Re: NM does not work with iwl4965 device

[Thomas M Steenholdt <tmus tmus dk>]

Thomas M Steenholdt wrote:
> I'll force it to use 1 or 2 this evening, and see what kind of success 
> that will give me.
>
> I'll keep you guys posted.

I've been experimenting a bit tonight and this is what I've found.

AP_SCAN 2 : ESSID is set on the wireless device, but it never 
associates. Presumably because it cannot find the AP.

AP_SCAN 1: ESSID does NOT get set on the wireless device, so does not 
work alone - during the device setup phase, if you issue an "iwconfig 
wlan0 essid whatever", the device will associate fine.

So I made a patch to incorporate the two and to prove a point. :)

Please note, that this patch is intended to prove that the association 
to hidden IS possible, even with ipw4965 devices. The patch changes the 
AP_SCAN value for hidden networks and I have no clue as to what that 
will do for other wireless devices. Also, since I've not gotten 
acquainted to very much of the NetworkManager code, there might be 
better places to put some of these things. So it should at the very 
least be reviewed by someone more familiar with the code than myself. 
(there - the disclaimer is double the size of the patch itself ;-p)

Try it out and let me know how it works for you.

My testing was performed on Fedora 7 - 0.6.5 version of NetworkManager. 
Obviously 0.6.5 is also the version that this patch is most likely to 
apply to.

Good luck. Patch below!

/Thomas

--- NetworkManager-0.6.5/src/nm-device-802-11-wireless.c.fix-hidden 
2007-06-07 13:22:21.000000000 -0200
+++ NetworkManager-0.6.5/src/nm-device-802-11-wireless.c	2007-08-07 
00:14:29.000000000 -0200
@@ -2838,13 +2838,19 @@
 				|| (caps & NM_802_11_CAP_PROTO_WPA2);

 	/* Use "AP_SCAN 2" if:
-	 * - The wireless network is non-broadcast or Ad-Hoc
+	 * - The wireless network is Ad-Hoc
 	 * - The wireless driver does not support WPA (stupid drivers...)
 	 */
 	is_adhoc = (nm_ap_get_mode(ap) == IW_MODE_ADHOC);
-	if (!nm_ap_get_broadcast (ap) || is_adhoc || !supports_wpa)
+	if (is_adhoc || !supports_wpa)
 		ap_scan = "AP_SCAN 2";

+	/* Use "AP_SCAN 1" if:
+	 * - The wireless network is non-broadcast
+	 */
+	if (!nm_ap_get_broadcast (ap))
+		ap_scan = "AP_SCAN 1";
+
 	/* Tell wpa_supplicant that we'll do the scanning */
 	if (!nm_utils_supplicant_request_with_check (ctrl, "OK", __func__, 
NULL, ap_scan))
 		goto out;
@@ -2877,6 +2883,14 @@
 	 */
 	if (!nm_ap_get_broadcast (ap) && !is_adhoc)
 	{
+		/*
+		 * since using "AP_SCAN 1" for hidden networks, wpa_supplicant
+		 * does not seem to bring the essid to the device anymore...
+		 * perhaps this is a wpa_supplicant/wext/driver issue or perhaps this
+		 * is simply how it is. We set the ESSID here for now.
+		 */
+		nm_device_802_11_wireless_set_essid(self, essid);
+
 		if (!nm_utils_supplicant_request_with_check (ctrl, "OK", __func__, NULL,
 				"SET_NETWORK %i scan_ssid 1", nwid))
 			goto out;