Question about ssid
 

For the second time, a nearby wireless network copied my network's SSID. I started with the SSID of jesnet. My laptop was working fine. I couldn't get my desktop wireless working after purchasing a card. It turns out that another network was using jesnet for their network's SSID. I changed my SSID to jes-net. Today, I couldn't get wireless working on the desktop. Using wpa_cli, I scanned the networks and found that another network with a false MAC address of 00:00:00:00:00:00 changed from jesnet to jes-net. I was able to get wlan0 associated manually using wpa_cli.

To remedy the situation, I changed the SSID and turned off the broadcasting of the SSID. I also activated MAC filtering on the router for router and wireless access.

I'm using WPA_PSK for authentication. I'm using a 64 digit random key that I generated using the /dev/random device.

I was wondering why a second network with an identical SSID would cause this problem.

I was wondering why a second network with an identical SSID would cause this problem.
Maybe because wpa_.* just probes them all? I ended up putting all BSSID's except the ones I use in the config as "priority=0" and "disabled=1".

The 'wpa_supplicant.conf' is created dynamically using SuSE. Giving the rogue network a lower priority won't help when is changed. Plus, if the name is the same as mine, their ssid won't be destinguishable from mine in such a list.

I reread the ifcfg.template file. There is a WIRELESS_AP_SCANMODE='2' setting I can use in ifcfg-wlan0. This will disable scanning altogether and use the AP MAC address & SSID value that I have given in ifcfg-wlan0.

I may have been confused on your answer concerning bssid. I thought that it was the WEP equivalent of essid rather than a 48 bit mac address of the bss.

"5 penny nail, 7 penny nail, whatever it takes"