Weird iwl3945 wireless problem

Sun Jun 22 21:42:27 UTC 2008

My laptop has an Intel 3945 wireless builtin.  Under F9, I've had very 
few problems with it connecting.  At home, I have a Linksys wrt54g and 
connect using WPA security.  Work fine (95% of the time).  Same at my 
mother's house, where I set up a similar router.  I'm using NetworkMangler.

This past weekend, I went on vacation to an inn.  In the "barn" they 
offered free wireless.  WEP encrypted, and they gave me the passphrase.

NM found the network right off, and asked me for the passphrase.  WHen 
it prompted, it asked for the "WEP 128 passphrase".  I typed it in.
The attempt timed out after 45 seconds, prompting for me to re-enter the 
passphrase, but this time, its a "WEP 40/128 Hexadecimal" and passphrase 
its trying to use is different from what I originally typed in, though I 
might believe it is the passphrase encrypted for the network its trying 
to connect to.  Subsequent attempts to connect fail, whether I use what 
it presents back to me, or I re-select WEP-128 Passphrase and re-type in 
the passphrase.

Now, here's the funny part.  When I retired to my room (which is 
supposedly out of range of the inn's wireless, since that network no 
longer appears in the network list), it connected right away to a nearby 
non-secured network.

So, NM works for me with WPA and with no security, but not with WEP? 
(Size of test sets:  2, 1, 1)

So, can someone tell me, please, if NM is broken (and I should file a 
bug), or if I was doing something wrong, and what I should have done in 
order to connect to the inn's network.

I'm including a cut/paste of my /var/log/messages for one of NM's 
connection attempts.  It looks to me like NM found the network, and 
tried to connect, but died during DHCP lookup (ie, never got a response 
from the serving router).

> Jun 20 14:49:58 kjclap NetworkManager: <info>  Activation (eth1) Stage 1 of 5 (Device Prepare) scheduled... 
> Jun 20 14:49:58 kjclap NetworkManager: <info>  Activation (eth1) Stage 1 of 5 (Device Prepare) started... 
> Jun 20 14:49:58 kjclap NetworkManager: <info>  (eth1): device state change: 6 -> 4 
> Jun 20 14:49:58 kjclap NetworkManager: <info>  Activation (eth1) Stage 2 of 5 (Device Configure) scheduled... 
> Jun 20 14:49:58 kjclap NetworkManager: <info>  Activation (eth1) Stage 1 of 5 (Device Prepare) complete. 
> Jun 20 14:49:58 kjclap NetworkManager: <info>  Activation (eth1) Stage 2 of 5 (Device Configure) starting... 
> Jun 20 14:49:58 kjclap NetworkManager: <info>  (eth1): device state change: 4 -> 5 
> Jun 20 14:49:58 kjclap NetworkManager: <info>  Activation (eth1/wireless): connection 'Auto Lake Shore Farm' has security, and secrets exist.  No new secrets needed. 
> Jun 20 14:49:58 kjclap NetworkManager: <info>  Config: added 'ssid' value 'Lake Shore Farm' 
> Jun 20 14:49:58 kjclap NetworkManager: <info>  Config: added 'scan_ssid' value '1' 
> Jun 20 14:49:58 kjclap NetworkManager: <info>  Config: added 'key_mgmt' value 'NONE' 
> Jun 20 14:49:58 kjclap NetworkManager: <info>  Config: added 'auth_alg' value 'OPEN' 
> Jun 20 14:49:58 kjclap NetworkManager: <info>  Config: added 'wep_key0' value '<omitted>' 
> Jun 20 14:49:58 kjclap NetworkManager: <info>  Config: added 'wep_tx_keyidx' value '0' 
> Jun 20 14:49:58 kjclap NetworkManager: <info>  Activation (eth1) Stage 2 of 5 (Device Configure) complete. 
> Jun 20 14:49:58 kjclap NetworkManager: <info>  (eth1): supplicant connection state change: 7 -> 0 
> Jun 20 14:49:58 kjclap NetworkManager: <info>  Config: set interface ap_scan to 1 
> Jun 20 14:49:58 kjclap NetworkManager: <info>  (eth1): supplicant connection state change: 0 -> 2 
> Jun 20 14:50:02 kjclap NetworkManager: <info>  (eth1): supplicant connection state change: 2 -> 3 
> Jun 20 14:50:02 kjclap NetworkManager: <info>  (eth1): supplicant connection state change: 3 -> 0 
> Jun 20 14:50:03 kjclap NetworkManager: <info>  (eth1): supplicant connection state change: 0 -> 4 
> Jun 20 14:50:03 kjclap NetworkManager: <info>  (eth1): supplicant connection state change: 4 -> 7 
> Jun 20 14:50:03 kjclap NetworkManager: <info>  Activation (eth1/wireless) Stage 2 of 5 (Device Configure) successful.  Connected to wireless network 'Lake Shore Farm'. 
> Jun 20 14:50:03 kjclap NetworkManager: <info>  Activation (eth1) Stage 3 of 5 (IP Configure Start) scheduled. 
> Jun 20 14:50:03 kjclap NetworkManager: <info>  Activation (eth1) Stage 3 of 5 (IP Configure Start) started... 
> Jun 20 14:50:03 kjclap NetworkManager: <info>  (eth1): device state change: 5 -> 7 
> Jun 20 14:50:03 kjclap NetworkManager: <info>  Activation (eth1) Beginning DHCP transaction. 
> Jun 20 14:50:03 kjclap NetworkManager: <info>  dhclient started with pid 8502 
> Jun 20 14:50:03 kjclap NetworkManager: <info>  Activation (eth1) Stage 3 of 5 (IP Configure Start) complete. 
> Jun 20 14:50:03 kjclap dhclient: Internet Systems Consortium DHCP Client 4.0.0
> Jun 20 14:50:03 kjclap dhclient: Copyright 2004-2007 Internet Systems Consortium.
> Jun 20 14:50:03 kjclap dhclient: All rights reserved.
> Jun 20 14:50:03 kjclap dhclient: For info, please visit http://www.isc.org/sw/dhcp/
> Jun 20 14:50:03 kjclap dhclient: 
> Jun 20 14:50:03 kjclap NetworkManager: <info>  DHCP: device eth1 state changed normal exit -> preinit 
> Jun 20 14:50:03 kjclap dhclient: Listening on LPF/eth1/00:19:d2:5f:41:ae
> Jun 20 14:50:03 kjclap dhclient: Sending on   LPF/eth1/00:19:d2:5f:41:ae
> Jun 20 14:50:03 kjclap dhclient: Sending on   Socket/fallback
> Jun 20 14:50:03 kjclap dhclient: DHCPDISCOVER on eth1 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 4
> Jun 20 14:50:07 kjclap dhclient: DHCPDISCOVER on eth1 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 11
> Jun 20 14:50:18 kjclap dhclient: DHCPDISCOVER on eth1 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 14
> Jun 20 14:50:32 kjclap dhclient: DHCPDISCOVER on eth1 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 14
> Jun 20 14:50:46 kjclap dhclient: DHCPDISCOVER on eth1 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 15
> Jun 20 14:50:48 kjclap NetworkManager: <info>  Device 'eth1' DHCP transaction took too long (>45s), stopping it. 
> Jun 20 14:50:48 kjclap NetworkManager: <info>  eth1: canceled DHCP transaction, dhclient pid 8502 
> Jun 20 14:50:48 kjclap NetworkManager: <info>  Activation (eth1) Stage 4 of 5 (IP Configure Timeout) scheduled... 
> Jun 20 14:50:48 kjclap NetworkManager: <info>  Activation (eth1) Stage 4 of 5 (IP Configure Timeout) started... 
> Jun 20 14:50:48 kjclap NetworkManager: <info>  Activation (eth1/wireless): could not get IP configuration for connection 'Auto Lake Shore Farm'. 
> Jun 20 14:50:48 kjclap NetworkManager: <info>  (eth1): device state change: 7 -> 6 
> Jun 20 14:50:48 kjclap NetworkManager: <info>  Activation (eth1/wireless): asking for new secrets 
> Jun 20 14:50:48 kjclap NetworkManager: <info>  Activation (eth1) Stage 4 of 5 (IP Configure Timeout) complete. 

[I did have fun with kismet on the drive home, looking at *all* the 
802.11 networks sniffable from the road.  Quite a few linksys routers 
still in factory setup!  Wow!]

-- 
Kevin J. Cummings
kjchome at rcn.com
cummings at kjchome.homeip.net
cummings at kjc386.framingham.ma.us
Registered Linux User #1232 (http://counter.li.org)