ndis0 does not associate to open AP [fixed]

[Ben Kaduk]

On 10/9/05, Ben Kaduk <minimarmot at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> My apologies if this is not the best list to which to send this. I've been
> trying to get my dell laptop's built-in wireless card to work with my
> university's wireless network for quite some time now, but nothing I try
> seems to work. This is on a recent -current:
> # uname -a
> FreeBSD prolepsis.urh.uiuc.edu <http://prolepsis.urh.uiuc.edu> 7.0-CURRENTFreeBSD
> 7.0-CURRENT #15: Sat Oct 8 01:02:04 UTC 2005 kaduk at prolepsis.urh.uiuc.edu:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/PROLEPSIS
> i386
>
> The university's setup, so far as I can tell, is as follows: They have all
> access points open for association, but do not allow access to the outside
> world -- when an http page is first requested, the request is intercepted
> and substituted with a university page that has a link to a kerberos-based
> authentication, or directions on how to use their vpn client. After
> authentication, the protocol used is IPSec over UDP. The main point is that
> the access points are open and running dhcp servers, as confirmed on my
> iBook (on which I'm writing this message).
> However, when I try to use the ndis driver on my dell to try to associate
> with this AP and run dhclient, I get far-from-desireable results.
> I am using recent (~2 week old) windows xp drivers for my broadcom (4324?)
> card and I have regenerated bcmwl5_sys.ko after my latest buildworld, using
> ndisgen(8). The wireless card is listed in pciconf -lv as:
> ndis0 at pci2:3:0: class=0x028000 card=0x00011028 chip=0x432414e4 rev=0x02
> hdr=0x00[possibly more off screen]
> vendor = 'Broadcom Corporation'
> device = 'BCM4309 802.11a/b/g Wireless LAN Controller'
> class = 'network'
>
> In windows XP, this card is able to successfully associate with the
> university AP.
>
> The bcmwl5_sys.ko module produced by ndisgen seems to load successfully:
> # kldload bcmwl5_sys
> warning: KLD '/boot/modules/bcmwl5_sys.ko' is newer than the linker.hintsfile
> ndis0: <Dell TrueMobile 1400 Dual Band WLAN Mini-PCI Card> mem
> 0xfaff6000-0xfaff7fff irq 9 at device 3.0 on pci2
> ndis0: NDIS API version: 5.1
> ndis0: Ethernet address: 00:90:4b:2d:46:ce
> #
>
>
> I can then scan and see (several) APs:
> #ifconfig ndis0 up scan
> SSID BSSID CHAN RATE S:N INT CAPS
> UIUCnet [bssid1] 1 54M 151:0 100 E [5x ???] WME VEN VEN
> UIUCnet [bssid2] 6 54M 120:0 100 E [5x ???] WME VEN VEN WME
> UIUCnet [bssid3] 36 54M 130:0 100 E ??? ??? WME VEN VEN
>
> I can then try to associate to one (the same one that my iBook picks by
> default):
> # ifconfig ndis0 ssid UIUCnet bssid [bssid1]
> # ifconfig ndis0
> ndis0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLES,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
> inet6 fe80::290:4bff:fe2d:46ce%ndis0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x4
> ether 00:90:4b:2d:46:ce
> mdeia: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet autoselect
> status: no carrier
> ndis0: failed to get bssid
> ssid "" channel 1
> authmode OPEN privacy OFF txpowmax 100 protmode CTS
> #
> (The "failed to get bssid" bit is the console log)
>
> The result is the same whether or not I have a dhclient attached to ndis0.
>
>
> Am I doing something stupid, or missing something obvious? I can get more
> info if necessary.
>
> Thanks
>
> Ben Kaduk
>
>
For the archives, Bill Paul's latest round of ndisulator updates fixed this
for me -- thanks Bill!

Ben Kaduk