dell d630 - PRO/Wireless 3945ABG

[lodogg]

I am picking wireless networks near my home but I am having issues connecting to mine? Under the KDE gui setup it only lists WPA and WPA with TKIP but not WPA2 with AES. Is there a GUI feature that I am missing? Is there a flat file that I can alter to configure wireless for my laptop?

/sbin/lspci -v
0c:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 3945ABG [Golan] Network Connection (rev 02)
Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device 1020
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 220
Memory at fe8ff000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: iwl3945
Kernel modules: iwl3945



#> /usr/sbin/iwlist scan
lo Interface doesn't support scanning.
eth0 Interface doesn't support scanning.
wmaster0 Interface doesn't support scanning.
wlan0 Scan completed :
ESSID:"\x00"
Mode:Master
Channel:8
Frequency:2.447 GHz (Channel 8)
Quality=83/100 Signal level:-51 dBm Noise level=-127 dBm
Encryption keyn
IE: IEEE 802.11i/WPA2 Version 1
Group Cipher : CCMP
Pairwise Ciphers (1) : CCMP
Authentication Suites (1) : PSK
Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 6 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s
11 Mb/s; 12 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s; 24 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s
48 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s
Extra:tsf=00000002f312718b
Extra: Last beacon: 5672ms ago

[caf4926]

Have you tried either of the available
I have same device, use WPA Personal and it's great.

[lwfinger]

lodogg wrote:
> I am picking wireless networks near my home but I am having issues
> connecting to mine? Under the KDE gui setup it only lists WPA and WPA
> with TKIP but not WPA2 with AES. Is there a GUI feature that I am
> missing? Is there a flat file that I can alter to configure wireless
> for my laptop?
>
> /sbin/lspci -v
> 0c:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 3945ABG
> [Golan] Network Connection (rev 02)
> Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device 1020
> Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 220
> Memory at fe8ff000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
> Capabilities: <access denied>
> Kernel driver in use: iwl3945
> Kernel modules: iwl3945
>
>
>
> #> /usr/sbin/iwlist scan
> lo Interface doesn't support scanning.
> eth0 Interface doesn't support scanning.
> wmaster0 Interface doesn't support scanning.
> wlan0 Scan completed :
> ESSID:"\x00"
>
> Mode:Master
>
> Channel:8
> Frequency:2.447 GHz (Channel 8)
> Quality=83/100 Signal level:-51 dBm Noise level=-127 dBm
> Encryption keyn
> IE: IEEE 802.11i/WPA2 Version 1
> Group Cipher : CCMP
> Pairwise Ciphers (1) : CCMP
> Authentication Suites (1) : PSK
> Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 6 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s
> 11 Mb/s; 12 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s; 24 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s
> 48 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s
> Extra:tsf=00000002f312718b
>
> Extra: Last beacon: 5672ms ago

If you want to use configuration files, then you need to use YaST to
convert to "traditional ifup" control, which turns off NetworkManager.
You will also need to prepare a configuration file for wpa_supplicant;
however, this should not be necessary. The scan data for my system is
as follows:

eth1 Scan completed :
Cell 01 - Address: 00:1A:70:46:BA:B1
Channel:1
Frequency:2.412 GHz (Channel 1)
Quality=64/70 Signal level=-46 dBm
Encryption keyn
ESSID:"lwfdjf_rad"
Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s
24 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s
Bit Rates:6 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s; 12 Mb/s; 48 Mb/s
Mode:Master
Extra:tsf=0000004057206416
Extra: Last beacon: 76624ms ago
IE: IEEE 802.11i/WPA2 Version 1
Group Cipher : CCMP
Pairwise Ciphers (1) : CCMP
Authentication Suites (1) : PSK

That configuration was done with the NetworkManager GUI. Just
configure the connection with WPA and enter your PSK. The code is
smart enough to figure out that it needs to use CCMP (or AES).

[lodogg]

I'm all about using the GUI especially coming from a windows background. I changed my wireless settings back to WPA2 with AES and I still can not connect by using the default WPA setup with my shared key. Are there any logs I can look at to see if the laptop is even trying to associate to the AP? I was not broadcasting my SSID before so I turned that back on but I still can not connect. I have 4 windows workstations that are connecting to this SSID with WPA2 and AES with no issues

-lo

[lwfinger]

lodogg wrote:
> I'm all about using the GUI especially coming from a windows background.
> I changed my wireless settings back to WPA2 with AES and I still can
> not connect by using the default WPA setup with my shared key. Are
> there any logs I can look at to see if the laptop is even trying to
> associate to the AP? I was not broadcasting my SSID before so I turned
> that back on but I still can not connect. I have 4 windows workstations
> that are connecting to this SSID with WPA2 and AES with no issues

If you edit
/usr/share/dbus-1/system-services/fi.epitest.hostap.WPASupplicant.service,
you can change the options used to start wpa_supplicant. I would add
-ddd and perhaps -K. The man page for wpa_supplicant will show you
what these do. After you do that and restart NetworkManager, the log
for wpa_supplicant should help you.

[lodogg]

Thanks for everyone's help so far...

I added -ddd and -K but this is all I am seeing in the log:

> tail -f wpa_supplicant.log
CTRL-EVENT-DISCONNECTED - Disconnect event - remove keys
CTRL-EVENT-DISCONNECTED - Disconnect event - remove keys
CTRL-EVENT-DISCONNECTED - Disconnect event - remove keys
No network configuration found for the current AP
CTRL-EVENT-DISCONNECTED - Disconnect event - remove keys
CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-RESULTS
CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-RESULTS
CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-RESULTS

Does it matter if I broadcast my SSID? I am seeing about 10 SSID's in the neighborhood I just can't see mine but then again I am not broadcasting it. I deleted the wireless network profiles and re-created them but it still did not resolve my issue.

What else can I do?

-lo

[lwfinger]

lodogg wrote:
> Thanks for everyone's help so far...
>
> I added -ddd and -K but this is all I am seeing in the log:
>
>> tail -f wpa_supplicant.log
> CTRL-EVENT-DISCONNECTED - Disconnect event - remove keys
> CTRL-EVENT-DISCONNECTED - Disconnect event - remove keys
> CTRL-EVENT-DISCONNECTED - Disconnect event - remove keys
> No network configuration found for the current AP
> CTRL-EVENT-DISCONNECTED - Disconnect event - remove keys
> CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-RESULTS
> CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-RESULTS
> CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-RESULTS
>
> Does it matter if I broadcast my SSID? I am seeing about 10 SSID's in
> the neighborhood I just can't see mine but then again I am not
> broadcasting it. I deleted the wireless network profiles and re-created
> them but it still did not resolve my issue.
>
> What else can I do?

Turning off your SSID broadcast greatly complicates the process of
connecting to the AP and provides _NOTHING_ to the security. With a
packet sniffer such as kismet or wireshark, I can get your SSID within
30 seconds even if it is hidden.

If you want to keep it hidden and use NetworkManager, you need to
research how to connect under those conditions.

[lodogg]

So if a SSID is hidden you can't connect to it even if you specify the proper credentials? Cisco AP's by default hide their SSID name.

Remember most people are not using kismet and wireshark, I guess I'm protecting myself against the average Joe plus it is just a good security practice. Am I still subject to a drive by war driving, sure.

Any other help would be greatly appreciated.

-lo

[lwfinger]

lodogg wrote:
> So if a SSID is hidden you can't connect to it even if you specify the
> proper credentials? Cisco AP's by default hide their SSID name.
>
> Remember most people are not using kismet and wireshark, I guess I'm
> protecting myself against the average Joe plus it is just a good
> security practice. Am I still subject to a drive by war driving, sure.
>
> Any other help would be greatly appreciated.

The average Joe is discouraged by WEP, even though it can be broken in
5 min, or less. Using a high-strength WPA PSK, or even better WPA2,
greatly improves your security.

Although you think hiding the ESSID is good security practice, I think
it leads to more interference. Why? What is the first thing I do when
I set up a new AP? I scan the neighborhood to find the channel in the
set of {1, 6, 11} that has the fewest, strong signal AP's on it.
Hidden ESSIDs skew the data, and may put my AP right on top of yours,
with both of us losing throughput.

Larry

[framp]

Originally Posted by lodogg

So if a SSID is hidden you can't connect to it even if you specify the proper credentials?

You can. But it's much more complicate to configure ...

Remember most people are not using kismet and wireshark, I guess I'm protecting myself against the average Joe plus it is just a good security practice. Am I still subject to a drive by war driving, sure. ...

I've seen these kind of discussions a lot of time.

3 year old kids think they are hidden if they just put their hands on their eyes ... that's similar if you hide your SSID ... and block foreign MAC addresses ...

Use a safe encryption algorithm (WPA or WPA2) and a secure PSK and you don't have to worry about any attacks.