WEP Problem, Zoom 2Mb/s Stations, SMC 11Mb/s hostap_plx AP

From: J Yunke (yunke_at_productivity.org)
Date: 2002-07-14 20:37:36 UTC


Hi --

  I can't seem to get WEP to work on stations with Zoom 4100 2Mb/s cards. In fact, even turning on 'open' mode renders the station useless, which I thought meant that clients could connect even if they didn't have WEP turned on. Here are the specifics:

Station 1
  Windows 98, Zoom 2.51 drivers (latest)   Zoom 4100 2Mb/s cards (old) w/40-bit WEP support   WEP Modes: Dynamic, Mandatory, Disabled   Key #4 (default) is 1561-B874-AA, written to flash.

AP
  Slackware Linux 8.1
  hostap latest (from CVS today)
  SMC 2602W (PCI) card (new) w/40-bit and 128-bit WEP support

Working Situation (stations can connect with no problem)   iwconfig wlan0 key off

Non-working Situations (stations keep asking to authenticate, but can't)   iwconfig wlan0 key 1561-b874-aa open
  iwconfig wlan0 key 1561-b874-aa restricted

Troubleshooting-1

  This is what it shows when I have specified 'open':

>iwconfig wlan0

  wlan0 IEEE 802.11-DS ESSID:"wlan" 

          Mode:Master  Frequency:2.422GHz  Access Point: 00:04:E3:29:59:F3
          Bit Rate:1Mb/s   Tx-Power:-3 dBm   Sensitivity=1/3
          Retry min limit:8   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:1561-B874-AA   Encryption mode:open
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality:0  Signal level:0  Noise level:0
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:45  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:43  Invalid misc:228   Missed beacon:0

Troubleshooting-2

  I get an endless supply of these in the kernel ring buffer when   I turn on open or restricted use of keys:

  wlan0: authentication: 00:40:36:01:5e:5b len=6, auth_alg=1,   auth_transaction=1, status_code=0, fc=0x00b0

  I get this when I turn off encryption on the AP:

  wlan0: association request: from 00:40:36:01:5d:5b to 00:04:e2:29:59:f3   len=19 capability=0x0001, listen_interval=3 - old AID 1

  ...and then it works fine.

Troubleshooting-3

  I tried rebooting the Windows 98 box.
  I tried soft-resetting the SMC PLX card.   I tried some of the iwpriv and prism_param options.   I've tried these WEP modes on the station: dynamic, disabled.

Anyone have any ideas why the cards become useless when I turn on WEP on the AP? I have other stations that run WEP and I do not want to have to turn it off because my older 2Mb/s cards require it to be completely shut off.

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