Wireless works here, but not there [solved]

[Xolo]

Hardware:

hp Compaq nc6120 business notebook, relevant hardware is the Intel® PRO/Wireless 2200/2915 chipset.

 

Situation:

 

Notebook is currently running Mandriva Free 2008 (Spring, 2008.1) and everything seems OK.

Wireless at home via a Linksys WRT54G broadband router (running OpenWRT) using WPA encryption works OK.

Curiosity is however, signal strength is shown as a value over 100% at all times. This did NOT change with updates!

 

What is at fault:

Wireless, this seems the picky part. The notebook was installed by use of DVD media, and updated via wired ethernet network.

Wireless configuration was completed using the available controlpanel software in KDE; additional software was requested by the controlpanel and automatically retrieved and installed by the same controlpanel via wired ethernet.

Wireless at home to the WRT54G is as perfect as you could describe it, WPA encryption and high speed, stable.

Wireless at work, the accesspoint(s)(4 pieces, soon 6) is/are 3Com Wireless 7760 11a/b/g PoE AP's, using WPA and Supressed SSID.

Wireless at work, does not work. The accesspoints can be seen in the air displayed by their MAC address (not by name), but supplying the SSID and accompanying WPA key will not enable any kind of networking.

In contrast, when one uses the controlpanel to select, configure and connect to the AP, nothing happens.

In 9 out of 10 tries of configuring an AP, the field where one can enter the SSID becomes gray and unconfigurable.

Also, which is beyond my understanding, the controlpanel does not allow the REMOVAL of access points; one can only change or connect these while they are in range.

 

Taking the notebook home ofcourse immediately brings up wireless without fail, but I need to work, so I wish it to work here in the office too.

 

Any ideas? I have been trawling nearly all topics regarding the subject of the IPW2200 software/firmwares, but none of these are of any help.

 

Thanks in advance.

[ianw1974]

I have problems with my particular wireless access point at home. If I disable the SSID, I cannot connect whatsoever, even though the SSID I give and the WPA password is correct. It seems you have a similar issue, and I've never had any success at gaining access unless I enabl the SSID to be seen and broadcast.

 

It doesn't even matter if it's an atheros wireless card, or intel pro wireless like in my laptop. I just cannot gain access to it if SSID is disabled. I can only come to the conclusion that as it happens across all wireless cards for me, that it's actually a problem with the access point, and not the wireless cards.

[Xolo]

Unfortunately, enabling the SSID broadcasting seems to have had zero effect, the situation remains the same.

Through the AP's wireless configuration, SSID suppression was disabled, the setting was saved and the device was rebooted.

As an extra measure, I disabled the wireless radio on my notebook via the software controlled button at the top of the keyboard, waited 20 seconds, and re-enabled the radio, then proceeded to the wireless controlpanel to view the status.

At the moment once again the controlpanel does not allow me to edit the SSID field (locked/greyed) although I see the correct SSID written there.

It is also very persistent in converting the entire WPA key of 63 characters (Maximum supported by AP) into lowercase, but the key is supposed to be uppercase.

The key is always converted to lowercase, no matter how many times I paste or retype it into the key field; once saved it is lowercase.

 

I could go ahead and disable security on the AP entirely as a test, but leaving it that way is undesirable as it sits inside the corporate perimeter, and thus security is mandatory for continuous operation.

[Xolo]

Further testing confirms that I am able to fully associate and connect to the 3Com AP when all security is OFF and SSID broadcast is ENABLED.

I can see via ifconfig that I have obtained an IP address (wireless device is eth1):

 

[root@localhost ~]# ifconfig
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr --:--:--:--:--:--
         UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
         RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
         TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
         collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
         RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
         Interrupt:16

eth1      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr --:--:--:--:--:--
         inet addr:172.22.4.63  Bcast:172.22.7.255  Mask:255.255.252.0
         inet6 addr: fe80::216:6fff:fe3e:f1bc/64 Scope:Link
         UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
         RX packets:1184 errors:6240 dropped:6240 overruns:0 frame:0
         TX packets:776 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:1
         collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
         RX bytes:1662910 (1.5 MiB)  TX bytes:1467102 (1.3 MiB)
         Interrupt:22 Memory:d0000000-d0000fff

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback
         inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
         inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
         UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
         RX packets:758 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
         TX packets:758 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
         collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
         RX bytes:61764 (60.3 KiB)  TX bytes:61764 (60.3 KiB)

 

On eth0, the HWaddr shows the 3Com AP's wireless MAC. MACs have been omitted in this post.

Via the AP's wireless station list I can confirm the connection at an RX rate of 54Mbps at -56dBm signal strength for both RX and TX ACK.

 

So, I am able to connect to it, but enabling any kind of security apparently breaks it.

My last resort would be to wipe the wireless accesspoints that were written to /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf and do a firmware update (if any available, that is) on the 3Com and try again to see if a 'clean' start can help the situation.

[ianw1974]

What desktop are you using? Gnome? KDE? I've generally been using NetworkManager in gnome for managing my connections and it's worked better than other tools like the wireless configuration in Mandriva for example.

[Xolo]

I do not have Gnome installed.. I am using KDE (3.xx, Compiz Fusion enabled), the place where I configure my wireless is through NetApplet which sits in the system tray. It handles both wired and wireless connection notification/monitoring/configuration.

My attempts to reconfigure the wireless connection through the CLI have been equally fruitless; no connection is made despite correct settings.

On the 3Com I can tell an attempt is made to connect; an association seems to be made but the TX is a mere 1Mbit, and during this apparent connection attempt, transmission errors occur.

Note that when the accesspoint is stripped of security, it works without a hitch..

[Xolo]

This issue remains unresolved.

I'm currently awaiting the delivery of the newer 3Com accesspoints, and will try those to see if there is any difference.

[ianw1974]

Are you mac address filtering on the access point? Although, if you connect without security, then it can't be that. Mine wouldn't even connect with or without security when SSID was disabled. But you also mention even with SSID enabled that you couldn't connect with open network.

 

So, can you disable broadcasting of the SSID, and then can you connect if the network is unsecured? With mine I couldn't, only when SSID broadcasting was enabled I could, but then I could connect with and without security. Hope the newer access points work OK. I use Netgear ones, and whilst they don't seem to like having the SSID disabled, they generally work perfectly other than that.

[Xolo]

Sorry for the late reply. No MAC restrictions, we currently do not have a central management tool for our AP's so manually entering MACs was considered.. euh, pointless :)

 

 

I have good news: It now works!

 

The solution was (as with most things that seem impossible to resolve) quite simple...

 

I used a new AP for this test, configuring it to our current standards but leaving out SSID Suppression so the SSID is broadcasted normally.

 

 

1. Disable wireless via killswitch on notebook

2. Edit /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf as root with your pet text editor, manually removing all 'dead' wireless stations

3. Enable wireless via killswitch

4. Reopen /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf as root and confirm whether or not wireless station was detected and configured

5. Re-type the WPA encryption key listed under "psk=" header for your AP to be in UPPERCASE and then save the file, exit the editor. Very important!

6. Issue 'service network restart' (again, as root) to stop and restart the network

 

And that was basically it. I will have to wipe and reconfigure the other accesspoints to reflect the new settings with broadcast SSID enabled and remember the above for Mandriva 2008.1 Spring, using ipw2200 wireless on an hp Compaq nc6120 notebook.

 

As for Mandriva (specifically?) It appears that somehow for whatever reason, I just can't copy the WPA key from a textfile and paste it reliably in the GUI configuration tool in KDE or any text editor secondary to the one i'm pasting from, it is always silently converted to lowercase, and this is not accepted by the 3Com Wireless 7760 accesspoint.

I found that the paste-converts-to-lowercase 'bug' manifests itself between gVim, Kate, and other text editors when you try to copy the WPA key, and then attempt to paste it into another editor (so in a nutshell, between source and target the copied text gets converted) editing wpa_supplicant.conf.

Talk about bad ju-ju going on? I really have done nothing to this system that could cause this strange behaviour, and I must say it is a real show stopper for non-technical people.

[daniewicz]

Xolo:

 

Thanks for posting the details of your solution. This may help some other user in the future (maybe me :P )

[ianw1974]

Or, if you're password is a mix of uppercase and lowercase, it would have to be typed exactly the same, as if I did all mine uppercase it would fail, because I use a mix of both and numbers too.

 

Glad it's sorted though

[Xolo]

You're welcome!

I do feel I need to get in touch with Mandriva about this clipboard behaviour, the clipboard contents should under no circumstances be altered, it defeats the purpose and causes all sorts of (serious) trouble, not just in situations where you're asked to enter encryption keys :excl: :blink:

[ianw1974]

It could be just a thing with copying/pasting passwords :)

 

But you're right though, slightly annoying :)