wpa_supplicant fails with ndiswrapper andmadwifi driver for Atheros 802.11a/b/g card

Michael Reilly michaelr at cisco.com
Thu Nov 11 14:03:56 EST 2004


Just a quick follow up.  I tried an 802.11a access point last night (D-Link 
DWL-7100AP).  Same problem.  Atheros based cards do not work using 
ndiswrapper and WPA-PSK (wpa_supplicant).  Didn't try madwifi last night but 
it hasn't worked in past tests so I expect it fail with this AP also.

Driverloader works fine using the same wireless card drivers, same 
wpa_supplicant with same wpa_supplicant config file.  Only change was to 
specify ndiswrapper driver vs hostap driver (-Dndiswrapper vs -Dhostap).

Anyone have any ideas how to debug this?

michael

Michael Reilly wrote:
> Sorry for the delay in responding - I was out of town for a few days.
> 
> Jouni Malinen wrote:
> 
>> On Sun, Oct 31, 2004 at 10:38:39PM -0800, Michael Reilly wrote:
>>
>>
>>> I have a Cisco CB21AG card which is based on the Atheros 802.11a/b/g 
>>> chip (5212 I think it is called).  The card has a PCI id of vendor 
>>> 0x168c, device 0x0013.
>>>
>>> wpa_supplicant fails when I try to use WPA-PSK.  I downloaded a trial 
>>> copy of driverloader and it works fine.
>>
>>
>>
>> Which NDIS driver are you using?
> 
> The driver provided by Cisco with the card.  From the log-
> 
>      ndiswrapper: driver net21 (,08/27/2004,1.2.0.3) added
> 
> I tried with a Linksys WPC55AG card last night (also Atheros based).  
> Same failure.  The Linksys card also works fine with driverloader.
> 
> The Linksys driver -
> 
>     ndiswrapper: driver ar5211.sys (,12/03/2003,2.4.2.33) added
> 
>>
>>
>>> The debug from wpa_supplicant indicates that the AP scan returns 0 
>>> bytes. No suitable AP is found.  I am not sure where the problem lies 
>>> except that it fails with both ndiswrapper and the madwifi drivers 
>>> pulled from the madwifi project's cvs last wednesday.
>>
>>
>>
>> Can you get scan any results with 'iwlist wlan0 scan'? Can you use
>> ndiswrapper in plaintext mode with the same AP?
> 
> 
> Yes to both.  I also tried a WRT54GS last night and neither card worked 
> with ndiswrapper but both work fine with driverloader.
> 
>>
>>
>>> What debugs should I obtain in order to solve this problem?  I ran 
>>> wpa_supplicant with the -dd command line option and saw that the sacn 
>>> failed.  (Sorry I lost the log I captured.  I will recreate it later 
>>> and post it as a followup to this message.)
>>
>>
>>
>> That would be suitable log file for hostap (i.e., wpa_supplicant)
>> mailing list.
>>
>>
>>> I am using wpa_supplicant 2.5 and ndiswrapper 0.10 (I tried 
>>> ndiswrapper 0.11 but the perl script prints out a number of error 
>>> messages so went back to version 0.10).  The access point is a Cisco 
>>> 1100.
>>
>>
>>
>> Which firmware version is used in the AP? I haven't tested ndiswrapper
>> with Cisco APs, but wpa_supplicant and Atheros-based cards have worked
>> nicely with Cisco APs.
> 
> IOS 12.3(2)JA in the Cisco.  Sveasoft satori released in the WRT54GS
> 
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Nov 01, 2004 at 08:46:12AM +0100, Wouter de Jong wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Does anyone else have this up and running with an Atheros-chip ?
>>
>>
>>
>> Yes, worked fine with ndiswrapper the last time I tested (a long time
>> ago, though).
>>
> Something seems to have broken since you tested it.  I have the same 
> failure with ndiswrapper 0.10 and 0.11 so it has been broken at least 
> that long. (Re-tested both last night.)
> 
> michael

-- 
---- ---- ----
Michael Reilly    michaelr at cisco.com
     Cisco Systems,  California



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