WPA && associating with unknown SSID

[Pietro Cerutti]

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Sam Leffler wrote:
| 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).

Not necessarily. If you bring up a wlan interface and don't specify
anything, it will automatically associate with the first open AP it finds.

I don't know if it's to be considered a feature or a bug. I've been
worried by this sometimes, but honestly not enough to really care..

Anyway, it happens...

|    Sam

- --
Pietro Cerutti
gahr at FreeBSD.org

PGP Public Key:
http://gahr.ch/pgp

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