rolled back libopenSSL to restore wireless on Intel Wireless Link 5300 AGN

English Network/Internet
#1

I went to use our family laptop today with wireless, for the first time since mid-November, and the wireless would connect for only a few seconds, and then disconnect. It was annoying.

This is on a 64-bit ‘stock’ openSUSE-11.3 with KDE-4.4.4.

The hardware is:

04:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Intel Corporation Ultimate N WiFi Link 5300 [8086:4235]
        Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device [8086:1121]
        Kernel driver in use: iwlagn

I then did a search as to what rpms I had installed since mid-November that may have caused this, and the only one’s that made sense (to me) were openSSL/libopenSSL, although one has to know that my knowledge of wireless borders on the verge of pathetic. In hindsight I should have looked at dmesg, … but its been a busy day, and I did not have much time for investigation, plus I’m a bit fatigued after the nominal Christmas season social events are taking their toll on my alertness.

Anyway, I noted on 22-November I had updated to these rpm versions of openSSL:

libopenssl-devel-1.0.0-6.3.1                  Mon 22 Nov 2010 08:18:17 PM CET
openssl-1.0.0-6.3.1                           Mon 22 Nov 2010 08:18:01 PM CET
libopenssl1_0_0-32bit-1.0.0-6.3.1             Mon 22 Nov 2010 08:17:53 PM CET
libopenssl1_0_0-1.0.0-6.3.1                   Mon 22 Nov 2010 08:17:50 PM CET
libopenssl0_9_8-32bit-0.9.8m-3.1.2            Mon 22 Nov 2010 08:17:48 PM CET

I could not see anything else that I had installed even remotely connected to networking. So I rolled those back to these versions:


libopenssl0_9_8-32bit-0.9.8m-2.18.x86_64
openssl-1.0.0-6.3.1.x86_64
libopenssl-devel-1.0.0-5.4.x86_64
libopenssl1_0_0-1.0.0-5.4.x86_64
libopenssl1_0_0-32bit-1.0.0-5.4.x86_64

And my wireless works again, with a good continous connection, instead of a disconnect after a few seconds.

I cannot help but think that something is broke in the recent libopenssl.

Is this common knowledge, and I missed the news that this package was broken, or did I just get lucky that its working again, and my solution is no where near the truth ? (probably most likely given my pathetic knowledge of this).

#2

Thanks a lot for the warning/information. I have a different wireless controller and a 32bit system but my versions of openssl packages are :

libopenssl1_0_0-1.0.0-6.3.1.i586
libopenssl0_9_8-0.9.8m-3.1.2.i586
openssl-1.0.0-6.3.1.i586
libopenssl-devel-1.0.0-6.3.1.i586

and I don’t encounter any problems with my wireless.

Best regards,
Greg

#3

On 12/12/2010 02:36 PM, glistwan wrote:
>
> Thanks a lot for the warning/information. I have a different wireless
> controller and a 32bit system but my versions of openssl packages are :
>
> Code:
> --------------------
> libopenssl1_0_0-1.0.0-6.3.1.i586
> libopenssl0_9_8-0.9.8m-3.1.2.i586
> openssl-1.0.0-6.3.1.i586
> libopenssl-devel-1.0.0-6.3.1.i586
>
> --------------------
>
> and I don’t encounter any problems with my wireless.

These libraries have nothing to do with wireless, at least on my systems. First
of all, these are user-space libraries, not kernel components. The only things
in userland that wireless touches are the wallet daemon, NetworkManager, the
applet (knetworkmanager with KDE), and wpa_supplicant. Of these, only
wpa_supplicant loads an SSL library, but on my 32- and 64-bit systems, it is
linked against libssl.so, not libopenssl.so.

I have no idea what fixed your system, but it may have been that rolling back
openssl inadvertently fixed some error in the library structure.

#4

Indeed, I suspected as much (as I concede my knowledge is lacking here … )

There definitely was some sort of cause and effect thou, as before rolling back I had rebooted some times, … no consistent wireless connection (ie drop after a few seconds) … same disconnect symptoms. Then I rolled back, rebooted, and I had consistent connection (running now for a couple of hours and no drops).

I note the description of libopenssl is:

The OpenSSL Project is a collaborative effort to develop a robust, commercial-grade, full-featured, and open source toolkit implementing the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL v2/v3) and Transport Layer Security (TLS v1) protocols with full-strength cryptography. The project is managed by a worldwide community of volunteers that use the Internet to communicate, plan, and develop the OpenSSL toolkit and its related documentation.

… as opposed to ‘restoring wireless’ could it be that by rolling back I fixed something that was broken in the wireless encryption ?

#5

On 12/12/2010 03:36 PM, oldcpu wrote:
>
> … as opposed to ‘restoring wireless’ could it be that by rolling back
> I fixed something that was broken in the wireless encryption ?

I didn’t check the file list for openssl - it does supply libssl.so, which is
used by wpa_supplicant. As such, it could mess up encryption. On the other hand,
I also have the version you had to revert (openssl 1.0.0-6.3.1) on my systems,
and WPA2 encryption is working fine.

If you got a bad load of openssl, it seems to be localized to your system.

#6

I need to take a look at the dmesg further, as perhaps I am wrong about the cause and effect. It did seem that way, but after 3 hours of connection, the wireless connection I had dropped, I could not get it to reconnection using the KDE-4.4.4 knetworkmanager. A reboot restored the connection, but thats no way to go about this. When I get the chance, I’ll try to make a note of the dmesg entries.

#7

I never did get around to digging out the dmesg entries … other things came up, the laptop was used in a different context, and the entries lost.

Since then I have not been able to reproduce this wireless connection drop and the laptop wireless again is working well.