[Bug 67152] WEP doesn't work when setting key using network-admin

Andreas Gustafsson gson at gson.org
Sat Dec 23 15:08:10 UTC 2006


Public bug reported:

Summary: When configure a WEP key using network-admin, it is
correctly displayed by iwconfig, yet WEP does not work.  If I
configure the exact same key using iwconfig, it works.

This is with a D-Link DWL-G520 PCI 802.11g adapter under
Ubuntu 6.06 LTS, with all packages up-to-date as of yesterday.

I have reproduced this rather strange behavior several times.
Here is what I do:

Let's say my WEP key is c90fef4410778eb1e5e8835977
(that's not my actual key, but it is in the same hex format).

I choose System/Administration/Networking from the menu bar
In the "Network settings" window, it says

  Wireless connection
  The interface ath0 is active

I click "properties"; "the Interface properties" window pops up.  The
"Network name (ESSID)" setting shows multiple choices, one of which is
the correct ESSID for my network ("gson").  I choose it.

I leave "Key type" at its default of "Hexadecimal"

In the "WEP key" box, I enter "c90fef4410778eb1e5e8835977".

I click "OK"

A message window saying "Activating interface "ath0"" pops up
and stays up for a long time, about 90 seconds.  When it disappears,
the "Network settings" window still says "The interface ath0 is
active", but I have no DHCP lease and no connectivity.

I try running "dhclient ath0" manually, but it also fails to get a
lease.

I run "iwconfig ath0".  It prints:

ath0      IEEE 802.11g  ESSID:"gson"
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.462 GHz  Access Point: 00:0D:88:EB:BA:CA
          Bit Rate:36 Mb/s   Tx-Power:18 dBm   Sensitivity=0/3
          Retry:off   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:C90F-EF44-1077-8EB1-E5E8-8359-77   Security mode:restricted
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=16/94  Signal level=-79 dBm  Noise level=-95 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:1  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:7

I try setting the key manually from the command line with
"iwconfig ath0 key c90fef4410778eb1e5e8835977".

I run "iwconfig ath0" again.  It prints exactly the same output as last time,
including the exact same key (I verified this using "diff"):

ath0      IEEE 802.11g  ESSID:"gson"
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.462 GHz  Access Point: 00:0D:88:EB:BA:CA
          Bit Rate:36 Mb/s   Tx-Power:18 dBm   Sensitivity=0/3
          Retry:off   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:C90F-EF44-1077-8EB1-E5E8-8359-77   Security mode:restricted
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=16/94  Signal level=-79 dBm  Noise level=-95 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:1  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:7

I again run "dhclient ath0" manually, and this time it gets a lease,
even though the configuration according to "iwconfig ath0" is exactly
the same as when it failed.  The only difference is that I set the
key manually inbetween (to the same value it already had).

Here's the lspci -v output for the card:

0000:02:01.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications, Inc. AR5212 802.11abg NIC (rev 01)
        Subsystem: D-Link System Inc DWL-G520 Wireless PCI Adapter rev. B
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 168, IRQ 177
        Memory at febc0000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
        Capabilities: [44] Power Management version 2

and lspci -vn:

0000:02:01.0 0200: 168c:0013 (rev 01)
        Subsystem: 1186:3a13
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 168, IRQ 177
        Memory at febc0000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
        Capabilities: [44] Power Management version 2

** Affects: gnome-system-tools (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Medium
     Assignee: Ubuntu Desktop Bugs
         Status: Needs Info

-- 
WEP doesn't work when setting key using network-admin
https://launchpad.net/bugs/67152




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