Wicd fails to connect when passphrase uses spaces

[BillyBob]

I am not sure who gets this one. I know what the issue is, just don't know who is exactly responsible for it, wicd or wpa_passphrase. Here it is:

If the pass phrase that is used contains spaces, as in "The crazy fox jumps over the fence" (Ignoring the quotes), generation of the psk fails. wpa_passphrase only uses the first word (I presume because of shell interpretation) , "The", thinks it's too short and fails with an error "Need 8..64 Characters". Even if the first word meet the 8 character minimum, it would only use the first word, but generate an incorrect key on just the first word.

Samples:

[19:59][root@arnie-laptop:~]# TEST="The crazy fox jumps over the fence"

[20:01][root@arnie-laptop:~]# wpa_passphrase BigBen $TEST
Passphrase must be 8..63 characters

[20:03][root@arnie-laptop:~]# wpa_passphrase BigBen "$TEST"
network={
        ssid="BigBen"
        #psk="The crazy fox jumps over the fence"
        psk=e1ef530a6d2ae912dedf5a5c0e1ca3423c8ddb98af113eb02fbfa35915e553fe
}

Command line next:

[20:03][root@arnie-laptop:~]# wpa_passphrase BigBen
# reading passphrase from stdin
The crazy fox jumps over the fence
network={
        ssid="BigBen"
        #psk="The crazy fox jumps over the fence"
        psk=e1ef530a6d2ae912dedf5a5c0e1ca3423c8ddb98af113eb02fbfa35915e553fe
}

Wicd 1.5.6

Now this functioned before in Wicd and failed in the update to 1.5.6, however there were a pile of other updates that happened at the same time. I do believe I was using 1.5.4 previously to the update on 12/12/08 that knocked me dead in the water.

I am using Wubi with an installed kubuntu 4.1.3 on an Intel Core2 Duo.

Wicd log:

2008/12/15 13:04:46 :: Connecting to wireless network BigBen
2008/12/15 13:04:46 :: Putting interface down
2008/12/15 13:04:46 :: Releasing DHCP leases...
2008/12/15 13:04:46 :: Setting false IP...
2008/12/15 13:04:46 :: Stopping wpa_supplicant and any DHCP clients
2008/12/15 13:04:46 :: Flushing the routing table...
2008/12/15 13:04:46 :: Generating psk...
2008/12/15 13:04:46 :: WARNING: PSK generation failed! Falling back to wireless key.
2008/12/15 13:04:46 :: Please report this error to the wicd developers!
2008/12/15 13:04:46 :: Attempting to authenticate...
2008/12/15 13:04:46 :: Putting interface up...
2008/12/15 13:04:49 :: wpa_supplicant rescan forced...
2008/12/15 13:05:32 :: wpa_supplicant authentication may have failed.
2008/12/15 13:05:32 :: exiting connection thread
2008/12/15 13:05:36 :: Attempting to autoconnect with wired interface...Putting interface down

Fails because of failure to double quote the passphrase and it has spaces.

Log entry without spaces in passphrase: Same passphrase with underscores in place of spaces.

2008/12/15 18:59:09 :: Connecting to wireless network BigBen
2008/12/15 18:59:09 :: Putting interface down
2008/12/15 18:59:10 :: Releasing DHCP leases...
2008/12/15 18:59:10 :: Setting false IP...
2008/12/15 18:59:10 :: Stopping wpa_supplicant and any DHCP clients
2008/12/15 18:59:10 :: Flushing the routing table...
2008/12/15 18:59:10 :: Generating psk...
2008/12/15 18:59:10 :: Attempting to authenticate...
2008/12/15 18:59:11 :: Putting interface up...
2008/12/15 18:59:14 :: Running DHCP
2008/12/15 18:59:14 :: Internet Systems Consortium DHCP Client V3.1.1
2008/12/15 18:59:14 :: Copyright 2004-2008 Internet Systems Consortium.
2008/12/15 18:59:14 :: All rights reserved.
2008/12/15 18:59:14 :: For info, please visit http://www.isc.org/sw/dhcp/
2008/12/15 18:59:14 ::
2008/12/15 18:59:14 :: wmaster0: unknown hardware address type 801
2008/12/15 18:59:15 :: wmaster0: unknown hardware address type 801
2008/12/15 18:59:15 :: Listening on LPF/wlan0/00:1c:bf:87:95:ba
2008/12/15 18:59:15 :: Sending on LPF/wlan0/00:1c:bf:87:95:ba
2008/12/15 18:59:15 :: Sending on Socket/fallback
2008/12/15 18:59:19 :: DHCPREQUEST of 10.168.2.101 on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67
2008/12/15 18:59:19 :: DHCPNAK from 10.168.1.1
2008/12/15 18:59:29 :: DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 8
2008/12/15 18:59:29 :: DHCPOFFER of 10.168.1.20 from 10.168.1.1
2008/12/15 18:59:29 :: DHCPREQUEST of 10.168.1.20 on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67
2008/12/15 18:59:29 :: DHCPACK of 10.168.1.20 from 10.168.1.1
2008/12/15 18:59:29 :: bound to 10.168.1.20 -- renewal in 36042 seconds.
2008/12/15 18:59:29 :: DHCP connection successful
2008/12/15 18:59:29 :: Connecting thread exiting.

If I am in the wrong pew with this report, please don't flame me. I honestly don't know who (whoever maintains wpa_passphrase or wicd or both) is responsible, but I figured I'd start here.

Thanks for your assistance.

[Dan O'Reilly (oreilldf)]

This should be fixed in the bzr trunk, give that a try.

[BillyBob (wicd)]

BZR? Expand please.

[Dan O'Reilly (oreilldf)]

bzr = Bazaar, the version control software we use. Click the "Code" tab at the top of this page, it'll take you to a page where all our Bazaar branches are listed. You want the one labelled "lp:wicd". You can get it by downloading bzr and running "bzr branch lp:wicd". Then follow the instructions in the included INSTALL file.

[BillyBob (wicd)]

Thanks a bunch. Will try that...

[BillyBob (wicd)]

That works nicely. Thanks a bunch...

[Adam Blackburn (adamblackburn)]

Marking fixed as per the last comment.