Can't use WPA with ipw2200

[Omar Siam]

If some driver implements wext interface and nl80211 interface the latter is preferred. With the ipw2200 driver this implementation doesn't yield any encryption capabilites but the wext interface is never consulted. If the order of the function calls is reversed in wifi-utils.c the problem is solved for me and I dont have a regression with ath5k.

--- a/src/wifi/wifi-utils.c 2012-03-01 06:26:37.000000000 +0100
+++ b/src/wifi/wifi-utils.c 2012-04-02 16:01:53.239030963 +0200
@@ -61,12 +61,14 @@
  g_return_val_if_fail (iface != NULL, NULL);
  g_return_val_if_fail (ifindex > 0, NULL);

- ret = wifi_nl80211_init (iface, ifindex);
+ ret = NULL;
+
+ #if HAVE_WEXT
+ ret = wifi_wext_init (iface, ifindex, check_scan);
+ #endif
  if (ret == NULL) {
-#if HAVE_WEXT
- ret = wifi_wext_init (iface, ifindex, check_scan);
-#endif
- }
+ ret = wifi_nl80211_init (iface, ifindex);
+ }
  return ret;
 }

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre (cyphermox)]

As far as I'm aware this is a design decision that was made on purpose; most drivers impletement nl80211 and this is the preferred interface for all future implementations. If you believe this should be switched, then it ought to be discussed on the upstream NetworkManager mailing list (http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/networkmanager-list) rather than done separately in Ubuntu. I'll take a strong stance *against* including this patch in Ubuntu directly (and upstream) for the reasons expressed above.

It's truly sad that WPA fails with ipw2200. It was working for a while (although it was never formally specified as *officially supported*), and now fails to work in all cases. I think this is really something that ought to be fixed at the kernel level rather than crippling NetworkManager to use WEXT for all devices because of this bug. It's something that will keep crawling back up for the forseable future though, some drivers will have their nl80211 implementation fail for some reason while the older WEXT interface will work.

[Jarkko Torvinen (jarkkot)]

I agree that this fix should not included. The bug is in ipw2200, it works with nl80211 as I can connect just fine if I specify the network manually, but it does not advertise the wpa capabilities. Maybe the NM logic should be changed to use the interface that advertises better capabilities or include a configuration option to force use of wext, nl80211 or what ever there might be in future. But that discussion propably should go to nm-mailing lists.

[Omar Siam (simar-w)]

Should the nl80211 interface be patched out of the kernel? Or patcheed
to report encryption capabilities? This interface doesn't even report
that wep is supported and thats plain wrong. I agree with you that this
patch isn't the best way to solve this. I just asked myself: if I can
call the nl80211 util function and it returns NULL if that's not
implemented, shouldn't it be possible to do the same with the wext
function? But I didn't check thoroughly. I think ubuntu schould just
work out of the box. Many just aren't interested why. There are some
threads around the internet where this problem is solved simply by not
using network-manager. wicd is used instead because it just works. WPA
is "officialy" supported by intel on windows und it obviously works on
linux/ubuntu if network-manager isn't used so I have no doubt that WPA
is supported on linux.

[Omar Siam (simar-w)]

Filed a kernel bug (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/973241).

[Omar Siam (simar-w)]

Submited patch to kernel bug thread. Filed upstream bug https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=673717

[Mike Stucka (stucka)]

I just wanted to throw the phrase BG2200 in here so it'll come up on a search. I'd separately reported this problem but with much less expertise at 977688

[Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre (cyphermox)]

Marking as a dupe of 973241; there is no need to keep two bug reports about this, and bug 973241 already has a very clean looking patch; which I intend to upload real soon now, provided we can get an ack from upstream. Definitely something to deal with before release.