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. And
I admit I do not know what that process is. It seems it wants to select
the one with the weakest signal instead of the strongest. 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.
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.
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 file a BUG
report and even help with it if I can with my configuration.
Regards
Mark
On 12/06/2012 10:03 AM, Johannes Berg wrote:
> On Thu, 2012-12-06 at 09:10 -0500, Mark Hounschell wrote:
>> I'm using
>> traditional ifup with static configurations.
>
> You should at least run wpa_supplicant, which will pick a better network
> and reconnect if the connection drops etc. Almost no device does that by
> itself any more.
wpa_supplicant is running.
#ps ax | grep wpa
wpa_supplicant -iwlan0 -c/var/run/wpa_supplicant-wlan0.conf -Dnl80211,wext
-P/var/run/wpa_supplicant/wlan0.pid -B
When the router in the middle of the house is chosen, as opposed to the
range extender in the very same room, the network works for a time but
eventually disassociates, usually reason 7, and never reconnects to
anything.
Mark
On 12/07/2012 03:54 PM, Johannes Berg wrote:
>
>> Thanks for responding. Do you think my problem is a wpa_supplicant
>> issue, a kernel issue, or a Dist issue?
>
> I'd say it's a wpa_s issue, but I can't remember any time that it didn't
> reconnect after getting disconnected, so maybe there's an issue with
> your driver/device that causes it to need a reset or something ... hard
> to tell more without at least the supplicant log.
>
I am wpa_supplicant stupid. I'll investigate and see if I can provide
more info. I have 4 of these devices scattered about the house on Linux
boxes. They all do the same thing. I also have 3 TV's and a windows
laptop my wife uses that all connect properly to it's closest AP. As you
can see this is a project to make the whole house wireless.
Also, personally I'm more concerned as to why the Linux boxes don't just
pick the closest AP to begin with. If it did, and it actually has, it
never disconnects and will be reliable until a reboot.
Thanks
Mark
On 12/07/2012 05:12 AM, Mark Hounschell wrote:
> On 12/06/2012 10:03 AM, Johannes Berg wrote:
>> On Thu, 2012-12-06 at 09:10 -0500, Mark Hounschell wrote:
>>> I'm using
>>> traditional ifup with static configurations.
>>
>> You should at least run wpa_supplicant, which will pick a better network
>> and reconnect if the connection drops etc. Almost no device does that by
>> itself any more.
>
> wpa_supplicant is running.
>
> #ps ax | grep wpa
>
> wpa_supplicant -iwlan0 -c/var/run/wpa_supplicant-wlan0.conf
> -Dnl80211,wext -P/var/run/wpa_supplicant/wlan0.pid -B
>
>
> When the router in the middle of the house is chosen, as opposed to the
> range extender in the very same room, the network works for a time but
> eventually disassociates, usually reason 7, and never reconnects to
> anything.
>
Hi Johannes,
Thanks for responding. Do you think my problem is a wpa_supplicant
issue, a kernel issue, or a Dist issue?
Regards
Mark
On Fri, 2012-12-07 at 15:50 -0500, Mark Hounschell wrote:
> On 12/07/2012 05:12 AM, Mark Hounschell wrote:
> > On 12/06/2012 10:03 AM, Johannes Berg wrote:
> >> On Thu, 2012-12-06 at 09:10 -0500, Mark Hounschell wrote:
> >>> I'm using
> >>> traditional ifup with static configurations.
> >>
> >> You should at least run wpa_supplicant, which will pick a better network
> >> and reconnect if the connection drops etc. Almost no device does that by
> >> itself any more.
> >
> > wpa_supplicant is running.
> >
> > #ps ax | grep wpa
> >
> > wpa_supplicant -iwlan0 -c/var/run/wpa_supplicant-wlan0.conf
> > -Dnl80211,wext -P/var/run/wpa_supplicant/wlan0.pid -B
> >
> >
> > When the router in the middle of the house is chosen, as opposed to the
> > range extender in the very same room, the network works for a time but
> > eventually disassociates, usually reason 7, and never reconnects to
> > anything.
> >
> Thanks for responding. Do you think my problem is a wpa_supplicant
> issue, a kernel issue, or a Dist issue?
I'd say it's a wpa_s issue, but I can't remember any time that it didn't
reconnect after getting disconnected, so maybe there's an issue with
your driver/device that causes it to need a reset or something ... hard
to tell more without at least the supplicant log.
johannes
On Thu, 2012-12-06 at 09:10 -0500, Mark Hounschell wrote:
> I'm using
> traditional ifup with static configurations.
You should at least run wpa_supplicant, which will pick a better network
and reconnect if the connection drops etc. Almost no device does that by
itself any more.
johannes