wpa_supplicant Oddity

Fri May 19 22:36:19 PDT 2006

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After fooling around with my wireless card on one of my Dell latops
I noticed it would not come back to life after a reboot. I tried
everything on the planet to get it working... As you can see from
my ifconfig, the card was associated, the router saw it, but it
would not function properly...

bordello# uname -a
FreeBSD bordello 6.1-RELEASE FreeBSD 6.1-RELEASE #0: Mon May 15
10:50:49 EDT 2006     root@:/usr/src/sys/i386/compile/TYPHOON  i386
bordello# ifconfig -a
bge0: flags=8802<BROADCAST,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
        options=1b<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,VLAN_MTU,VLAN_HWTAGGING>
        ether 00:0d:56:e2:c4:b5
        media: Ethernet autoselect (none)
        status: no carrier
ndis0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
        inet6 fe80::290:4bff:fe73:665e%ndis0 prefixlen 64 scopeid
0x2
        inet 192.168.1.8 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.1.255
        ether 00:90:4b:73:66:5e
        media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet autoselect
(OFDM/54Mbps)
        status: associated
        ssid HOSTEL channel 10 bssid 00:0f:b5:62:88:a6
        authmode OPEN privacy ON deftxkey UNDEF wepkey 1:104-bit
txpowmax 100
        protmode CTS
plip0: flags=108810<POINTOPOINT,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST,NEEDSGIANT> mtu
1500
lo0: flags=8049<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST> mtu 16384
        inet6 ::1 prefixlen 128
        inet6 fe80::1%lo0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x4
        inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 0xff000000
bordello# cat /etc/rc.conf

apm_enable="YES"
inetd_enable="YES"
linux_enable="YES"
moused_enable="YES"
sshd_enable="YES"
usbd_enable="YES"
pccard_enable="YES"
pccard_mem="0xd8000"
powerd_enable="YES"
fsck_y_enable="YES"
hostname="bordello"
dhclient_program="/sbin/dhclient"
background_dhclient="YES"
sshd_enable="YES"
ifconfig_ndis0="WPA DHCP"

bordello# more /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
network={

ssid="HOSTEL"
key_mgmt=NONE
wep_key1=d7a0cb0f54679c476886d7db3b
wep_tx_keyidx=1
wep_tx_keyidx=1
}

bordello# /etc/rc.d/netif start
Starting wpa_supplicant.
lo0: flags=8049<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST> mtu 16384
        inet6 ::1 prefixlen 128
        inet6 fe80::1%lo0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x4
        inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 0xff000000
ndis0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
        inet6 fe80::290:4bff:fe73:665e%ndis0 prefixlen 64 scopeid
0x2
        inet 0.0.0.0 netmask 0xff000000 broadcast 255.255.255.255
        ether 00:90:4b:73:66:5e
        media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet autoselect
(OFDM/54Mbps)
        status: no carrier
        ssid HOSTEL channel 10
        authmode OPEN privacy ON deftxkey 4 txpowmax 100 protmode
CTS

bordello# ifconfig ndis0 inet 192.168.1.8 netmask 255.255.255.0
ssid HOSTEL wepmode on wepkey 0xd7a0cb0f54679c476886d7db3b up

bordello# ifconfig -a
bge0: flags=8802<BROADCAST,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
        options=1b<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,VLAN_MTU,VLAN_HWTAGGING>
        ether 00:0d:56:e2:c4:b5
        media: Ethernet autoselect (none)
        status: no carrier
ndis0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
        inet6 fe80::290:4bff:fe73:665e%ndis0 prefixlen 64 scopeid
0x2
        ether 00:90:4b:73:66:5e
        media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet autoselect
(OFDM/54Mbps)
        status: associated
        ssid HOSTEL channel 10 bssid 00:0f:b5:62:88:a6
        authmode OPEN privacy ON deftxkey 4 wepkey 1:104-bit
txpowmax 100
        protmode CTS
plip0: flags=108810<POINTOPOINT,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST,NEEDSGIANT> mtu
1500
lo0: flags=8049<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST> mtu 16384
        inet6 ::1 prefixlen 128
        inet6 fe80::1%lo0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x4
        inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 0xff000000
bordello# ping 192.168.1.1
PING 192.168.1.1 (192.168.1.1): 56 data bytes
ping: sendto: No route to host
ping: sendto: No route to host
ping: sendto: No route to host
^C
- --- 192.168.1.1 ping statistics ---
3 packets transmitted, 0 packets received, 100% packet loss

Didn't want to bombard more crap but yes I did a dhclient ndis0 as
well and it bonked out. Anyhow, this is what I noticed after a ps -
xa for wpa_supplicant after going through all my configs to make
sure they were all in order...

bordello# ps -xa|grep wpa
63979  ??  Ss     0:00.41 /usr/sbin/wpa_supplicant -B -q -i ndis0 -
c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -D ndis -P
/var/run/wpa_supplicant/ndis0.pid

When I went to check the wpa_supplicant directory in /var/run I
noticed there wasn't one.

bordello# mkdir /var/run/wpa_supplicant
bordello# chown root:network
bordello# sudo ifconfig ndis0 inet 192.168.1.8 netmask
255.255.255.0 ssid HOSTEL wepmode on weptxkey 1 wepkey
1:0xd7a0cb0f54679c476886d7db3b up
bordello# ifconfig -a
bordello# sudo ifconfig ndis0 up

Everything worked fine afterwards. Unsure why the directory wasn't
there but I figured I would share this little bit of information
with others who have had odd problems with their wireless set up.
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