From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Jun 29 04:33:07 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2897116A421 for ; Fri, 29 Jun 2007 04:33:07 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from sam@errno.com) Received: from ebb.errno.com (ebb.errno.com [69.12.149.25]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 001F913C483 for ; Fri, 29 Jun 2007 04:33:06 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from sam@errno.com) Received: from trouble.errno.com (trouble.errno.com [10.0.0.248]) (authenticated bits=0) by ebb.errno.com (8.13.6/8.12.6) with ESMTP id l5T4X6HD027046 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NO); Thu, 28 Jun 2007 21:33:06 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from sam@errno.com) Message-ID: <46848C1E.2080404@errno.com> Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2007 21:35:42 -0700 From: Sam Leffler User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.0 (X11/20070530) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Kevin Gerry References: <468488B3.7010607@errno.com> In-Reply-To: <468488B3.7010607@errno.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Wireless NICs not obeying 'SSID' setting. X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 29 Jun 2007 04:33:07 -0000 Sam Leffler wrote: > Kevin Gerry wrote: >> I've noticed that in a recent patch that when you set a NIC with ifconfig >> ath0 ssid "This One" that it won't always honor that and jump on the >> strongest one. >> >> Example: >> >> 3 WAPs: SSIDs WAP1, WAP2, WAP3 >> >> I have set ath0's ssid to "WAP2" and ral0's ssid to "WAP3". They both will >> honor the ssid setting for the first connection. However, after a few >> hours/etc the drivers both associate with WAP1. >> >> The settings to require the specific SSID are in >> /etc/start_if.ral0/start_if.ath0. There aren't any conflicting >> directives to >> force it to go blank and select a random AP. > > You're probably roaming. wlandebug roam will verify what's going on. > You can disable roaming several ways: > > ifconfig ral0 roaming device > > should do the trick (if you set it to manual then you won't do what you > want if your beacon is turned off). Alternatively you can do > > ifconfig ral0 -bgscan > > as roaming won't take place w/o bg scanning. If you are roaming you can also just fiddle with the roaming thresholds; e.g. roam:rssi11g and roam:rate11g. I haven't updated the man page for ifconfig for these yet; they are threshold settings that when crossed cause the system to consider roaming to a different ap. The handling of ssid changed when roaming went in; it's now a "desired ssid". That is, if the scan doesn't see an ap with the desired ssid then it'll associate to another ap if possible. Should the ap w/ the desired ssid re-appear and roaming is enabled then you'll switch over to it. There is also hysteresis to this algorithm so you don't just bounce around from one ap to another. Sam