Bug 113634

Summary: dhcp over ipw2200 does not always work
Product: [openSUSE] SUSE LINUX 10.0 Reporter: Florent CHANTRET <florent>
Component: NetworkAssignee: Joachim Gleissner <joachim.gleissner>
Status: VERIFIED FIXED QA Contact: E-mail List <qa-bugs>
Severity: Critical    
Priority: P5 - None    
Version: Beta 3   
Target Milestone: ---   
Hardware: i686   
OS: SUSE Other   
Whiteboard:
Found By: Third Party Developer/Partner Services Priority:
Business Priority: Blocker: ---
Marketing QA Status: --- IT Deployment: ---
Attachments: ipw driver with increased disassociation threshold
Modified ipw2200 modules

Description Florent CHANTRET 2005-08-28 12:24:21 UTC
Hi again,

I've modified the good udev.rules in order to load the firmware with the new
script /sbin/udev.firmware.sh but there is still an issue with my ipw2200 WIFI card.

The firmware is now correctly loaded, I can see my WIFI card with iwconfig but
both a static configuration and a dhcp request is unsuccessfull.

I've noticed that when I do a lot of iwconfig in the console, the card switch
regularly between two states :

eth1      unassociated  ESSID:"linksys"
          Mode:Managed  Channel=0  Access Point: 00:13:10:07:EA:60
          Bit Rate=0 kb/s   Tx-Power=20 dBm
          Retry limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:12   Security mode:open
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality:0  Signal level:0  Noise level:0
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

eth1      IEEE 802.11g  ESSID:"linksys"
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.437 GHz  Access Point: 00:13:10:07:EA:60
          Bit Rate=54 Mb/s   Tx-Power=20 dBm
          Retry limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality:98  Signal level:0  Noise level:173
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

I precise that I haven"t configured my ethernet card and I've seen in the
bugzilla that several people have issues with the cohabitation of the WIFI +
ethernet NIC.

A very interesting fact is that I've switch back to the 1.0.0 revision of the
ipw2200 driver, the stable one (so the previous firmware revision accordingly),
and then my WIFI card works now perfectly (both with dhcp and with a static conf).

So, perhaps it could be a good idea to switch back to a previous release (the
stable one or a middle road release).

Regards,
Florent CHANTRET
Comment 1 Joachim Gleissner 2005-08-29 10:34:01 UTC
Maybe the decreased disassociation threshold is the culprit here. I'll attach  
a driver module with the old threshold value, would be great if you could test 
it. 
Comment 2 Joachim Gleissner 2005-08-29 10:37:46 UTC
Created attachment 47955 [details]
ipw driver with increased disassociation threshold

Install with 'tar xf ipw-modules-2.6.13-rc6-git13-4-default.i586.tar.bz2 -C /'
Comment 3 Florent CHANTRET 2005-08-29 12:35:16 UTC
Hi,

I'm at work so my answer won't be precise at 100% cause I haven't the computer
with the beta3 here but basically... it failed

First thing, a modprobe ipw2200 failed with an error "unknown symbol".

Noticed that I had the same problem with the stable driver I compiled but as I
didn't want to dig further as it was just to report you that the stable one
worked, I simply launch it from the build dir with the load script.

So, in order to test your modules, I've extracted it in my homedir, became root
and copy the scripts load and unload from the stable dir to your module dir.

And then... when I load the modules, there is no error displayed. But if I try
an iwconfig, I don't have the hand on the terminal anymore, iwconfig seems to be
freezed. So, I have opened another terminal and dmesg give me some errors (don't
have the precise trace here but it tell basically that it failed to load the
firmware and that it will retry).

The log virtual tty (don't know if this is the good term so I mean the tty you
seen when you press on CTRL + ALT + Fx) show that it looped on it.

I was too unable to rmmod neither rmmod -f the module.

I think I have both the v2 (for the stable 1.0.0 driver) and the v3 (for 1.04
and above release of the driver) firmwares in /lib/firmware but I have no such
loop / crash if I tried to test the beta3 version of ipw2200.

I will give you more infos this evening if needed but I just want to tell you,
roughly speaking, that there seem to be a problem with your modules I've tried.
Comment 4 Joachim Gleissner 2005-08-29 12:47:39 UTC
I guess you tried to reload the ipw2200, but you most probably will have to   
reload the ieee80211 modules, too. Sorry, forgot to write that.   
   
May it be possible that the log didn't say it can't load the firmware but   
"Firmware error detected, restarting"? I think the load script doesn't set   
hwcrypto=0 as module option as we do by default to prevent these errors. Does   
the system still show these errors when you install the drivers as described  
in comment 2 and reboot it?  
Comment 5 Florent CHANTRET 2005-08-29 12:56:22 UTC
No, I have unload both mine ipw2200 and the iee80211* modules, even
firmware_class prior to try loading yours.

Yes, you find it, the error message is "Firmware error detected, restarting" if
my memory is good ;o)

I'll try both to pass hwcrypto=0 with my method, then I will try to place your
modules on /lib/modules again.
Comment 6 Florent CHANTRET 2005-08-29 17:07:26 UTC
I've tried with your module from my home directory and by adding the hwcrypto=0
in the loaf script.

The behaviour is the same. I'm continuously cycling between the two states.
Comment 7 Florent CHANTRET 2005-09-01 22:20:11 UTC
It seems to be better with beta4.

I've used the same firmware RPM as beta3.

I have now a fonctionnal connection but DHCP doesn't work. If I configure the
card manually, it works.
Comment 8 Joachim Gleissner 2005-09-02 12:53:52 UTC
Is the DCHP server integrated into you access point or do you run a dhcpd on a 
linux machine anywhere? 
Comment 9 Florent CHANTRET 2005-09-02 12:57:22 UTC
The dhcpd is on the access point Linksys WRT54GS.

I forgot to precise that dhcp is perfectly working with the ethernet card. I've
erased the ethernet card in Yast to confirm as I've read about conflicts if WIFI
+ ethenet are configured.
Comment 10 Joachim Gleissner 2005-09-05 09:09:41 UTC
I've seen problems with ipw2200 regarding dhcp when the dhcp server is behind  
the access point, and only if WPA is used. Are you using WPA? 
Comment 11 Florent CHANTRET 2005-09-05 09:12:39 UTC
Actually, I don't use WPA.

The current only protection on my WIFI network is a MAC filtering but the ESSID
is broadcasted.
Comment 12 Joachim Gleissner 2005-09-06 08:18:09 UTC
I'll attach a modified ipw2200 which may fix this. 
Comment 13 Joachim Gleissner 2005-09-06 08:27:21 UTC
Created attachment 48886 [details]
Modified ipw2200 modules

Install with 'tar xf ipw2200-2.6.13-3-default.tar.bz2 -C /'. Do a 'modprobe -r
ipw2200; modprobe ipw2200' afterwards.
Comment 14 Joachim Gleissner 2005-09-06 09:25:49 UTC
Submitted a package containing the potential fix (it fixes the dhcp I have 
here, at least). Would be great if you verified whether it fixes your problem, 
too. Please reopen if that is not the case.  
Comment 15 Florent CHANTRET 2005-09-06 18:01:25 UTC
I confirm, it works perfectly !