[pkg-wpa-devel] Bug#403727: Disconnects every few seconds on madwifi

[Maik Zumstrull]

Package: wpasupplicant
Version: 0.5.5-4

When using wpa_supplicant in roaming mode on current Debian madwifi
(see attachment: package-versions), the connection drops every thirty
seconds or so.

This behavior is completely reproducible and occurs on any networks I
have tested it with, among them:
- My university WLAN with WPA-EAP
- My home network with WPA-PSK
- My university WLAN without any encryption
- The network of a local cafe using WEP-40

Each test on the university network has been performed in different
buildings, which use compatible configurations, but completely
different hardware (LANCOM vs. Trapeze Networks; DHCP and Radius
servers are shared).

Where this is an option (i.e. the above networks without actual WPA), I
also tested using only the driver and ifupdown, without starting
wpa_supplicant. In this scenario, the dropouts do not occur.

Note: I am aware that madwifi should theoretically be usable with both
-Dmadwifi and -Dwext, and that the latter is actually the recommended
configuration. On my system, -Dwext doesn't work at all, any
association attempt fails. With -Dmadwifi, the network is usable (for
seconds at a time) with the dropouts this report is about.

Further attached information:
- The wpa_supplicant and ifupdown configuration files (shortened to
  relevant sections, with private information removed; access to full
  files can be granted via private mail if this is deemed necessary.)
- The output of a session of wpa_cli with debug level 0, time-stamped.
  I waited for several dropouts to occur before ending the session.
  The time-stamps appear to be pretty useless since wpa_cli seems to
  dump its output in big chunks at a time.

In the hope that I didn't just send this report and it turns out to be
a small dumb misconfiguration on my part,

Maik
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