# Kernel 2.6.14-r2 breaks wifi (and not just for me)

## Da Fox

There are a lot of people that are having wifi troubles with the new 2.6.14 kernel, me included.

I have tried a lot of different combinations of software, but (certainly) working are:

Kernel: upto 2.6.13-gentoo-r3

Madwifi-driver: Installed: 0.1_pre20050420-r1

Madwifi-tools: Installed: 0.1_pre20050420

Wpa_supplicant: Installed: 0.3.9-r1 

Possibly also other versions the madwifi-driver, tools and wpa_supplicant work, but I haven't tested those under my older kernel. This shouldn't matter any way because all of these (kernel excluded) are the latest ~x86 versions.

There is a lot of information in this topic, but I'll try to put the most relevant bits (to me) here (again):

Different versions of wpa_supplicant: latest (0.4.6) doesn't support madwifi anymore, 0.4.5 gives [CTL xxxx] interface errors and 0.3.9 (Which I think I've been using all along) keeps scanning, finds my AP, but only sees the MAC address, and an empty SSID, while my AP is still broadcasting an SSID. wpa_supplicant then claims "skip - no WPA/RSN IE, No suitable AP found" 

This is what I have in my wpa_supplicant.conf:

 *Quote:*   

> ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant
> 
> ctrl_interface_group=0
> 
> eapol_version=1
> ...

 

And this is the output of running "wpa_supplicant -i ath0 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -D madwifi -dd": 

 *Quote:*   

> Initializing interface 'ath0' conf '/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf' driver 'madwifi'
> 
> Configuration file '/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf' -> '/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf'
> 
> Reading configuration file '/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf'
> ...

 

Where the brown text just keeps repeating over and over, where as it used to select my AP and authenticate. 

This is the relevant output for wifi of booting my old 2.6.13-r3 kernel: 

 *Quote:*   

> Nov 17 16:52:01 shogoki ath_hal: module license 'Proprietary' taints kernel.
> 
> Nov 17 16:52:01 shogoki ath_hal: 0.9.14.9 (AR5210, AR5211, AR5212, RF5111, RF5112, RF2413)
> 
> Nov 17 16:52:01 shogoki wlan: 0.8.4.5 (EXPERIMENTAL)
> ...

 

And this is what my new 2.6.14-r2 kernel said when I manually inserted the modules: 

 *Quote:*   

> Nov 17 16:48:29 shogoki wlan: 0.8.4.5 (EXPERIMENTAL)
> 
> Nov 17 16:48:30 shogoki hald[20557]: Timed out waiting for hotplug event 1065. Rebasing to 1067
> 
> Nov 17 16:48:44 shogoki ath_hal: module license 'Proprietary' taints kernel.
> ...

 

Difference:

(some lines are in a different order, but this just depends on the order that you insert the modules)

The green line about hotplug (but this may have been coincidence, I was inserting the modules manually using insmod)

At the very end the new kernel says "(WE) : Driver using old /proc/net/wireless support, please fix driver !"

I hope that this huge post will get someone who's 'in the know' attention, and finally solve this  :Smile: 

--edit

for relevancy:

I have an IBM Thinkpad T42, which has an atheros card buildin:

lspci:

 *Quote:*   

> ...
> 
> 0000:02:02.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications, Inc. AR5212 802.11abg NIC (rev 01)
> 
> 

 

----------

## mjelkins

Just for fun - try the following....

(from my last posting)

 *Quote:*   

> ifconfig ath0 up (so scanning works)
> 
> iwlist ath0 scan (so I can see the access point - "iwlist ath0 ap" also gives me the info..)
> 
> iwconfig ath0 channel 2 essid posix ap 00:02:6F:21:E2:42 (my ap's details - use your own)
> ...

 

I suspect its something to do with the "udev" stuff...

I'm thinking that whatever is meant to process the /etc/conf.d/wireless stuff at startup/card insertion is no longer doing this. 

Let us know?

----------

## Da Fox

Thanks mjelkins, that almost worked!

I can do "ifconfig ath0 up" - no errors

"iwlist ath0 scan" then sees my ap, so wireless is actually working,

after "iwconfig ath channel 4 essid Ai-Net ap 00:50:18:3A:29:4C" everything still seems fine...

but when I run dhcpcd it fails to get an IP, obviously, as I'm using WPA/PSK encryption. So I need to specify a key.

After trying several combinations I couldn't get it to work, but now that I'm posting this I see that entering passphrase or the hex-psk is not the way to go, because iwconfig shows an entirely different Key, so I'm going to try that.

Anyhow, even IF I get wifi to work like this manually, I'd rather use wpa_supplicant. ("Kernel 2.6.14-r2 breaks wpa_supplicant" topic anyone?   :Wink:  )

In fact, there are other networks I need to connect to besides my homenetwork, and I don't know how to get the keydata I need to enter as a key to iwconfig. (unless first booting my old kernel, jotting down the number, and rebooting, which is clearly not an elegant 'solution').

So, what is causing wpa_supplicant to break? Anything related to that "ath0 (WE) : Driver using old /proc/net/wireless support, please fix driver !" message?

>off to test my newfound key<

--edit, back from test

So I've tested manually entering the key, but I just can't make it work. Maybe it's just me, but for example:

At my first try I didn't know how to enter the key, so I looked it up - "man iwconfig" > "iwconfig [interface] key HEXKEY|s:STRING etc"

But when I try that it just says "Error : unrecognised wireless request >something<" (I'm getting different errors in my older kernel... now the description in the man page just works wtf   :Shocked: )

so then I tried iwconfig key=HEXKEY|s:STRING, and it worked. (atleast, it didn't error out...)

But I still couldn't get an IP from dhcpcd. 

So I checked the output from iwconfig once more, only to see that my key wasn't being used. So I issued "iwconfig ath0 key on" (Note: no '='!)

But that gave (yet) another error:  *Quote:*   

> Error for wireless request "Set Encode" (8B2A) :
> 
>     SET failed on device ath0 ; Invalid argument.

 

I just need wpa_supplicant to work, once again, then I can be happy again, because right now I'm slowly going insane over this, it just doesn't make sense   :Crying or Very sad: 

----------

## mjelkins

Cool. Hash/comment out every line in /etc/conf.d/wireless

See if that helps.

What ever parses this file is - I think - broken. 

Some sort of Base-Layout script  -or-  udev ???

(The above may or may not do DHCP - and probably will not do any Security)

----------

## RypPn

*bump*

Similar issues here with 2.6.14-r2, wpa_supplicant 0.3.9-r1 and madwifi-driver-0.1_pre20050420-r1. If I emerge wpa_supplicant 0.4.5 then I get "ioctl [SIOCSIWPMKSA]: Operation not supported" error. 0.3.9-r1 just times out with the 2.6.14 kernel, dmesg shows ath0 (WE): Driver using old /proc/net/wireless support, please fix driver!.

I have rolled the kernel back to 2.6.13-r5 and everything works again...

I would say the problem is with the new kernel, however this has all come about during a recent system update and wireless-tools was updated to 28_pre10 at the same time. (Just thought I'd mention I noticed that, however its probably irrelevant)

Bug 112853 Submitted

----------

## Da Fox

 *mjelkins wrote:*   

> Cool. Hash/comment out every line in /etc/conf.d/wireless
> 
> See if that helps.
> 
> What ever parses this file is - I think - broken. 
> ...

 

I have no /etc/conf.d/wireless, only  /etc/conf.d/wireless.example, so wrong parsing is kind of excluded.

----------

## nichocouk

 *RypPn wrote:*   

> I would say the problem is with the new kernel, however this has all come about during a recent system update and wireless-tools was updated to 28_pre10 at the same time. (Just thought I'd mention I noticed that, however its probably irrelevant)

 

I think the update of wireless-tools is irrelevant for that particular issue as I have exactly the same problems as everyone here and it happened after the kernel upgrade, and before the wireless-tools upgrade.

Using wired network atm...   :Rolling Eyes: 

----------

## Da Fox

 *RypPn wrote:*   

> I would say the problem is with the new kernel, however this has all come about during a recent system update and wireless-tools was updated to 28_pre10 at the same time. (Just thought I'd mention I noticed that, however its probably irrelevant)

 

I would say it's a combinations of kernel + wpa_supplicant, as it indeed seems that wireless-tools are working. Perhaps something to do with different versions of wireless-extensions?

----------

## RypPn

Guys, feel free to post your observations to the submitted bug. I would think it likely that the bug will be noticed and worked on far more quickly if more people add their experiences in there.

Just a thought  :Very Happy: 

----------

## Da Fox

*bump*

(I really would like to see this solved by now   :Rolling Eyes:  )

----------

## Da Fox

and *bump* once more.

Perhaps this should be posted in "Kernel & Hardware" also, as it is related to the kernel version?

----------

## marcelser

Hi,

After upgrading to kernel 2.6.14-r2 I also had various wifi problems, first thing that broke was ndiswrapper so searched through the forums and found out that I have to upgrade to ndiswrapper 1.5 (which is ~x86 masked). After undmasking and emerging ndiswrapper 1.5 my wireless card was working (I could scan the AP) but I could not start wpa_supplicant because it timed out. 

After double checking my wpa_supplicant.conf and the settings on my AP I thought maybe that's the same issue as ndiswrapper, so I checked for the latest available wpa_supplicant which is 0.4.6 (also ~x86 masked), so I also unmasked this ebuild and emerge wpa_supplicant 0.4.6. Then I started /etc/init.d/net.wlan0 and wpa_supplicant was working like a charm with WPA-PSK.

So everbody which has trouble with wpa_supplicant 0.3.9-r1 should thy the ~x86 masked 0.4.6 version and things may come to life again!

Best regards,

Marc

----------

## Da Fox

Dear mark, that is quite impossible:

(from my original post)

Different versions of wpa_supplicant: latest (0.4.6) doesn't support madwifi anymore, and 0.4.5 gives [CTL xxxx] interface errors.

You may be using ndiswrapper for some other driver than madwifi, but madwifi support was removed from wpa_supplicant 0.4.6.

----------

## marcelser

Sorry, I didn't see that you're using madwifi but what you say seems to be incorrent. In the changelog from the wpa_supplicant development branch from version 0.4.0 up to 0.4.7 there's no word about madwifi support removed. Even v0.4.7 still contains fixes for madwifi and also the 0.4.6 release. Especially the fix in v0.4.6 may have something to do with your ssid problem:

Here's what's fixed:

```

   * driver_madwifi: set IEEE80211_KEY_GROUP flag for group keys to make

     sure the driver configures broadcast decryption correctly

```

And here's the complete changelog from 0.4.0 to 0.4.7

```

ChangeLog for wpa_supplicant

????-??-?? - v0.4.7 (beginning of 0.4.x stable releases)

   * l2_packet_pcap: fixed wired IEEE 802.1X authentication with libpcap

     and WinPcap to receive frames sent to PAE group address

   * disable EAP state machine when IEEE 802.1X authentication is not used

     in order to get rid of bogus "EAP failed" messages

   * fixed OpenSSL error reporting to go through all pending errors to

     avoid confusing reports of old errors being reported at later point

     during handshake

   * fixed configuration file updating to not write empty variables

     (e.g., proto or key_mgmt) that the file parser would not accept

   * fixed ADD_NETWORK ctrl_iface command to use the same default values

     for variables as empty network definitions read from config file

     would get

   * fixed EAP state machine to not discard EAP-Failure messages in many

     cases (e.g., during TLS handshake)

   * fixed a infinite loop in private key reading if the configured file

     cannot be parsed successfully

   * driver_madwifi: added support for madwifi-ng

   * wpa_gui: do not display password/PSK field contents

   * wpa_gui: added CA certificate configuration

   * driver_ndis: fixed scan request in ap_scan=2 mode not to change SSID

   * driver_ndis: include Beacon IEs in AssocInfo in order to notice if

     the new AP is using different WPA/RSN IE

2005-10-27 - v0.4.6

   * allow fallback to WPA, if mixed WPA+WPA2 networks have mismatch in

     RSN IE, but WPA IE would match with wpa_supplicant configuration

   * added support for named configuration blobs in order to avoid having

     to use file system for external files (e.g., certificates);

     variables can be set to "blob://<blob name>" instead of file path to

     use a named blob; supported fields: pac_file, client_cert,

     private_key

   * fixed RSN pre-authentication (it was broken in the clean up of WPA

     state machine interface in v0.4.5)

   * driver_madwifi: set IEEE80211_KEY_GROUP flag for group keys to make

     sure the driver configures broadcast decryption correctly

   * added ca_path (and ca_path2) configuration variables that can be used

     to configure OpenSSL CA path, e.g., /etc/ssl/certs, for using the

     system-wide trusted CA list

   * added support for starting wpa_supplicant without a configuration

     file (-C argument must be used to set ctrl_interface parameter for

     this case; in addition, -p argument can be used to provide

     driver_param; these new arguments can also be used with a

     configuration to override the values from the configuration)

   * added global control interface that can be optionally used for adding

     and removing network interfaces dynamically (-g command line argument

     for both wpa_supplicant and wpa_cli) without having to restart

     wpa_supplicant process

   * wpa_gui:

     - try to save configuration whenever something is modified

     - added WEP key configuration

     - added possibility to edit the current network configuration

   * driver_ndis: fixed driver polling not to increase frequency on each

     received EAPOL frame due to incorrectly cancelled timeout

   * added simple configuration file examples (in examples subdirectory)

   * fixed driver_wext.c to filter wireless events based on ifindex to

     avoid interfaces receiving events from other interfaces

   * delay sending initial EAPOL-Start couple of seconds to speed up

     authentication for the most common case of Authenticator starting

     EAP authentication immediately after association

2005-09-25 - v0.4.5

   * added a workaround for clearing keys with ndiswrapper to allow

     roaming from WPA enabled AP to plaintext one

   * added docbook documentation (doc/docbook) that can be used to

     generate, e.g., man pages

   * l2_packet_linux: use socket type SOCK_DGRAM instead of SOCK_RAW for

     PF_PACKET in order to prepare for network devices that do not use

     Ethernet headers (e.g., network stack with native IEEE 802.11 frames)

   * use receipt of EAPOL-Key frame as a lower layer success indication

     for EAP state machine to allow recovery from dropped EAP-Success

     frame

   * cleaned up internal EAPOL frame processing by not including link

     layer (Ethernet) header during WPA and EAPOL/EAP processing; this

     header is added only when transmitted the frame; this makes it easier

     to use wpa_supplicant on link layers that use different header than

     Ethernet

   * updated EAP-PSK to use draft 9 by default since this can now be

     tested with hostapd; removed support for draft 3, including

     server_nai configuration option from network blocks

   * driver_wired: add PAE address to the multicast address list in order

     to be able to receive EAPOL frames with drivers that do not include

     these multicast addresses by default

   * driver_wext: add support for WE-19

   * added support for multiple configuration backends (CONFIG_BACKEND

     option); currently, only 'file' is supported (i.e., the format used

     in wpa_supplicant.conf)

   * added support for updating configuration ('wpa_cli save_config');

     this is disabled by default and can be enabled with global

     update_config=1 variable in wpa_supplicant.conf; this allows wpa_cli

     and wpa_gui to store the configuration changes in a permanent store

   * added GET_NETWORK ctrl_iface command

     (e.g., 'wpa_cli get_network 0 ssid')

2005-08-21 - v0.4.4

   * replaced OpenSSL patch for EAP-FAST support

     (openssl-tls-extensions.patch) with a more generic and correct

     patch (the new patch is not compatible with the previous one, so the

     OpenSSL library will need to be patched with the new patch in order

     to be able to build wpa_supplicant with EAP-FAST support)

   * added support for using Windows certificate store (through CryptoAPI)

     for client certificate and private key operations (EAP-TLS)

     (see wpa_supplicant.conf for more information on how to configure

     this with private_key)

   * ported wpa_gui to Windows

   * added Qt4 version of wpa_gui (wpa_gui-qt4 directory); this can be

     built with the open source version of the Qt4 for Windows

   * allow non-WPA modes (e.g., IEEE 802.1X with dynamic WEP) to be used

     with drivers that do not support WPA

   * ndis_events: fixed Windows 2000 support

   * added support for enabling/disabling networks from the list of all

     configured networks ('wpa_cli enable_network <network id>' and

     'wpa_cli disable_network <network id>')

   * added support for adding and removing network from the current

     configuration ('wpa_cli add_network' and 'wpa_cli remove_network

     <network id>'); added networks are disabled by default and they can

     be enabled with enable_network command once the configuration is done

     for the new network; note: configuration file is not yet updated, so

     these new networks are lost when wpa_supplicant is restarted

   * added support for setting network configuration parameters through

     the control interface, for example:

     wpa_cli set_network 0 ssid "\"my network\""

   * fixed parsing of strings that include both " and # within double

     quoted area (e.g., "start"#end")

   * added EAP workaround for PEAP session resumption: allow outer,

     i.e., not tunneled, EAP-Success to terminate session since; this can

     be disabled with eap_workaround=0

     (this was allowed for PEAPv1 before, but now it is also allowed for

     PEAPv0 since at least one RADIUS authentication server seems to be

     doing this for PEAPv0, too)

   * wpa_gui: added preliminary support for adding new networks to the

     wpa_supplicant configuration (double click on the scan results to

     open network configuration)

2005-06-26 - v0.4.3

   * removed interface for external EAPOL/EAP supplicant (e.g.,

     Xsupplicant), (CONFIG_XSUPPLICANT_IFACE) since it is not required

     anymore and is unlikely to be used by anyone

   * driver_ndis: fixed WinPcap 3.0 support

   * fixed build with CONFIG_DNET_PCAP=y on Linux

   * l2_packet: moved different implementations into separate files

     (l2_packet_*.c)

2005-06-12 - v0.4.2

   * driver_ipw: updated driver structures to match with ipw2200-1.0.4

     (note: ipw2100-1.1.0 is likely to require an update to work with

     this)

   * added support for using ap_scan=2 mode with multiple network blocks;

     wpa_supplicant will go through the networks one by one until the

     driver reports a successful association; this uses the same order for

     networks as scan_ssid=1 scans, i.e., the priority field is ignored

     and the network block order in the file is used instead

   * fixed a potential issue in RSN pre-authentication ending up using

     freed memory if pre-authentication times out

   * added support for matching alternative subject name extensions of the

     authentication server certificate; new configuration variables

     altsubject_match and altsubject_match2

   * driver_ndis: added support for IEEE 802.1X authentication with wired

     NDIS drivers

   * added support for querying private key password (EAP-TLS) through the

     control interface (wpa_cli/wpa_gui) if one is not included in the

     configuration file

   * driver_broadcom: fixed couple of memory leaks in scan result

     processing

   * EAP-PAX is now registered as EAP type 46

   * fixed EAP-PAX MAC calculation

   * fixed EAP-PAX CK and ICK key derivation

   * added support for using password with EAP-PAX (as an alternative to

     entering key with eappsk); SHA-1 hash of the password will be used as

     the key in this case

   * added support for arbitrary driver interface parameters through the

     configuration file with a new driver_param field; this adds a new

     driver_ops function set_param()

   * added possibility to override l2_packet module with driver interface

     API (new send_eapol handler); this can be used to implement driver

     specific TX/RX functions for EAPOL frames

   * fixed ctrl_interface_group processing for the case where gid is

     entered as a number, not group name

   * driver_test: added support for testing hostapd with wpa_supplicant

     by using test driver interface without any kernel drivers or network

     cards

2005-05-22 - v0.4.1

   * driver_madwifi: fixed WPA/WPA2 mode configuration to allow EAPOL

     packets to be encrypted; this was apparently broken by the changed

     ioctl order in v0.4.0

   * driver_madwifi: added preliminary support for compiling against 'BSD'

     branch of madwifi CVS tree

   * added support for EAP-MSCHAPv2 password retries within the same EAP

     authentication session

   * added support for password changes with EAP-MSCHAPv2 (used when the

     password has expired)

   * added support for reading additional certificates from PKCS#12 files

     and adding them to the certificate chain

   * fixed association with IEEE 802.1X (no WPA) when dynamic WEP keys

     were used

   * fixed a possible double free in EAP-TTLS fast-reauthentication when

     identity or password is entered through control interface

   * display EAP Notification messages to user through control interface

     with "CTRL-EVENT-EAP-NOTIFICATION" prefix

   * added GUI version of wpa_cli, wpa_gui; this is not build

     automatically with 'make'; use 'make wpa_gui' to build (this requires

     Qt development tools)

   * added 'disconnect' command to control interface for setting

     wpa_supplicant in state where it will not associate before

     'reassociate' command has been used

   * added support for selecting a network from the list of all configured

     networks ('wpa_cli select_network <network id>'; this disabled all

     other networks; to re-enable, 'wpa_cli select_network any')

   * added support for getting scan results through control interface

   * added EAP workaround for PEAPv1 session resumption: allow outer,

     i.e., not tunneled, EAP-Success to terminate session since; this can

     be disabled with eap_workaround=0

2005-04-25 - v0.4.0 (beginning of 0.4.x development releases)

   * added a new build time option, CONFIG_NO_STDOUT_DEBUG, that can be

     used to reduce the size of the wpa_supplicant considerably if

     debugging code is not needed

   * fixed EAPOL-Key validation to drop packets with invalid Key Data

     Length; such frames could have crashed wpa_supplicant due to buffer

     overflow

   * added support for wired authentication (IEEE 802.1X on wired

     Ethernet); driver interface 'wired'

   * obsoleted set_wpa() handler in the driver interface API (it can be

     replaced by moving enable/disable functionality into init()/deinit())

     (calls to set_wpa() are still present for backwards compatibility,

     but they may be removed in the future)

   * driver_madwifi: fixed association in plaintext mode

   * modified the EAP workaround that accepts EAP-Success with incorrect

     Identifier to be even less strict about verification in order to

     interoperate with some authentication servers

   * added support for sending TLS alerts

   * added support for 'any' SSID wildcard; if ssid is not configured or

     is set to an empty string, any SSID will be accepted for non-WPA AP

   * added support for asking PIN (for SIM) from frontends (e.g.,

     wpa_cli); if a PIN is needed, but not included in the configuration

     file, a control interface request is sent and EAP processing is

     delayed until the PIN is available

   * added support for using external devices (e.g., a smartcard) for

     private key operations in EAP-TLS (CONFIG_SMARTCARD=y in .config);

     new wpa_supplicant.conf variables:

     - global: opensc_engine_path, pkcs11_engine_path, pkcs11_module_path

     - network: engine, engine_id, key_id

   * added experimental support for EAP-PAX

   * added monitor mode for wpa_cli (-a<path to a program to run>) that

     allows external commands (e.g., shell scripts) to be run based on

     wpa_supplicant events, e.g., when authentication has been completed

     and data connection is ready; other related wpa_cli arguments:

     -B (run in background), -P (write PID file); wpa_supplicant has a new

     command line argument (-W) that can be used to make it wait until a

     control interface command is received in order to avoid missing

     events

   * added support for opportunistic WPA2 PMKSA key caching (disabled by

     default, can be enabled with proactive_key_caching=1)

   * fixed RSN IE in 4-Way Handshake message 2/4 for the case where

     Authenticator rejects PMKSA caching attempt and the driver is not

     using assoc_info events

   * added -P<pid file> argument for wpa_supplicant to write the current

     process id into a file

```

So, what leads you to the conclusion that madwifi support was removed in 0.4.6???

Best regards,

Marc

----------

## Da Fox

I emerged wpa_supplicant 0.4.6 and it gave me some "driver not supported" error. Also some other people remarked the same in this topic. I think I read somewhere that support has moved on to madwifi-ng, which isn't in portage (yet). 

If you run wpa_supplicant without arguments it should list which drivers it supports. Madwifi shouldn't be listed in 0.4.6  :Sad: .

----------

## lieut_data

Similar issues with the upgrade to 2.6.14-r2, but upgrading to the latest masked wpa_supplicant did resolve the timeout issue.

Note, using ipw2200 driver on x86.

----------

## Da Fox

It seems that upgrading to wpa_supplicant 0.4.6 solves wifi issues for a lot of people, but all of those have a different driver than madwifi. (mostly ipw2x00)

So I think that if wpa_supplicant 0.4.6 where to support the madwifi-driver, everything would be okay. Unfortunately wpa_supplicant dropped support for madwifi in favor of madwifi-ng (WHY?!) it seems, and madwifi-ng is not in portage.

I don't know how to make an ebuild for this "madwifi-ng", and even if I did I won't have the time to do it for the next 2 or 3 days, but it may help some of you. Please let us know!

----------

## jballou

I use ipw2200 on my Asus and ipw2100 on two Thinkpad T41s. All three only have the firmware and drivers loaded. They work in 2.6.13-r5. I upgrade kernel and rebuild drivers. Can't even find the interface. Go back to 2.6.13, rebuild, pops right up and chugs along. Running 2.6.13 now since I have 48 ports plugged on the Cisco here and have no option to wire another switch to it right now  :Smile: 

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## Wildcat1

does ndiswrapper work with your card? ndiswrapper-1.5 and wpa_supplicant-0.4.6 seems to have fixed all my troubles.

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## arosboro

Looks like wpa_supplicant-0.4.7 will fix our problems as soon as an ebuild is made with madwifi compiled in.  The changelog says soon, and since the 4.7 ebuild came out yesterday I'd imagine it just has to undergo some quick testing and we'll see it before the weekend.

Just a guess though

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## Da Fox

I certainly hope so, I had been waiting for this to be fixed so I could try the new ATi drivers at the same time as a new kernel (they are supposed to finally have suspend/resume support).

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## Neo_0815

Got the same error ( no wpa/rsn ie fond)

Using 0.4.6, ipw1.0.8.1 and 2.4 firmware results in ioctl eror - using old wpa supüplicant 0.3.9 results in the error writen above.

2.6.14.2 really breaks anything  :Neutral:  hope it will fixed soon.

With 0.4.7 i get nothing from wpa_supplicant - although with -dd - nothing is written to console  :Neutral:  really bad.

regards

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## salivian

Hey I am a new atheros user, just got the thing from a new Toshiba  AR5005G

For some reason gentoo devs decided to take madwifi support off the wpa_supplicant.

you can add it back by hacking the ebuild,  (use 0.3.9-r1 as a ref)

1. add the option CONFIG_MADWIFI

2. add a madwifi tarball (I used 20051111 I need to ... the old one does not work for my card)

3. Add -I ../<madwifi dir> to the end of compiler def $CC ... -I ... in the 20051111 case its ../madwifi-trunk-r1325-20051111

Without 3. wpa_supplicant will not compile.

Hope this helps ...   the combination of 2.6.14.2 wpa_supplicant 0.4.7 and madwifi 20051111 works smoothly for me.

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## Da Fox

*bump*

can anyone confirm if this works, or if it is already fixed?

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## Gilbo

I also have this problem.  I can't confirm if salivian's fix works yet.  I will try it.  I'm using madwifi 0.1_pre20050420-r1 and wpa_supplicant 0.3.9-r1.  This has been very frustrating  :Sad: .  Hopefully it will get sorted out soon.

If salivian's fix works, I am confused as to why the maintainers removed madwifi support in the first place.  Clearly such a move was going to cause tremendous difficulty for most laptop users out there.  The Atheros chipset is very common.

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## entwisi

I have a slightly different problem with the madwifi drivers after upgrading to 2.6.14 kernel. Previously it worked fine, now I get 'Hardware revision not supported' errors when loading teh driver. No probs I thought, I still have my 2.6.13 kernel I'll just reboot that. The thing is now broken in that kernel as well! I have noticed that the driver version was 20050809 but I no longer have an ebuild for that version 

My Laptop is an Acer 3503 with built in wifi 

Anyone any idea what has changed such that my old kernel doesn't work anymore?

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## Gilbo

When trying to test salivian's fix I have run into the following problem:

```
# emerge wpa_supplicant

Calculating dependencies ...done!

>>> emerge (1 of 1) net-wireless/wpa_supplicant-0.4.7 to /

>>> md5 files   ;-) wpa_supplicant-0.4.5.ebuild

>>> md5 files   ;-) wpa_supplicant-0.4.6.ebuild

!!! Digest verification Failed:

!!!    /mnt/portage/net-wireless/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant-0.4.7.ebuild

!!! Reason: Filesize does not match recorded size

>>> Please ensure you have sync'd properly. Please try 'emerge sync' and

>>> optionally examine the file(s) for corruption. A sync will fix most cases.
```

Of course, if I sync, the modified ebuild will be unmodified.  How do I disable or circumvent this check?  I checked the emerge man page but didn't see any applicable options.

I don't entirely understand salivian's instructions either.  Presently I am copying the following from the 0.3.9-r1 ebuild into the 0.4.7 ebuild under the linux driver's section:

```
       # Add include path for madwifi-driver headers

        echo "CFLAGS += -I${WORKDIR}/madwifi" >> ${CONFIG}

        echo "CONFIG_DRIVER_MADWIFI=y"        >> ${CONFIG}

```

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## salivian

the digest problem ...

run "ebuild <ebuild filename> digest" to regen the manifest and so ...

well, I filed a bug which got closed immediately, the devs say the madwifi support will come. (search for closed bugs with madwifi)

I guess, the issue is the new madwifi drivers are so different ... like you need to create a net device and so ...

well ...  I believe wpa supplicant is working pretty well with the cvs trunk .... I ran it continously for a couple days without a single problem (WPA-PSK)

but I guess my luck is pretty bad recently, my machine died completely during a bios update  on thanksgiving....  It's on its way to toshiba depot now.  I can't do more test.

but I'd try to answer based on my experience ....

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## salivian

one more thing make sure your dir in your -I<dir> is the dir for the trunk driver. ie madiwifi-<version number,> without the proper includes your compilation will die in the middle.

please try to understand what the 0.39 ebuild does, enable the option, extract the drivers, and add the appropriate include dir.

I think this will make it more clear.

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## entwisi

 *entwisi wrote:*   

> I have a slightly different problem with the madwifi drivers after upgrading to 2.6.14 kernel. Previously it worked fine, now I get 'Hardware revision not supported' errors when loading teh driver. No probs I thought, I still have my 2.6.13 kernel I'll just reboot that. The thing is now broken in that kernel as well! I have noticed that the driver version was 20050809 but I no longer have an ebuild for that version 
> 
> My Laptop is an Acer 3503 with built in wifi 
> 
> Anyone any idea what has changed such that my old kernel doesn't work anymore?

 

Mmm very strange.... I remembered tweaking my kernel config slightly. reverting to the odl .config allowed me to install the package again and it all works again.

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## Da Fox

and this is still unfixed.

There has been no new madwifi, wpa_supplicant or kernel, so I'm stuck with 2.6.13  :Sad: 

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## hnz

just a sidenote:

upgraded (masked) wpa_supplicant version 0.4.7 worked for me using ipw2200 and kernel-2.6.14-gentoo-r2

before the upgrade to the newest wpa_supplicant I had timeout issues in ap scanning...

so thanks a lot for the hint...

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## IamBorg

Another sidenote:

It doesn't work for me and I haven't installed / used wpa supplicant.  madwifi-drivers_pre1.0-20051111 hangs laptop.  madwifi-drivers 200504xx discovers the AP but fails with the DHCP.  I am using 128-bit WEP, in case the knowledge helps.  Works in 2.6.12.  I did notice a 'new' configuration option in 2.6.14 having to deal with wireless, but haven't been able to see if that's a prob.

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## nichocouk

Well, just to make sure I'm not alone: I've tried to have madwifi and wpa_supplicant working with gentoo-sources-2.6.14-r4 (latest stable release), but with no more luck... I still have the timeout problem, with the 

```
[kernel] ath0 (WE) : Driver using old /proc/net/wireless support, please fix driver !
```

 in my kernel log.

 :Rolling Eyes: 

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## djnauk

 *Da Fox wrote:*   

> and this is still unfixed.
> 
> There has been no new madwifi, wpa_supplicant or kernel, so I'm stuck with 2.6.13 

 

I've written a guide on installting the latest madwifi drivers with the latest wpa_supplicant (0.4.7) with madwifi support.

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-408550.html

That may help...

----------

## salivian

Please check one of the devs blog and use his overlays

http://planet.gentoo.org/developers/brix

http://dev.gentoo.org/~brix/files/overlay/

It uses a recent cvs snapshot + wpa_supplicant + nice udev rules.

----------

## GNUtoo

i haven't read all the post (to little time)

but it worked for me...so if i can help

it worked with 2.6.14.2 vanilla

2.6.14.2 gentoo

my config

[ebuild   R   ] net-wireless/wireless-tools-28_pre10  -multicall +nls 0 kB

[ebuild   R   ] net-wireless/madwifi-tools-0.1_pre20050420  0 kB

[ebuild   R   ] net-wireless/madwifi-driver-0.1_pre20050420-r1  0 kB

worked also for an early version

worked also on knoppix 4.0.2

what config files should i post???Last edited by GNUtoo on Sat Dec 17, 2005 1:41 am; edited 1 time in total

----------

## gian

same problem:

ipw2200 (latest x86) stopped working after upgrade to 2.6.14-gentoo-r4 kernel,

upgrading to latest (~x86 - 0.4.7 ) wpa_supplicant fixed the problem,

connection is still relatively slow (about 500/600 KBs).... my AP should be capable of 100Mbs... (or at least 54Mbs)

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## Pool4Sky

Hi @ all,

I also have the same problem and the guide of djnauk doesn't worked for me.

I upgraded my kernel version from 2.6.13-gentoo-r3 to 2.6.14-gentoo-r4 and now my wlan atheros card (madwifi-driver) is down.

I have read all the posts and tested but nothing worked for me.

I emerged following tools:

-->

..

[ebuild   R   ] sys-apps/baselayout-1.12.0_pre11-r3

[ebuild   R   ] net-wireless/wireless-tools-28_pre10

[ebuild   R   ] net-wireless/wpa_supplicant-0.4.7

[ebuild   R   ] net-wireless/madwifi-driver-0.1_pre20051111

[ebuild   R   ] net-wireless/madwifi-tools-0.1_pre20051111

..

<--

What can I do to solve the problem?

greetings Pool4Sky

----------

