I have a wireless-N Linksys router centrally located in my home. I also
have 2 each Linksys E1000 range extenders located at each end of the
house. I have Desktop computers in fixed locations around the house.
Using Network Manager all is well with all of them. I can see all the
Access Points and select the one with the best signal. However network
manager doesn't seem to be a valid option for all of them and I'm using
traditional IFUP with static configurations.
When using IFUP, wrong Access Points are being chosen by whatever the
underlying userland/kernel process is that is supposed to select it. It
seems it wants to select the one with the weakest signal instead of the
strongest. I'm being told that when using ifup and WPA, as opposed to
WEP, that userland has no choice in the selection of an Access Point by
MAC address, only by SSID. All my APs have the same SSID.
I am using SuSE 12.2 Linux and 3.6.6 kernels on all these machines and
the wireless hardware I am using on all these is are ASUS USB-300N adapters.
lsusb output: Bus 001 Device 004: ID 0b05:17ab ASUSTek Computer, Inc.
The kernel driver being used is rtl8192cu.
I don't understand why the developers of whatever the underlying
userland/kernel process is that selects the AP, did not think that a
user selection option by MAC address might be a good idea, as I'm told
it is possible using WEP. In any case, I am unable to get all this
stuff working properly. Most of the time, the AP furthest away is
selected. Often the router in the middle of the house is selected. Very
very rarely is the closest AP chosen. When the furthest is chosen, I am
unable to use the network. When the router in the middle of the home is
selected, the connection comes to a crawl and often disassociates in the
middle of use. When it does choose the correct AP, all is well until I
reboot the machine.
The same thing happens with the desktop machine at the other end of the
house but most of the time it selects the router in the middle of the
house. It has never selected the closest AP.
Some sample dmesg and iwconfig output when the AP at the other end of
the house was selected:
[ 19.876977] wlan0: authenticate with c8:d7:19:7a:ab:1e
[ 19.901616] wlan0: send auth to c8:d7:19:7a:ab:1e (try 1/3)
[ 19.904099] wlan0: authenticated
[ 19.916679] wlan0: associate with c8:d7:19:7a:ab:1e (try 1/3)
[ 19.925839] wlan0: RX AssocResp from c8:d7:19:7a:ab:1e (capab=0x411
status=0 aid=2)
[ 19.925975] wlan0: associated
[ 19.925988] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): wlan0: link becomes ready
wlan0 IEEE 802.11bgn ESSID:"hounschell-1"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.437 GHz Access Point:
C8:D7:19:7A:AB:1E
Bit Rate=150 Mb/s Tx-Power=20 dBm
Retry long limit:7 RTS thr=2347 B Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality=66/70 Signal level=-44 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:9 Missed beacon:0
This AP is at the other end of the house. The network was unusable after
this boot.
Is this likely a kernel issue? If so, I would be willing to help with it
if I can with my configuration.
Regards
Mark