[pkg-wpa-devel] Bug#644084: Bug#644084: failed to initialize AP scan (kfreebsd/squeeze)

[Stefan Lippers-Hollmann]

tags 644084 + help
tags 634935 + help
thanks

Hi

On Sunday 02 October 2011, Robert Millan wrote:
> Package: wpasupplicant
> Version: 0.6.10-2.1
> Severity: grave
> User: debian-bsd at lists.debian.org
> Usertags: kfreebsd
> 
> **** This problem is fixed in wpasupplicant 0.7.3-4 ****
> 
> **** This problem is NOT the same as #634935 ****
> 
> wpasupplicant 0.6.10-2.1 failed to initialize AP scan on my Squeeze
> Debian GNU/kFreeBSD system:
> 
> $ sudo wpa_supplicant -i wlan0 -c wlan.conf
> ioctl[SIOCS80211, op 103, arg 0x0]: Invalid argument
> Failed to initiate AP scan.
> ioctl[SIOCS80211, op 103, arg 0x0]: Invalid argument
> Failed to initiate AP scan.
> [... repeatedly untill interrupted ]
> 
> Notice that the ioctl error is also present in bug #634935.  It is probably
> unrelated to this problem.
[...]

The only configuration change between 0.6.10-2.1 and 0.7.3-4 affecting 
kfreebsd is enabling CONFIG_IEEE80211W=y, which shouldn't have any 
impact on scanning. However there have been really massive BSD related
changes in wpasupplicant between the 0.6 and 0.7 branches, including 
some explicitly referencing compatibility with FreeBSD 8.0[1]. Looking
at their size and impact, just applying them to wpasupplicant 0.6.10
or doing simple backports doesn't appear to be possible or even 
acceptable for upcoming squeeze stable releases, so a targetted patch 
would be needed.

Unfortunately I'm only running kfreebsd-amd64/ unstable in kvm on a 
linux host so far, so beyond build testing on kfreebsd I can't actually
debug kfreebsd's wlan specifics. Therefore I'd need your input for 
kFreeBSD specific changes, also considering its configuration and in 
particular regarding the newly (in 0.7.3-4) introduced 
wpasupplicant-udeb, which should allow to use wlan/ wpa for netinstalls
in d-i (the wlan support code in d-i mostly relies on wpasupplicant 
and might not need many changes to work on kFreeBSD as well).

Talking about wlan specifics, which wlan card/ kernel module are you 
using to test wpa_supplicant under kFreeBSD (preferably which works
with the kernel in unstable/main and doesn't require a kernel with 
unstripped firmwares)?

[ Unrelated to this, I have been playing with the idea of doing a 
  kFreeBSD-amd64/ unstable installation on real hardware, to allow me
  some further wpasupplicant (or lirc) testing, but all of my systems 
  use lvm2 on top of MSDOS or GPT partition tables spanning the whole 
  drive (/ on lvm2, no dedicated /boot/). This configuration is 
  apparently not supported by Debian/ kFreeBSD yet, e.g. d-i/ partman 
  doesn't offer to use the volume group or existing logical volumes 
  therein and grub2 can't find the root device, if copied manually.
  While I have tested to move kFreeBSD manually to a prepared ufs2 
  filesystem on top of a LVM2 logical volume, which works fine after 
  adapting fstab and setting
	kfreebsd_module_elf /lib/modules/8.2-1-amd64/geom_linux_lvm.ko
  in grub.cfg of an external grub2 install (either on a regular 
  partition or linux / on lvm2) in kvm, I didn't try to move such
  an install to real hardware, yet. ]

Regards
	Stefan Lippers-Hollmann

[1]	http://hostap.epitest.fi/gitweb/gitweb.cgi?p=hostap.git;a=commitdiff;h=88487b0e0b524aae7603c17b7db7985ae9a810c9
	(depends on lots of the previous restructuring)