6.0-RC1: ifconfig reporting bad info when using ndis0 & WPA

Bill Paul wpaul at FreeBSD.ORG
Fri Oct 28 07:35:45 PDT 2005


> Sorry for cross posting - with 6.0 so near, I wasn't sure which list to 
> send this too.  I'm not subscribed to -current, so please cc me if the 
> conversation is moved there.
> 
> I just cvsup'd RELENG_6_0 and upgraded by 6.0-RC1 install this morning, 
> eager to see if WPA with ndis0 would now work.  The good news: it does. 
>   The bad news:  ifconfig doesn't report all the information correctly.
> 
> Here is what ifconfig -a is reporting for ndis0:
> 
> ndis0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
>          inet6 fe80::20f:66ff:fefe:a1a7%ndis0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x3
>          inet 192.168.23.13 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.23.255
>          ether 00:0f:66:fe:a1:a7
>          media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet autoselect (OFDM/54Mbps)
>          status: associated
>          ssid BGP4 channel 1 bssid 00:0f:66:bc:9b:0a
>          authmode OPEN privacy OFF txpowmax 100 protmode CTS
> 
> The problem is that the connection is actually on channel 11, not 
> channel 1, and its using WPA.
> 
> Is this a known issue?

When using wpa_supplicant in -D ndis mode, it modifies the interface
configuration directly using ioctl()s to the NDIS driver (which is
exactly what it does on Windows, only in Windows it's called
DeviceIoControl() instead of ioctl). Consequently, net80211 isn't
aware of all the state changes that it triggers. I think this can
be remedied, but for now I thought people would be more interested
in actually having WPA and WPA2 actually work, and wouldn't mind so
much that ifconfig didn't always report precisely the right state
info at all times.

I can probably fix this, but it'll have to wait until after the
release is cut before I can merge it into 6.x.

Out of curiosity, what card do you have?

-Bill

--
=============================================================================
-Bill Paul            (510) 749-2329 | Senior Engineer, Master of Unix-Fu
                 wpaul at windriver.com | Wind River Systems
=============================================================================
              <adamw> you're just BEGGING to face the moose
=============================================================================


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