WPA && associating with unknown SSID

[Sam Leffler]

Roland van Laar wrote:
> 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.
>
>   
I believe this is how things work; wpa_supplicant is launched only when 
the device is discovered (e.g. at boot or card insert) and not when 
marked up.  You need to do something like /etc/rc.d/netif start ath0 to 
bring the interface up.  Not sure if this can be handled more 
transparently (e.g. via devd).

    Sam