[Commotion-dev] IBSS-RSN for Linux

Thu Jul 18 00:17:49 UTC 2013

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So... it turns out that the Asus netbooks (and, by implication,
Broadcom BCM4313 chipsets in general) do kinda-sorta support Ad-hoc
mode, though not using the default drivers.  In particular, the (open
source) brcmsmac driver definitely does not support Ad-hoc mode.  The
(proprietary) wl/broadcom-sta drivers do support ad-hoc mode, and
someone seems to have gotten them working on at least one of the
netbooks.  (I've just set up another two).

The ad-hoc capable driver is contained in bcmwl-kernel-source.
Apt-getting this package will automatically blacklist the default
driver stack, and should immediately render any given machine ad-hoc
capable.

< Jordan

Jordan McCarthy
Technical Program Associate | Open Technology Institute | New America
Foundation
My Public Key: 0xC08D8042 | 4A61 3D39 4125 127D 65EA DDC2 BFBD A2E9 C08D
8042

On 07/17/2013 07:39 PM, Ben West wrote:
> I can confirm a TL-Link WN-TL821Nv3 USB adapter under Ubuntu
> v12.10 successfully came up in adhoc, albeit I had to fiddle with
> things so that the USB adapter would be named 'wlan0' for
> commotion-mesh-applet to be happy.  Driver used was ath9k_htc,
> suggesting that other machines using this driver may work.
> 
> On Wed, Jul 17, 2013 at 6:32 PM, Dan Staples 
> <danstaples at opentechinstitute.org 
> <mailto:danstaples at opentechinstitute.org>> wrote:
> 
> On Wed 17 Jul 2013 01:48:53 PM EDT, Jordan McCarthy wrote:
>> Catch-22: Wireless drivers for the fleet of netbooks don't
>> support Ad-hoc mode on 13.04 - but 13.04 is required for IBSS-RSN
>> support.
>> 
>> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/bcmwl/+bug/1160471 
>> (Neither the built-in or the alternate driver work, albeit for 
>> different reasons).
>> 
>> Next steps:
>> 
>> Try to install 13.04 on a non-BCM4313 chipset (laptops/adapters)
>> 
>> Try Debian
>> 
>> Custom-compile wpa-supplicant on 12.04 with CONFIG_IBSS_RSN=y
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Jordan McCarthy Technical Program Associate | Open Technology
>> Institute | New America Foundation My Public Key: 0xC08D8042 |
>> 4A61 3D39 4125 127D 65EA DDC2 BFBD
> A2E9 C08D
>> 8042
>> 
>> On 07/16/2013 02:10 PM, Jordan McCarthy wrote:
>>> I just realized... if you look closely at the package versions
>>> to which this fix was ostensibly applied, they're all
>>> designated as quantal packages - meaning that 12.04 may not
>>> actually support ibss-rsn at all.
>>> 
>>> I have some secondary evidence for this conclusion as well:
>>> when I configured an ad-hoc connection and tried to run
>>> <ibss-rsn 02:CA:FF:EE:BA:BE> to initiate a handshake, it
>>> routinely returned "UNKNOWN COMMAND", no matter how it was
>>> invoked.  So I'm guessing the presence of this command in
>>> 12.10's version of wpa_cli could just be a placeholder.
>>> 
>>> (Just for the heck of it, I also tried <preauthenticate 
>>> 02:CA:FF:EE:BA:BE>, which yielded:
>>> 
>>> <2>RSN: failed to get master session key from pre-auth EAPOL
>>> state machines
>>>> <2>RSN: pre-authentication with 02:ca:ff:ee:ba:be failed
>>> 
>>> 
>>> So I suppose I should get a machine upgraded to 13.04.
>>> 
>>>> Jordan
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Jordan McCarthy Technical Program Associate | Open Technology 
>>> Institute | New America Foundation My Public Key: 0xC08D8042 |
>>> 4A61 3D39 4125 127D 65EA DDC2 BFBD A2E9 C08D 8042
>>> 
>>> On 07/15/2013 08:31 PM, Jordan McCarthy wrote:
>>> 
>>>> 
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/network-manager/+bug/1046918
>
> 
>> 
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
> 
> Moving to the dev list...
> 
> I remember trying to get ad-hoc working on those damn netbooks when
> I was compiling Commotion-OpenWRT for x86. It seemed like a lost
> cause, with those broadcom drivers.
> 
> The requirements might just have to be using a certain version of
> Debian (I would suggest we stay away from being Ubuntu-specific,
> given their recent bad track record regarding privacy), AND you
> must have a chipset whose driver supports ad-hoc mode...
> 
> 
> -- Dan Staples
> 
> Open Technology Institute https://commotionwireless.net -- Dan
> Staples
> 
> Open Technology Institute https://commotionwireless.net 
> _______________________________________________ Commotion-dev
> mailing list Commotion-dev at lists.chambana.net 
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> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- Ben West http://gowasabi.net ben at gowasabi.net
> <mailto:ben at gowasabi.net> 314-246-9434
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