Hi Philip, On Monday 23 December 2024 23:35:21 GMT Philip Webb wrote: > I've encountered a strange problem logging into my local Wifi. > There are 2 services I can use : (1) the household service, > part of my landlord's home-office system ; (2) my cell-phone's hotspot. > (2) is ok, but trying to use (1) has been offering challenges. > > First, there's no problem with my hardware or that of my landlord > nor with 'wpa_supplicant' installed on my Gentoo system AFAIK. > The problem aros when I tried to log into (1) > after a power outage caused my landlord to restart his box, > at which time he renamed the service with a slightly different password ; > he's intelligent + friendly, but not upto fine-tuning it. > I have updated the config file below to match the new strings.
Did he *only* change the SSID and password, or did he also change the
encryption and key management method?
> Earlier in the year, it was straightforward. I have a config file :
>
> #wpa_supplicant-gr.conf : 241207
>
> ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant
> ctrl_interface_group=wheel
>
> network={
> ssid="<name of landlord's service>"
> key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
> pairwise=CCMP TKIP
> group=CCMP TKIP
> psk="<password>"
> priority=5
> }
>
> This hasn't changed : it used to log me in when I rebooted.
> Now it doesn't : for some reason, it scans, but finds nothing.
> The config file for my cell-phone hotspot is the same & also unchanged.
Check there are no empty spaces left at the end of the strings in any entries
you edited in your wpa_supplicant.conf.
Check you have not altered the access rights of the file:
chmod -v 600 /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
> However, I can use 'wpa_gui' with a bit of fussing & editing.
> Currently, it shows the correct adapter + service name & below it lists :
>
> Status : completed (station)
> Last message : <blank>
> Authentication : WPA2-PSK
> Encryption : CCMP + TKIP
> SSID : <service name>
> BSSID : < 12 hex digits >
> IP address : < 11 digits >
>
> I can't see any difference between the 2 lists of config items.
> I do have to reset it via an 'edit' menu after rebooting,
> esp to restate the password, which is a nuisance,
> but it succeeds in getting thro' to the service.
>
> Can anyone suggest what mb wrong with the 1st method ?
The first method looks good to me, beyond the points I mentioned above.
You can check what the landlord's AP wants to use by running wpa_cli in a
terminal:
> scan
will start scanning for APs. A few seconds ago you will have some results to
peruse:
> scan_results
The landlord's BSSID will list what encryption his AP has been configured to
use; e.g.:
01:23:45:67:89:01 2427 0 [WPA-PSK-CCMP+TKIP][WPA2-PSK-CCMP+TKIP] LL's-SSID
Enter 'quit' to exit the wpa_cli once you made a note of the above. You'll
need to reflect what the wpa_cli results revealed in your wpa_supplicant.conf.
If you want to be able to edit the AP configuration and save the results using
your wpa_gui directly, you have to add in your wpa_supplicant.conf:
====================================================
# Whether to allow wpa_supplicant to update (overwrite) configuration
#
# This option can be used to allow wpa_supplicant to overwrite configuration
# file whenever configuration is changed (e.g., new network block is added
# with wpa_cli or wpa_gui, or a password is changed). This is required for
# wpa_cli/wpa_gui to be able to store the configuration changes permanently.
# Please note that overwriting configuration file will remove the comments
# from it.
update_config=1
===============
Please heed the above warning regarding commented sections in your
wpa_supplicant.conf being removed.
HTH.
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