) chipset and to be used connecting to a USR018054 wireless router. Both driverloader and wpa_supplicant were compiled from source as although the base version of kernel I'm using is supported by the RPM the fact that mines an SMP kernel was not and so the RPM refused to install.

If I disable WPA then the machine connects to the router and succesfully gains an IP address - so the base installation would seem to working correctly. However when I re-enable WPA it all starts to fall apart.

The routers logs shows the PC succesfully authenticating to the router every 5 seconds continuously until I take the interface down. Any network access attempts report destination unreachable.

This would seem to be confirmed by the dmesg section of dldrconfig debug output there are a number repititions of lines saying:

eth2: New link status: Connected (0001)
eth2: New link status: Disconnected (0002)


eth2 is the wireless network.

I have done the following as described in other posts found on the net:

1) Install wpa_supplicant in /usr/bin as dldr_wpa_supplicant so that it is automatically started when the interface is brought up

2) Do a sample startup with security (and dldr_wpa_supplicant) disabled - this works fine an IP is granted

3) Ensured that SSID broadcast is enabled

The debug file found the following driver information being used:

o bcm43xxa.inf (interestingly inside this it says bcmwl5.inf also noted the section entry "[version]Signature=Windows 95", don't know if this is a problem but they are the Dell download from the linuxant site so this and the fact that it works in non-WPA makes me assume this isn't an issue)

o bcmwl5.sys

My config file contains:

network={
ssid="<correct ssid>"
proto=WPA
key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
pairwise=TKIP
group=TKIP
psk=<correct psk>
}

I have tried both the unecrypted (text) psk value and the generated hex one - no difference to outcome

"iwlist scan" finds the network and confirms its wpa. Another reference I found suggesting cat'ing a driver file to ensure the driver supports WPA - this indicated that it is supported.

Not sure what else might help

Thanks for any suggestions

Nick

Hi nraponi,

Can I suggest you contact linuxant over these issues. From what I hear their tech support is very good and if you are paying $20 (or may be inclined to pay) then they will probably be willing to help.
Regards
Chris

Thanks Chris,
I mailed them this afternoon and they responded impressively quickly. We were just exchanging diagnostic information when I solved the problem :

Basically I noticed that the version of wpa_supplicant on the linuxant download page was 0.2.3, checking around I realized that the latest release was 0.2.6 so installed this. This made no difference at all - exactly the same thing kept happening.

So going one further (not much to lose :)) I then downloaded and installed the latest development release (v 0.3.4) - and this solved the problem. Everything is connecting fine now.

Connection speeds seem a little low compared to another dell laptop nearby so I'll continue to monitor that.

So now to check everything stays stable - but at least I have a connection!


Cheers
Nick

Good to hear Nick. Welcome to LQ.org by the way!