WPA && associating with unknown SSID

[Roland van Laar]

On Wed, Sep 03, 2008 at 12:37:28PM -0700, Sam Leffler wrote:
> Matthias Apitz wrote:
> >El d?a Wednesday, September 03, 2008 a las 08:04:49AM -0700, Sam Leffler 
> >escribi?:
> >
> >  
> >>Matthias Apitz wrote:
> >>    
> >>>Hello,
> >>>
> >>>I'm using WPA to connect to my various Wifi AP's (office, home, partner
> >>>locations) and have them well configured in the wpa_supplicant.conf(5)
> >>>file;
> >>>
> >>>      
> >>>from time to time at home I encounter that it is associating with an
> >>    
> >>>unknown AP of my neighbourhood:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>># ifconfig iwi0
> >>>iwi0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 
> >>>1500
> >>>       ether 00:13:ce:a1:e6:81
> >>>       inet 192.168.2.3 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.2.255
> >>>       media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet autoselect (DS/11Mbps)
> >>>       status: associated
> >>>       ssid o2DSL_kJaR channel 1 (2412 Mhz 11g) bssid 00:19:cb:86:b3:84
> >>>       authmode OPEN privacy ON deftxkey 1 wepkey 1:40-bit bmiss 10
> >>>       scanvalid 60 bgscan bgscanintvl 300 bgscanidle 250 roam:rssi11g 7
> >>>       roam:rate11g 5 protmode CTS roaming MANUAL
> >>># ifconfig iwi0 list scan
> >>>SSID            BSSID              CHAN RATE   S:N     INT CAPS
> >>>o2DSL_kJaR      00:19:cb:86:b3:84    1   54M  19:0    100 EP  
> >>>xxxxxxxxxxxx    00:14:6c:44:aa:f6   11   54M  13:0    100 EP   WPA
> >>>
> >>>the network with SSID 'o2DSL_kJaR' is not im my
> >>>/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf;
> >>>
> >>>how this is possible and how can I prevent this?
> >>> 
> >>>      
> >>You must have a wildcard entry in your wpa_supplicant.conf file (i.e. 
> >>one w/o an ssid specified).
> >>    
> >
> >Thx for the idea, but I don't have any wildcard entry; I've checked the
> >conf file and also wpa_cli says:
> >
> >  
> >>list_networks
> >>    
> >network id / ssid / bssid / flags
> >0       santaclara      any
> >1       tarara  any     [CURRENT]
> >2       OCLCPICAUK      any
> >3       board_room      any
> >4       guagua  any
> >5       OCN-LAN any
> >6       ConnectionPoint any
> >
> >and:
> >
> ># fgrep network= /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf | wc -l
> >       7
> ># fgrep ssid=\" /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf 
> >        ssid="santaclara"
> >        ssid="tarara"
> >        ssid="OCLCPICAUK"
> >        ssid="board_room"
> >        ssid="guagua"
> >        ssid="OCN-LAN"
> >        ssid="ConnectionPoint"
> >
> >  
> So far as I know this should not happen.  It'd be useful to have a 
> wpa_supplicant log that shows it associating to an ssid not listed in 
> the config file.
> 

I encountered the same problem last week. I had a contrab which did an
ifconfig ath0 down; ifconfig ath0 up
This worked fine with WEP but wpa_supplicant exits when ath0 goes done.
ath0 connects to the first open AP after it gets up again; not reconnecting
to my WPA AP.

Hope it helps,

Roland van Laar