Hi to everyone, I have an old laptop (Thinkpad 600) running on Debian Etch, and I am trying to get a pcmcia 'deXlan' wifi card (Intersil Prism2 chipset) working on it. I want WPA encryption, and I am told that my Hostap driver is supposed to work WPA provided that the daemon 'hostapd' is running and wpa_supplicant is associated.
I had so far no success in my trials. For one thing, even though the hostap driver (hostap_cs) is running, I can't launch the hostapd daemon : #'/usr/sbin/hostapd /etc/hostapd.conf' tells me the following : ioctl(SIOCGIFINDEX): No such device hostap driver initialisation failed rmdir[ctrl_interface]: no such file or directory My hostapd.conf does not contain much, I left the minimum in it for a start: interface=wlan0 debug=3 dump file=/tmp/hostapd.dump #(nothing in it) ctrl_interface=/var/run/hostapd ssid=Livebox46db ..... if, in the config file, I don't disable 'passive scanning', I get this reply: "Could not set passive scanning. Unknown error 4294967295" So, 'hostapd' is not running, which could be a good reason why I can't connect to my network (DSL box/router) with WPA encryption. There may also be another reason : in the doc written by the author of hostap, I have picked this : "Station firmware version needs to be 1.7.0 or newer to work in WPA mode" I suppose that the so called 'station firmware', or 'STA firmware', is the peace of software that is inside the pcmcia card... ? How am I to know which version it is ? There is nothing written on it for that matter. I have also carried a test with wpa_supplicant, according to one of the README files. At first, the most important part of the output, then the whole output below #wpa_supplicant -iwlan0 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -d SIOCGIWRANGE: WE(compiled)=20 WE(source)=18 enc_capa=0xf capabilities: key_mgmt 0xf enc 0xf Added alternative ifindex 5 (wifi0) for wireless events WEXT: Operstate: linkmode=1, operstate=5 Added alternative ifindex 5 (wifi0) for wireless events Own MAC address: 00:02:6f:05:f4:41 wpa_driver_hostap_set_wpa: enabled=1 IOCTL[PRISM2_IOCTL_PRISM2_PARAM]: Operation not supported Driver does not support WPA. then the whole of it, where it shows that the system detects two access points including mine, but fails to connect, which is most probably due to the fact that it does not support WPA : begin copy/paste ******************************** Initializing interface 'wlan0' conf '/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf' driver 'default' ctrl_interface 'N/A' bridge 'N/A' Configuration file '/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf' -> '/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf' Reading configuration file '/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf' ctrl_interface='/var/run/wpa_supplicant' Priority group 0 id=0 ssid='Livebox-46db' id=1 ssid='' Initializing interface (2) 'wlan0' EAPOL: SUPP_PAE entering state DISCONNECTED EAPOL: KEY_RX entering state NO_KEY_RECEIVE EAPOL: SUPP_BE entering state INITIALIZE EAP: EAP entering state DISABLED EAPOL: External notification - portEnabled=0 EAPOL: External notification - portValid=0 SIOCGIWRANGE: WE(compiled)=20 WE(source)=18 enc_capa=0xf capabilities: key_mgmt 0xf enc 0xf Added alternative ifindex 5 (wifi0) for wireless events WEXT: Operstate: linkmode=1, operstate=5 Added alternative ifindex 5 (wifi0) for wireless events Own MAC address: 00:02:6f:05:f4:41 wpa_driver_hostap_set_wpa: enabled=1 IOCTL[PRISM2_IOCTL_PRISM2_PARAM]: Operation not supported Driver does not support WPA. wpa_driver_hostap_set_key: alg=none key_idx=0 set_tx=0 seq_len=0 key_len=0 wpa_driver_hostap_set_key: alg=none key_idx=1 set_tx=0 seq_len=0 key_len=0 wpa_driver_hostap_set_key: alg=none key_idx=2 set_tx=0 seq_len=0 key_len=0 wpa_driver_hostap_set_key: alg=none key_idx=3 set_tx=0 seq_len=0 key_len=0 wpa_driver_hostap_set_countermeasures: enabled=0 wpa_driver_hostap_set_drop_unencrypted: enabled=1 Setting scan request: 0 sec 100000 usec Added interface wlan0 RTM_NEWLINK: operstate=0 ifi_flags=0x1002 () Wireless event: cmd=0x8b06 len=8 RTM_NEWLINK: operstate=0 ifi_flags=0x1003 ([UP]) RTM_NEWLINK, IFLA_IFNAME: Interface 'wifi0' added RTM_NEWLINK: operstate=0 ifi_flags=0x1003 ([UP]) RTM_NEWLINK, IFLA_IFNAME: Interface 'wlan0' added RTM_NEWLINK: operstate=0 ifi_flags=0x1003 ([UP]) RTM_NEWLINK, IFLA_IFNAME: Interface 'wlan0' added State: DISCONNECTED -> SCANNING Starting AP scan (broadcast SSID) Trying to get current scan results first without requesting a new scan to speed up initial association Received 332 bytes of scan results (2 BSSes) Scan results: 2 Selecting BSS from priority group 0 0: 00:90:4b:c3:7d:42 ssid='Livebox-46db' wpa_ie_len=0 rsn_ie_len=0 caps=0x11 skip - no WPA/RSN IE 1: 00:16:41:65:93:51 ssid='Alice-c685' wpa_ie_len=0 rsn_ie_len=0 caps=0x11 skip - no WPA/RSN IE No suitable AP found. Setting scan request: 0 sec 0 usec Starting AP scan (broadcast SSID) RTM_NEWLINK: operstate=0 ifi_flags=0x1003 ([UP]) Wireless event: cmd=0x8b19 len=8 Received 332 bytes of scan results (2 BSSes) Scan results: 2 Selecting BSS from priority group 0 0: 00:90:4b:c3:7d:42 ssid='Livebox-46db' wpa_ie_len=0 rsn_ie_len=0 caps=0x11 skip - no WPA/RSN IE 1: 00:16:41:65:93:51 ssid='Alice-c685' wpa_ie_len=0 rsn_ie_len=0 caps=0x11 skip - no WPA/RSN IE No suitable AP found. Setting scan request: 5 sec 0 usec Starting AP scan (broadcast SSID) RTM_NEWLINK: operstate=0 ifi_flags=0x1003 ([UP]) Wireless event: cmd=0x8b19 len=8 Received 332 bytes of scan results (2 BSSes) Scan results: 2 Selecting BSS from priority group 0 0: 00:90:4b:c3:7d:42 ssid='Livebox-46db' wpa_ie_len=0 rsn_ie_len=0 caps=0x11 skip - no WPA/RSN IE 1: 00:16:41:65:93:51 ssid='Alice-c685' wpa_ie_len=0 rsn_ie_len=0 caps=0x11 skip - no WPA/RSN IE No suitable AP found. Setting scan request: 5 sec 0 usec Starting AP scan (broadcast SSID) RTM_NEWLINK: operstate=0 ifi_flags=0x1003 ([UP]) Wireless event: cmd=0x8b19 len=8 Received 332 bytes of scan results (2 BSSes) Scan results: 2 Selecting BSS from priority group 0 0: 00:90:4b:c3:7d:42 ssid='Livebox-46db' wpa_ie_len=0 rsn_ie_len=0 caps=0x11 skip - no WPA/RSN IE 1: 00:16:41:65:93:51 ssid='Alice-c685' wpa_ie_len=0 rsn_ie_len=0 caps=0x11 skip - no WPA/RSN IE No suitable AP found. Setting scan request: 5 sec 0 usec CTRL-EVENT-TERMINATING - signal 2 received Removing interface wlan0 State: SCANNING -> DISCONNECTED wpa_driver_wext_set_operstate: operstate 0->0 (DORMANT) WEXT: Operstate: linkmode=-1, operstate=5 No keys have been configured - skip key clearing EAPOL: External notification - portEnabled=0 EAPOL: External notification - portValid=0 wpa_driver_hostap_set_wpa: enabled=0 Failed to disable WPA in the driver. wpa_driver_hostap_set_drop_unencrypted: enabled=0 wpa_driver_hostap_set_countermeasures: enabled=0 No keys have been configured - skip key clearing WEXT: Operstate: linkmode=0, operstate=6 cancelling scan request ******************************** end copy/paste Now, here are the contents of my wpa_supplicant.conf file : begin copy/paste ************************************** ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant ### Example of basic WPA-PSK secured AP network={ ssid="Livebox-46db" key_mgmt=WPA-PSK proto=WPA pairwise=TKIP group=TKIP psk="7799****************73**ad" } ### Associate with any open access point ### Scans/ESSID changes can be done with wpa_cli network={ key_mgmt=WPA-PSK } ********************************************** end copy/paste Thanks in advance for your help Bernard -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". 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