[afnog] WiFi weirdness.

[Patrick Okui]

Hi all,

I have two Linksys Wireless-G access points in the office, one on 
channel 6 the other on channel 11. For debugging purposes I set 
different ESSIDs on each. Every once in a while I lose my 
association with either of them[1], (and sometimes iwlist won't 
show both access points). The configuration on both APs is the 
defaults plus a whitelist of MAC addresses for the WiFi cards in 
the office.

Running iwevent on linux gives me output similar to the attached 
text file.[2] Each time I get the AP advertisement with the 
00:00:00:00:00:00 MAC I lose my association with my access point 
irrespective of which access point I'm associated with.

Any ideas on how to debug and fix this?

iwlist output:

Cell 01 - Address: 00:12:17:6F:DE:53
     ESSID:"TA2"
     Protocol:IEEE 802.11bg
     Mode:Master
     Channel:11
     Encryption key:off
     Bit Rate:54 Mb/s
     Extra: Rates (Mb/s): 1 2 5.5 6 9 11 12 18 24 36 48 54
     Signal level=-42 dBm
     Extra: Last beacon: 189ms ago
Cell 02 - Address: 00:12:17:6F:E2:A2
     ESSID:"TA"
     Protocol:IEEE 802.11bg
     Mode:Master
     Channel:6
     Encryption key:off
     Bit Rate:54 Mb/s
     Extra: Rates (Mb/s): 1 2 5.5 6 9 11 12 18 24 36 48 54
     Signal level=-25 dBm
     Extra: Last beacon: 177ms ago

<<once in a while I'll see this access point>>

Cell 01 - Address: 00:13:60:11:96:F0
     ESSID:"<hidden>"
     Protocol:IEEE 802.11bg
     Mode:Master
     Channel:2
     Encryption key:on
     Bit Rate:54 Mb/s
     Extra: Rates (Mb/s): 1 2 5.5 6 9 11 12 18 24 36 48 54
     Signal level=-84 dBm
     Extra: Last beacon: 134ms ago

-- 
patrick

[1] On both my SuSE 9.3 machine as well as the windows machines 
in here

[2] I attached rather than copy/pasted so lines wouldn't wrap
-------------- next part --------------
10:00:24.988729   eth0     New Access Point/Cell address:00:00:00:00:00:00
10:00:28.122365   eth0     New Access Point/Cell address:00:12:17:6F:E2:A2
10:00:31.764434   eth0     New Access Point/Cell address:00:00:00:00:00:00
10:00:35.445682   eth0     New Access Point/Cell address:00:00:00:00:00:00
10:00:38.514937   eth0     New Access Point/Cell address:00:00:00:00:00:00
10:00:41.747769   eth0     New Access Point/Cell address:00:00:00:00:00:00
10:00:45.125480   eth0     New Access Point/Cell address:00:00:00:00:00:00
10:00:48.228910   eth0     New Access Point/Cell address:00:00:00:00:00:00
10:00:51.261982   eth0     New Access Point/Cell address:00:00:00:00:00:00
10:00:54.521292   eth0     New Access Point/Cell address:00:00:00:00:00:00
10:00:57.627045   eth0     New Access Point/Cell address:00:00:00:00:00:00
10:01:00.960945   eth0     New Access Point/Cell address:00:12:17:6F:E2:A2
10:01:04.141777   eth0     New Access Point/Cell address:00:00:00:00:00:00
10:01:04.464576   eth0     New Access Point/Cell address:00:00:00:00:00:00
10:01:08.122004   eth0     New Access Point/Cell address:00:12:17:6F:E2:A2
10:01:10.778376   eth0     New Access Point/Cell address:00:00:00:00:00:00
10:01:14.362423   eth0     New Access Point/Cell address:00:00:00:00:00:00
10:01:17.426136   eth0     New Access Point/Cell address:00:00:00:00:00:00
10:01:20.975056   eth0     New Access Point/Cell address:00:00:00:00:00:00
10:01:24.285831   eth0     New Access Point/Cell address:00:00:00:00:00:00
10:01:27.081523   eth0     New Access Point/Cell address:00:00:00:00:00:00
10:01:30.403303   eth0     New Access Point/Cell address:00:12:17:6F:E2:A2
10:01:37.921312   eth0     New Access Point/Cell address:00:12:17:6F:E2:A2
10:01:43.511232   eth0     New Access Point/Cell address:00:00:00:00:00:00
10:01:47.200335   eth0     New Access Point/Cell address:00:00:00:00:00:00
10:01:50.097338   eth0     New Access Point/Cell address:00:00:00:00:00:00
10:01:53.313572   eth0     New Access Point/Cell address:00:00:00:00:00:00
10:01:56.799440   eth0     New Access Point/Cell address:00:00:00:00:00:00
10:02:00.098201   eth0     New Access Point/Cell address:00:12:17:6F:E2:A2
10:04:02.788261   eth0     New Access Point/Cell address:00:00:00:00:00:00
10:04:06.098024   eth0     New Access Point/Cell address:00:12:17:6F:E2:A2
10:05:58.596877   eth0     New Access Point/Cell address:00:00:00:00:00:00
10:05:58.604783   eth0     New Access Point/Cell address:00:12:17:6F:E2:A2
10:06:30.281494   eth0     New Access Point/Cell address:00:00:00:00:00:00
10:06:33.327948   eth0     New Access Point/Cell address:00:12:17:6F:E2:A2
10:06:43.346290   eth0     New Access Point/Cell address:00:12:17:6F:E2:A2
10:07:18.299459   eth0     New Access Point/Cell address:00:00:00:00:00:00
10:07:21.424374   eth0     New Access Point/Cell address:00:12:17:6F:E2:A2
10:08:30.594436   eth0     New Access Point/Cell address:00:00:00:00:00:00
10:08:33.680698   eth0     New Access Point/Cell address:00:12:17:6F:E2:A2
10:08:40.032901   eth0     New Access Point/Cell address:00:00:00:00:00:00
10:08:40.310503   eth0     New Access Point/Cell address:00:12:17:6F:E2:A2