Unable to connect - forgets key?

Hi,

I’ve set up have installed the wireless driver for my broadcom adaptor (dell mini-9) and it seems to be mostly working. It can see my access point (and lots of others) but it won’t connect.

It seems to forget the WEP key - I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve entered it, only to go back a find it’s gone from the configuration.

I’ve chosen to keep it ‘In secure storage’. If I click on the network icon in the toolbar, then the connection (which shows with a little yellow shield icon next to it), it takes me to ‘secrets for…’ and that seems to remember it until I touch anything in the ‘Manage connections’ dialog - which never seems to show the key.

This is a fresh download of OpenSUSE 11.2 KDE.

# lspci -v
...
03:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g (rev 01)
        Subsystem: Broadcom Corporation Device 04b5                        
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 17                  
        Memory at f0200000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16]           
        Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 3                      
        Capabilities: [58] Vendor Specific Information <?>                 
        Capabilities: [e8] MSI: Enable- Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit+         
        Capabilities: [d0] Express Endpoint, MSI 00                        
        Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting                       
        Capabilities: [13c] Virtual Channel <?>
        Capabilities: [160] Device Serial Number 76-a5-63-ff-ff-f5-00-21
        Capabilities: [16c] Power Budgeting <?>
        Kernel driver in use: wl
...
# /usr/sbin/iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

eth1      IEEE 802.11bg  ESSID:""
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.412 GHz  Access Point: Not-Associated
          Bit Rate:54 Mb/s   Tx-Power:24 dBm
          Retry min limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Managementmode:All packets received
          Link Quality=5/5  Signal level=0 dBm  Noise level=0 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

Any hints appreciated.[/size]

Got it. You have chosen to store it encrypted, yet not configured kwallet. Set it to save things unencrypted, and it will remember the WEP key.

Thanks! I chose to store in plain and got it working. What can I do about kwallet?

I think I answered ‘no’ to some question about it but how do I go back and change it?

If I click on the menu item for it, absolutely nothing happens…

Before you start configuring/using kwallet I suggest you first read about it, about it’s pros and cons. I’ve used it for a couple of years until I realized it slowed things down (networkmanager waiting for the GUI to get a password from kwallet, kopete waiting for network etc), and it has an icon in the systray that will allow anybody with access to my desktop (once started) to read my passwords. I’d rather have them looking for a lot of hidden files.

OK, sounds like I don’t want kwallet. Frankly I see no disadvantage to keeping it in plain. Nobody has access to the machine who would want to get at it and if it gets stolen, I’ll change the key…

Is there any issue with removing kwallet entirely?

You have disabled it already, uninstalling it would save the incredible amount of 745 KB !!! Leave it where it is, a future software install may simply reinstall it as a dependency.

I thought we’d never need more than 640KB?

Yeah yeah, mine’s the one with the DeLorean keys in the pocket…

[QUOTE=weighty_foe;2165875]I thought we’d never need more than 640KB?
QUOTE]

We can if we leave an extra floppy in the drive for swapping :wink: