[SOLVED] Trouble with wpa_supplicant

jackerybakery · 2010-04-23 16:54:15

Hello,

I successfully setup my wireless over an unencrypted connection. However when I try to connect over WPA-PSK, I get this error:

ioctl[SIOCSIWPMKSA]: Invalid argument

amongst a lot more output, and it will not associate.

I have a Realtek 8192E network card.

I have tried several things including reinstalling to the most recent wpa_supplicant and changing my wpa_supplicant.conf.

My current wpa_supplicant.conf is:

ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=wheel

network={
    ssid="BTHomeHub-111D"
    #psk="######"
    psk=#########################
}

Any help would be much appreciated !

Last edited by jackerybakery (2010-04-25 21:16:13)

pseudonomous · 2010-04-23 17:52:46

It sounds like you're having issues with the interface between wpa_supplicant and your wireless cards kernel module. Just to be sure, you are running wpa_supplicant as root, right?

If you are, it's possible that there's a mismatch between the driver for your card and the driver that you are calling wpa_supplicant to use; wpa_supplicant should default to the "wext" driver, but you could try explicitly calling:

"wpa_supplicant -Dwext ..."

I don't think any of the other drivers that wpa_supplicant can use would support a Realtek card, unless you use windows drivers through ndiswrapper.

jackerybakery · 2010-04-23 21:19:12

Hello,

Thanks for your help,
I'm not using Ndiswrapper and in the command I used, I already called -Dwext explicitly I think (just used the one in the Arch Wiki tutorial on WPA supplicant).

wpa_supplicant -B -Dwext -i wlan0 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf

I did grab a source wpa_supplicant and had a look at the config file but didn't really see anything that seemed likely for the realtek card. Though I know very little about network cards and this card seems quite hard to find information for.

Any more thoughts?

Last edited by jackerybakery (2010-04-23 21:22:27)

pseudonomous · 2010-04-23 22:32:30

This appears to be the patch that introduced support for you wireless card to linux kernel.

I noticed this comment:

+ * WPA code stolen from the ipw2200 driver.
+ * Copyright who own it's copyright.

so maybe you're actually supposed to use the ipw driver when you call wpa_supplicant?

jackerybakery · 2010-04-24 08:59:28

Hmmm, tried it though it said it now uses the -Dwext driver so got the same problem. Though this was the development version 0.7.2 (as I thought it may be more likely to have support as the device is quite new). Do you think I should try the ipw driver on the 0.6.10 version?

pseudonomous · 2010-04-24 22:13:42

Well the obvious answer is always: "keep trying stuff until you get it to work"

So I think you should revert back to the stable version and try it with the ipw driver ... and I guess there's even some chance that you need to revert down to the 2.6.32 kernel to get it work, if the reason why they are using wext in the unstable branch of wpa_supplicant is because the ipw code used in the kernel was replaced, I don't know if this happened, if you do some research maybe you can track this down.

The only other route I can think of to take is to use ndiswrapper and windows drivers instead ... or switch to an open access point or WEP encryption, if that's practical.

jackerybakery · 2010-04-25 16:28:15

Thanks very much for your help, trying to slowly narrow it down

jackerybakery · 2010-04-25 21:23:28

Hmmm, seemed to have solved it.

Did some small changes to wpa_supplicant.conf, making sure it was connecting via WPA-PSK.

Then (after considering what you said about the IPW driver) I recompiled the kernel with some support for ipw. I also added the TKIP Micheal MIC algorithm (as I noticed dmesg requested it once after an attempt to associate).

After 2 reboots (it may have worked for the first but I went onto Windows and nearly emailed realtek so perhaps it didn't), it now seems to associate, though I still get the ioctl error .

On running DHCPCD it seems to connect fine, have connected ~3 times so far.

Hopefully it will stay that way, will keep you posted. Thanks for the help.

mrunion · 2010-04-26 12:52:36

FWIW, I get the ioctl error. I have this same card and use the following driver (I got it from AUR):

local/rtl8192se 2.6.0014.0115.2010-1
    Drivers for RTL8192SE chipset

There is a newer one in the AUR, but it really causes me problems and freaks out the error log. Sometimes it disconnects (using the new driver), so I stuck with this one and have no problems.

jackerybakery · 2010-04-26 17:56:47

Yeh, despite associating now, my setup still seems very erratic sometimes. There are still times when I boot up and cannot associate. I have emailed realtek now, but will try your driver while awaiting their reply.

Aakko · 2010-04-28 17:27:46

I have 8192e and I get these ioctl[SIOCSIWPMKSA]: Invalid argument -errors even though I'am using wep. After boot I have to try 2-4 times to get wireless connection to work. It's really annoying.

jackerybakery · 2010-05-03 18:16:53

Yeh that's the error I get with wpa_supplicant. Used to get a similar one when I tried to use

ifconfig wlan0 up

but that was because I didn't have the right firmware. Now that I've got the firmware I get that exact error with wpa_supplicant. Emailed realtek but they still haven't replied so sent off a few more this weekend to some different divisions from last time which hopefully they will answer.

Arch Linux

#1 2010-04-23 16:54:15

[SOLVED] Trouble with wpa_supplicant

#2 2010-04-23 17:52:46

Re: [SOLVED] Trouble with wpa_supplicant

#3 2010-04-23 21:19:12

Re: [SOLVED] Trouble with wpa_supplicant

#4 2010-04-23 22:32:30

Re: [SOLVED] Trouble with wpa_supplicant

#5 2010-04-24 08:59:28

Re: [SOLVED] Trouble with wpa_supplicant

#6 2010-04-24 22:13:42

Re: [SOLVED] Trouble with wpa_supplicant

#7 2010-04-25 16:28:15

Re: [SOLVED] Trouble with wpa_supplicant

#8 2010-04-25 21:23:28

Re: [SOLVED] Trouble with wpa_supplicant

#9 2010-04-26 12:52:36

Re: [SOLVED] Trouble with wpa_supplicant

#10 2010-04-26 17:56:47

Re: [SOLVED] Trouble with wpa_supplicant

#11 2010-04-28 17:27:46

Re: [SOLVED] Trouble with wpa_supplicant

#12 2010-05-03 18:16:53

Re: [SOLVED] Trouble with wpa_supplicant

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