Re: Can't specify key index for WEP

[Dan Williams <dcbw redhat com>]

On Mon, 2006-05-29 at 12:11 +0200, Bjorn Knutsson wrote:
> I'm using NetworkManager as offered in the Fedora Core 5 distribution,
> and for most networks it works fine for me. I could not, however, make
> it work on one wireless network I occasionally use.
> 
> On this specific network, the key I specify is key #4. The
> NetworkManager interface (or at least the Gnome interface I use) does
> not permit me to specify the index of the key used, so even though I
> specify the right key, I will not be able to connect the network.
> 
> Before I upgraded to Fedora Core 5 and started using NetworkManager, I
> could specify the index and key as:
> 
> KEY='[4] feeddeadbeefdefacedbedface'
> 
> in the keys-wlan0 file in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts
> 
> I cannot, however, find reasonably accessible way of accomplishing a
> similar approach using NetworkManager.
> 
> Am I missing something, or do I need to revert to the manual way of
> setting up networks under Fedora Core 5 to connect to this network?

While NM doesn't support key indexes at this time, I'm curious if we
don't _have_ to.  802.11 protocols don't specify the WEP key index in
over the air anyway, so it's completely client-side how the translation
from key+index -> OTA-wep gets done.  The original point of key indexes
was for the administrator to store more than one key in the NVRAM of the
wireless card, and the user didn't have to know the key, and could just
change key indexes as they wandered around the warehouse or office or
whatever.  These days it's uncommon to find key indexes, and since NM
stores the key itself (in the keyring or wherever) it kind of takes over
the functionality of key indexes.

I guess I need to re-read the 802.11 spec to find out exactly how the
indexes are supposed to be used.  But I'm curious if we can get around
key indexes by just stuffing the right key into the card's "temp key"
location.  All 802.11 cards are supposed to have indexes 1 - 4, where 0
is the temporary transmit key that's user-set.

Dan