Re: Which AP is chosen when several are found for the same SSID?
Hi, Finally I tried at office with nm0.7 packages from launchpad ppa and it works! Just added the desired AP address to the BSSID and nm connected without problems. Some last questions: - Is wpa_supplicant used even if the wireless network is totally open? - If nm0.7 can lock the AP why not trying to do something like chosing the AP that would be beter in terms of rate and then connecting. I understand the driver is free to roam to another AP but then one just trusts the driver because if not we would have some nasty bugs like in Mac (having the AP changed every two seconds!) just one last piece of info. In the iwlist scanning the fastest ap( in terms of signal quality / type of router) in my network appear the first. Nevertheless, nm tries to connect to the slow one(which is the best in terms of signal quality) if I don't lock the AP by hand in the connection editor. Greetings, Keep up the good work! José On Fri, Oct 3, 2008 at 4:08 PM, Dan Williams [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Fri, 2008-10-03 at 11:42 -0400, Jose Aliste wrote: Thanks for the info ... I just have one more question, see inline. On Thu, Oct 2, 2008 at 3:18 PM, Dan Williams [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, 2008-10-01 at 19:14 -0400, Jose Aliste wrote: Hi all, I want to ask the question in the subject: Which AP is chosen when several are found for the same SSID? I ask this because I see three AP from mi wireless network at my office. Two of them are 802.11G AP are the other one is only 802.11B the signal for the slow one is better(it is nearer) and NM always connects to it. However, I would like to NM to connect to one of the others because even with less signal the connection is better( 33mb/s against the 11mb/s of a b connection!). At this moment, this is left up to the driver and the supplicant. The supplicant will apparently choose the AP with the best signal strength (since the scan results for the same SSID are sorted by signal strength), but the driver can also choose to roam from AP to AP based on other criteria. So, how can I tell NM to use the AP I need ? You can try to set the BSSID in the connection editor to lock it onto one of the APs, but the driver has the discretion to ignore that and roam to an AP it thinks is better. We don't yet have the facility to lock to 802.11g at _any_ level of the stack, not just NetworkManager. I am using NM 0.6 in Hardy and If I do as you or aaron said(keeping in th bssid only the address of the ap I want), but it does not work. However, If I go with manual config and I set the AP by using the wireless-ap option in the /etc/network/interfaces then everything works... Would I be more lucky in NM 0.7, I mean does NM 0.7 try to force the AP? Btw wpa_supplicant is used even if I am not using WPA? NM 0.6 doesn't have the capability to lock to a particular AP. NM 0.7 has the capability, but is still subject to driver behavior. Give NM 0.7 a shot and let us know if locking to your AP's BSSID works. Dan Thanks José You could try setting the data rate, but that doesn't always do what you want since you can only set it to one value, and the card would be unable to rate-scale based on signal quality of the locked AP. In short, can't really be done, but this is only partly NM's fault. There's a lot more work in the stack from drivers, to WEXT, to wpa_supplicant to make sure this works the way you want it. Dan ___ NetworkManager-list mailing list NetworkManager-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/networkmanager-list
Re: Which AP is chosen when several are found for the same SSID?
On Tue, 2008-10-07 at 10:06 -0400, Jose Aliste wrote: Hi, Finally I tried at office with nm0.7 packages from launchpad ppa and it works! Just added the desired AP address to the BSSID and nm connected without problems. Some last questions: - Is wpa_supplicant used even if the wireless network is totally open? Yes. It makes no sense to have two different codepaths for connecting to APs, thus wpa_supplicant is always used. Fewer codepaths == fewer opportunities for bugs. - If nm0.7 can lock the AP why not trying to do something like chosing the AP that would be beter in terms of rate and then connecting. I understand the driver is free to roam to another AP but then one just trusts the driver because if not we would have some nasty bugs like in Mac (having the AP changed every two seconds!) wpa_supplicant doesn't this, but the reason NM doesn't do this is partially because drivers historically (and some still do) suck a lot and didn't return good signal strength or rate information. The supplicant currently sorts APs based on strength so you'll get that at least. just one last piece of info. In the iwlist scanning the fastest ap( in terms of signal quality / type of router) in my network appear the first. Nevertheless, nm tries to connect to the slow one(which is the best in terms of signal quality) if I don't lock the AP by hand in the connection editor. Technically it's wpa_supplicant that tries to connect to the slower one but since it's only sorting by signal strength this somewhat expected. Probably best to see if we can optimize the supplicant's choices by hinting what we'd like (or at least being able to require specific bands like a/b/g) and having the supplicant filter it's scan results with that requirement. Dan Greetings, Keep up the good work! José On Fri, Oct 3, 2008 at 4:08 PM, Dan Williams [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Fri, 2008-10-03 at 11:42 -0400, Jose Aliste wrote: Thanks for the info ... I just have one more question, see inline. On Thu, Oct 2, 2008 at 3:18 PM, Dan Williams [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, 2008-10-01 at 19:14 -0400, Jose Aliste wrote: Hi all, I want to ask the question in the subject: Which AP is chosen when several are found for the same SSID? I ask this because I see three AP from mi wireless network at my office. Two of them are 802.11G AP are the other one is only 802.11B the signal for the slow one is better(it is nearer) and NM always connects to it. However, I would like to NM to connect to one of the others because even with less signal the connection is better( 33mb/s against the 11mb/s of a b connection!). At this moment, this is left up to the driver and the supplicant. The supplicant will apparently choose the AP with the best signal strength (since the scan results for the same SSID are sorted by signal strength), but the driver can also choose to roam from AP to AP based on other criteria. So, how can I tell NM to use the AP I need ? You can try to set the BSSID in the connection editor to lock it onto one of the APs, but the driver has the discretion to ignore that and roam to an AP it thinks is better. We don't yet have the facility to lock to 802.11g at _any_ level of the stack, not just NetworkManager. I am using NM 0.6 in Hardy and If I do as you or aaron said(keeping in th bssid only the address of the ap I want), but it does not work. However, If I go with manual config and I set the AP by using the wireless-ap option in the /etc/network/interfaces then everything works... Would I be more lucky in NM 0.7, I mean does NM 0.7 try to force the AP? Btw wpa_supplicant is used even if I am not using WPA? NM 0.6 doesn't have the capability to lock to a particular AP. NM 0.7 has the capability, but is still subject to driver behavior. Give NM 0.7 a shot and let us know if locking to your AP's BSSID works. Dan
Re: Which AP is chosen when several are found for the same SSID?
Dan Williams wrote: NM 0.6 doesn't have the capability to lock to a particular AP. NM 0.7 has the capability, but is still subject to driver behavior. Give NM 0.7 a shot and let us know if locking to your AP's BSSID works. Dan I can attest to the fact that something in the stack is really broken when it comes to AP choice. Using NM 0.7 with iwl3945 on Fedora Rawhide, NetworkManager almost always seems to show one of the worst possible choices of the available APs. For example, in the case of the campus wireless at my university, nm-applet currently shows the strongest AP's signal to be around 10%, despite there being 15 APs in close proximity, several having a quality of 60% or so (see attached iwlist scan output, the essid is gwireless). Moreover, association times out when I attempt to connect with NetworkManager, rendering it unusable in a large percentage of cases. The problem seems to be on the NetworkManager level, considering using wpa_supplicant directly seems to work: $ sudo wpa_supplicant -D wext -i wlan0 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf $ wpa_cli add_network 0 set_network 0 ssid gwireless OK set_network 0 key_mgmt NONE OK status bssid=00:1c:0e:40:f0:cf ssid=gwireless id=0 pairwise_cipher=NONE group_cipher=NONE key_mgmt=NONE wpa_state=COMPLETED quit $ sudo iwconfig wlan0 wlan0 IEEE 802.11abg ESSID:gwireless Mode:Managed Frequency:5.22 GHz Access Point: 00:1C:0E:40:F0:CF Bit Rate=54 Mb/s Tx-Power=14 dBm Retry min limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr=2352 B Encryption key:off Power Management:off Link Quality=42/100 Signal level:-76 dBm Noise level=-93 dBm Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0 Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0 $ sudo killall dhclient $ sudo dhclient wlan0 $ sudo ifconfig wlan0 wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:1C:BF:35:58:A6 inet addr:10.10.176.43 Bcast:10.10.255.255 Mask:255.255.0.0 inet6 addr: fe80::21c:bfff:fe35:58a6/64 Scope:Link UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:9 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:28 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 RX bytes:1346 (1.3 KiB) TX bytes:5833 (5.6 KiB) Up to this point I've been falling back on a script to connect although I would definitely be willing to provide any information necessary to debug this. Thanks, - Ben $ sudo iwlist wlan0 scan wlan0 Scan completed : Cell 01 - Address: 00:18:74:48:7A:20 ESSID:gwireless Mode:Master Channel:1 Frequency:2.412 GHz (Channel 1) Quality=31/100 Signal level:-90 dBm Noise level=-96 dBm Encryption key:off Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 6 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s 11 Mb/s; 12 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s; 24 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s 48 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s Extra:tsf=00393f2b752f Extra: Last beacon: 4865ms ago Cell 02 - Address: 00:19:07:37:BA:F1 ESSID:gw_event Mode:Master Channel:1 Frequency:2.412 GHz (Channel 1) Quality=48/100 Signal level:-80 dBm Noise level=-94 dBm Encryption key:off Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 6 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s 11 Mb/s; 12 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s; 24 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s 48 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s Extra:tsf=00bc2730018b Extra: Last beacon: 4443ms ago Cell 03 - Address: 00:1C:0E:40:96:A1 ESSID:gw_event Mode:Master Channel:1 Frequency:2.412 GHz (Channel 1) Quality=42/100 Signal level:-84 dBm Noise level=-93 dBm Encryption key:off Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 6 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s 11 Mb/s; 12 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s; 24 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s 48 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s Extra:tsf=003ba65c818f Extra: Last beacon: 4631ms ago Cell 04 - Address: 00:18:74:48:82:E0 ESSID:gwireless Mode:Master Channel:1 Frequency:2.412 GHz (Channel 1) Quality=42/100 Signal level:-84 dBm Noise level=-96 dBm Encryption key:off Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 6 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s 11 Mb/s; 12 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s; 24 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s 48 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s Extra:tsf=00bc2a24418c Extra: Last beacon:
Re: Which AP is chosen when several are found for the same SSID?
Thanks for the info ... I just have one more question, see inline. On Thu, Oct 2, 2008 at 3:18 PM, Dan Williams [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, 2008-10-01 at 19:14 -0400, Jose Aliste wrote: Hi all, I want to ask the question in the subject: Which AP is chosen when several are found for the same SSID? I ask this because I see three AP from mi wireless network at my office. Two of them are 802.11G AP are the other one is only 802.11B the signal for the slow one is better(it is nearer) and NM always connects to it. However, I would like to NM to connect to one of the others because even with less signal the connection is better( 33mb/s against the 11mb/s of a b connection!). At this moment, this is left up to the driver and the supplicant. The supplicant will apparently choose the AP with the best signal strength (since the scan results for the same SSID are sorted by signal strength), but the driver can also choose to roam from AP to AP based on other criteria. So, how can I tell NM to use the AP I need ? You can try to set the BSSID in the connection editor to lock it onto one of the APs, but the driver has the discretion to ignore that and roam to an AP it thinks is better. We don't yet have the facility to lock to 802.11g at _any_ level of the stack, not just NetworkManager. I am using NM 0.6 in Hardy and If I do as you or aaron said(keeping in th bssid only the address of the ap I want), but it does not work. However, If I go with manual config and I set the AP by using the wireless-ap option in the /etc/network/interfaces then everything works... Would I be more lucky in NM 0.7, I mean does NM 0.7 try to force the AP? Btw wpa_supplicant is used even if I am not using WPA? Thanks José You could try setting the data rate, but that doesn't always do what you want since you can only set it to one value, and the card would be unable to rate-scale based on signal quality of the locked AP. In short, can't really be done, but this is only partly NM's fault. There's a lot more work in the stack from drivers, to WEXT, to wpa_supplicant to make sure this works the way you want it. Dan ___ NetworkManager-list mailing list NetworkManager-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/networkmanager-list
Re: Which AP is chosen when several are found for the same SSID?
On Fri, 2008-10-03 at 11:42 -0400, Jose Aliste wrote: Thanks for the info ... I just have one more question, see inline. On Thu, Oct 2, 2008 at 3:18 PM, Dan Williams [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, 2008-10-01 at 19:14 -0400, Jose Aliste wrote: Hi all, I want to ask the question in the subject: Which AP is chosen when several are found for the same SSID? I ask this because I see three AP from mi wireless network at my office. Two of them are 802.11G AP are the other one is only 802.11B the signal for the slow one is better(it is nearer) and NM always connects to it. However, I would like to NM to connect to one of the others because even with less signal the connection is better( 33mb/s against the 11mb/s of a b connection!). At this moment, this is left up to the driver and the supplicant. The supplicant will apparently choose the AP with the best signal strength (since the scan results for the same SSID are sorted by signal strength), but the driver can also choose to roam from AP to AP based on other criteria. So, how can I tell NM to use the AP I need ? You can try to set the BSSID in the connection editor to lock it onto one of the APs, but the driver has the discretion to ignore that and roam to an AP it thinks is better. We don't yet have the facility to lock to 802.11g at _any_ level of the stack, not just NetworkManager. I am using NM 0.6 in Hardy and If I do as you or aaron said(keeping in th bssid only the address of the ap I want), but it does not work. However, If I go with manual config and I set the AP by using the wireless-ap option in the /etc/network/interfaces then everything works... Would I be more lucky in NM 0.7, I mean does NM 0.7 try to force the AP? Btw wpa_supplicant is used even if I am not using WPA? NM 0.6 doesn't have the capability to lock to a particular AP. NM 0.7 has the capability, but is still subject to driver behavior. Give NM 0.7 a shot and let us know if locking to your AP's BSSID works. Dan Thanks José You could try setting the data rate, but that doesn't always do what you want since you can only set it to one value, and the card would be unable to rate-scale based on signal quality of the locked AP. In short, can't really be done, but this is only partly NM's fault. There's a lot more work in the stack from drivers, to WEXT, to wpa_supplicant to make sure this works the way you want it. Dan ___ NetworkManager-list mailing list NetworkManager-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/networkmanager-list
Which AP is chosen when several are found for the same SSID?
Hi all, I want to ask the question in the subject: Which AP is chosen when several are found for the same SSID? I ask this because I see three AP from mi wireless network at my office. Two of them are 802.11G AP are the other one is only 802.11B the signal for the slow one is better(it is nearer) and NM always connects to it. However, I would like to NM to connect to one of the others because even with less signal the connection is better( 33mb/s against the 11mb/s of a b connection!). So, how can I tell NM to use the AP I need ? Greetings José ___ NetworkManager-list mailing list NetworkManager-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/networkmanager-list
Re: Which AP is chosen when several are found for the same SSID?
On Wed, 2008-10-01 at 19:14 -0400, Jose Aliste wrote: Hi all, I want to ask the question in the subject: Which AP is chosen when several are found for the same SSID? I ask this because I see three AP from mi wireless network at my office. Two of them are 802.11G AP are the other one is only 802.11B the signal for the slow one is better(it is nearer) and NM always connects to it. However, I would like to NM to connect to one of the others because even with less signal the connection is better( 33mb/s against the 11mb/s of a b connection!). At this moment, this is left up to the driver and the supplicant. The supplicant will apparently choose the AP with the best signal strength (since the scan results for the same SSID are sorted by signal strength), but the driver can also choose to roam from AP to AP based on other criteria. So, how can I tell NM to use the AP I need ? You can try to set the BSSID in the connection editor to lock it onto one of the APs, but the driver has the discretion to ignore that and roam to an AP it thinks is better. We don't yet have the facility to lock to 802.11g at _any_ level of the stack, not just NetworkManager. You could try setting the data rate, but that doesn't always do what you want since you can only set it to one value, and the card would be unable to rate-scale based on signal quality of the locked AP. In short, can't really be done, but this is only partly NM's fault. There's a lot more work in the stack from drivers, to WEXT, to wpa_supplicant to make sure this works the way you want it. Dan ___ NetworkManager-list mailing list NetworkManager-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/networkmanager-list
