help: association failure

[Marcelo Tosatti]

Hi,

I'm running into a problem with test-A board association and clues are welcome.

Note that association with the exact same test-A board and this very same
Linksys AP used to work in the past. There were no significant changes
in the AP as far as I can tell.

Also note that an ipw2200 driven ThinkPad and an iMac associate normally
to said AP.

-bash-3.1# iwlist eth0 scan
eth0      Scan completed :
          Cell 01 - Address: 00:0C:41:F5:4D:26
                    ESSID:"linksys"
                    Mode:Managed
                    Frequency:2.437 GHz (Channel 6)
                    Quality=46/100  Signal level=-87 dBm  Noise level=-96 dBm
                    Encryption key:off
                    Bit Rates:48 Mb/s
          Cell 02 - Address: 00:0F:3D:66:BE:36
                    ESSID:"default"
                    Mode:Managed
                    Frequency:2.437 GHz (Channel 6)
                    Quality=33/100  Signal level=-92 dBm  Noise level=-96 dBm
                    Encryption key:off
                    Bit Rates:54 Mb/s
          Cell 03 - Address: 00:12:17:00:EA:06
                    ESSID:"casa"
                    Mode:Managed
                    Frequency:2.447 GHz (Channel 8)
                    Quality=52/100  Signal level=-84 dBm  Noise level=-96 dBm
                    Encryption key:off
                    Bit Rates:11 Mb/s

-bash-3.1# iwconfig eth0 essid linksys
-bash-3.1# iwconfig eth0 ap 00:0C:41:F5:4D:26
-bash-3.1# iwconfig eth0
eth0      MRVL-USB8388  ESSID:""
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.437 GHz  Access Point: Not-Associated
          Bit Rate:1 Mb/s   Tx-Power=13 dBm
          Retry limit:8   RTS thr=2347 B   Fragment thr=2346 B
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality:0  Signal level:0  Noise level:0
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

Both essid and AP association fail similarly.

Looking at the log, we see the association request:

DNLD_CMD: Sent command 0x50 @ 1
DNLD_CMD: Command: 50 00 3f 00
b9 01 00 00 00 0c 41 f5 4d 26 01 04 0a 00 00 00 00 00 00 07 00 6c 69 6e 6b 73 79
 73 03 00 01 00 06 04 00 06 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 00 0c 00 82 84 8b 96 0c 12 1
8 24 30 48 60 6c

and the failed association response:

CMD_RESP: @ 1289479
CMD_RESP:: 12 80 0e 00 b9 01 00 00 01 04 04 00 05 c0
CMD_RESP: 8012 Result: 0 Length: 14
ASSOC_RESP: Association Failed, status code = 4 

Using another AP (which is from an unknown neighbour), I get:

Association request:
DNLD_CMD: Sent command 0x50 @ 1
DNLD_CMD: Command: 50 00 34 00
76 01 00 00 00 12 17 00 ea 06 05 00 0a 00 00 00 00 00 00 04 00 63 61 73 61 03 00
 01 00 08 04 00 06 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 00 04 00 82 84 8b 96

Association response:
CMD_RESP: @ 1196977
CMD_RESP:: 12 80 0e 00 76 01 00
CMD_RESP: 8012 Result: 0 Length : 14
ASSOC_RESP: Association Failed, status code = 3

Looking at the IEEE 802.11 standard, association response management frame
status field description:

7.3.1.9 Status Code field

The Status Code field is used in a response management frame to
indicate the success or failure of a requested operation. The length
of the Status Code field is 2 octets. If an operation is successful,
then the status code is set to 0. If an operation results in failure,
the status code indicates a failure cause. The failure cause codes are
defined in Table 19.

Table 19—Status codes

         Status code    Meaning
                0       Successful
                1       Unspecified failure
              2–9       Reserved
               10       Cannot support all requested capabilities in the Capability Information field
               11       Reassociation denied due to inability to confirm that association exists
               12       Association denied due to reason outside the scope of this standard
               13       Responding station does not support the specified authentication algorithm
               14       Received an Authentication frame with authentication transaction sequence number
                        out of expected sequence
               15       Authentication rejected because of challenge failure
               16       Authentication rejected due to timeout waiting for next frame in sequence
               17       Association denied because AP is unable to handle additional associated stations
               18       Association denied due to requesting station not supporting all of the data rates in the
                        BSSBasicRateSet parameter
          19–65 535     Reserved

So the status code response being seen are in the "Reserved" range.

I suppose that "Reserved" range is manufacturer specific?

If so, what could be the meaning for status codes 4 in association
response from Linksys WRT54G and status code 3 in reponse from "unknown
vendor at neighbour".

Some recent driver change could be causing it, should try an older build.

Useful datapoint is that it used to work before with exact same AP!

TIA