Can't associate with AP (madwifi, WEP, hidden SSID)

[Jan Michael Ibanez]

Binary package hint: wpasupplicant

Previously, I was able to associate with our office AP on Edgy; the office AP has a hidden SSID (i.e. configured not to broadcast SSID), and with a 128-bit WEP key (hex). Attempting to associate with the AP via NetworkManager or via wpa-supplicant when the SSID is hidden fails; however, when the AP is reconfigured to broadcast SSIDs, NetworkManager (and wpa-supplicant) successfully associates.

This was tested on a Fujitsu Lifebook C1211D with an Atheros chipset-based card (running the madwifi-ng drivers as packaged in linux-restricted-modules); tested on Feisty Herd 3 with linux-image-2.6.20-6-386 (2.6.20-6.11), linux-restricted-modules-2.6.20-6-386 (2.6.20.1-6.4), wpasupplicant 0.5.5-4, network-manager 0.6.4-6ubuntu2.

[Jan Michael Ibanez (jmibanez)]

As an aside, my coworker's laptop running Edgy has a ipw3945-based card and he also couldn't associate. I'll see if I can run the above test on his laptop.

[Pavel Pergamenshchik (ppergame)]

FWIW, the hidden SSID network here started working after I upgraded to the latest ipw3945 driver (1.2.0) on my feisty machine.
Grab it at http://ipw3945.sourceforge.net/#downloads . It's rather easy to compile. Don't need new microcode or regulatory daemon for 1.2.0 -- the ones in feisty will do.

[Reinhard Tartler (siretart)]

Please read in
/usr/share/doc/wpasupplicant/examples/README.wpa_supplicant.conf.gz about the parameter ap_scan. You need to set it correctly in order to be able to connect to network with disabled SSID broadcasts.

[Reinhard Tartler (siretart)]

on a personal side: better don't deactivate SSID broadcast. Your network is in no way hidden, any decent scanner will show the network on any traffic. IME it is not worth the trouble.

[Jan Michael Ibanez (jmibanez)]

Re: Reinhard: This is in connection with NetworkManager -- I can't use wpa_supplicant ap_scan because NetworkManager drives wpa_supplicant directly! (NOTE: Again, the problem is in wpasupplicant itself, not NetworkManager.)

[Jan Michael Ibanez (jmibanez)]

Related: NetworkManager seems to be now using AP_SCAN=2; on edgy, NetworkManager was sending AP_SCAN=1 (looking at /var/log/daemon.log). Should I file this bug under NetworkManager now?

Re: deactivating SSID broadcast, thanks, but we're using it anyway just to keep casual passers-by out; we don't mind if you want to snoop in or try associating if you want (and you have the right tools etc.)

[Reinhard Tartler (siretart)]

yes, I'd say file a bug against NM. it should perhaps make this configurable or at least know how to handle hidden ssids with what backend drivers. This however would assume that NM knows ,amy implementation details about the inner workings of wpa_supplicant, and what bugs are in what version. I have doubts that the NM developers are willing to maintain such a database.

In the end, I really do think that it's much less trouble to not disable SSID broadcasts.