Re: Resetting PSK for WPA

[Patton Echols <p echols comcast net>]

On 09/27/2007 10:25 PM, Robert Smits wrote:
> On Thursday 27 September 2007 17:25, Patton Echols wrote:
>   
> > There's a question here, but let me tell why first . . .
> >
> > After hearing the vulnerability of WPA to attacks on short pre-shared
> > keys, I decided to reset my wireless routers to more robust keys.
> >
> > Resetting Network Manager to use a different key was more of a
> > challenge. (I had thought that, upon finding that it's psk was wrong, it
> > would ask for a new one)  But it didn't.  NM just kept trying to connect.
> >
> > After some judicious googling, I found two instructions:
> >
> > The first (I think on Darren  Alber's faq?  but now I can't find the
> > page)  was to reset the SSID with the following command:
> >
> > gconftool-2 --recursive-unset
> > /system/networking/wireless/networks/<ssid> with <ssid> replaced with
> > the correct one. (for what it's worth the correct directory on my ubuntu
> > system is:
> >  ~/.gconf/system/networking/wireless/networks/<ssid> and gconftools does
> > not like the "." in the directory name)
> >
> > At any rate, once getting to the correct place, gconftool-2 did not
> > return any output, and a search of the man page did not reveal an
> > obvious "verbose" switch.  But since there was no error, I restarted NM
> > using:
> > sudo /etc/init.d/dbus restart
> > No luck, NM continued trying to connect with the old key.
> >
> > The second instruction was more of a brute force approach.  Go to
> > ~/.gconf/system/networking/wireless/networks/ and removing the directory
> > named <ssid> Again replacing with the correct name.  Another dbus
> > restart, no change.
> >
> >
> > FInally, having searched for quite some time to see if the old psk was
> > stored elsewhere, I re-booted the system.  That finally worked -- and
> > now I'm finally getting to the question.
> >
> > As a linux newbie, one of the things I like is the ability to tweak,
> > break, fix etc the system without having to reboot all the time.  I
> > assumed that I should be able to do so with NM and with other issues a
> > dbus restart is just what is needed.  Can't I do this without a reboot?
> > Another way of asking: Where was my old key stored and what should I
> > have restarted so that NM would be forced to ask me for the new one?
> >     
>
> I think this depends very much on what distro you use, and I don't see where 
> you've told us that.
>   

Right, sorry, Ubuntu Feisty

> In opensuse this is literally a 30 second job. Just open Yast, go to network 
> card, edit the configuration for the wireless card and cut and paste your wpa 
> password. Click finish and you're done.
>   

Interesting . . . my prior reading (and limited experience) had lead me 
to the conclusion that NM managed the keys. ("don't need the keys in 
wpa_Supplicant.conf, NM takes care of it"  "Just open NM window it will 
ask you for the key" . . .)  I even thought I had done a good Google 
search.  But did not find the right answer including terms like "ubuntu" 
"NetworkManager" "reset" and "wpa-psk" to no avail.**  But with your 
suggestion, I poked around and found the "Ubuntu" answer.

At least for Feisty: Click System | Administration | Keyring Manager.  
In the dialog, click "allow" for whatever, select your key and go from 
there.  In looking at the result, these may be the kkeys that are 
generated from the passphrase.  But I bet if I delete, I'll be where I 
want to be.

Thanks for the suggestion.

** BTW, this is no knock on the NetworkManager maintainers.  It is a 
great applet, works well and does what needed and, I am pleased to read 
is under active development and making even more progress.  But this is 
an example of how the  folks who really know how the system works (god 
bless 'em) have a tough time communicating with folks who don't.  (This 
same phenomenon is what makes my head hurt when I try to read man pages 
).   I suppose that what every app really needs is folks to write the 
documentation who -- even if they are not competent to program -- can 
think and write like a "noob" even though they know how it works.   
(Hmmm, . . . Can't quit my day job, but am I obliged to try and post my 
findings beyond the list serve???)

Thanks for the help.  For my learning curve, I'm still interested in why 
a reboot worked but a dbus restart didn't.  'cuz there was no keyring 
manager restart?

Thanks,

Patton