Initial connection issues over Wi-Fi?

Software SW help
1

I’m using my Mox as an extra access point. I plugged in the ethernet cable in the lan ports and disabled DHCP.

It mostly works fine but often, when I get in range, my phone and laptop will take a while to connect to the internet. It seems that they aren’t always getting a DHCP response, and my phone also sometimes can’t connect because the authentication failed.

How should I go about troubleshooting this? My laptop is on Linux 5.7.7 and I’m using NetworkManager for Wi-Fi.

OS version 5.0.3/hbk.

2

There could be a multitude of causes, best to start looking at one potential at a time, starting with client association on the M’s AP - monitor the M’s syslog with logread -f from ssh cli when a client tries to get associated. The log may provide some hint in case of futile association attempts.

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3

Hmm odd - it looks like association works fine but then it drops. My phone isn’t getting an ip address.

Jul  9 13:22:10 turris hostapd: wlan1: STA f0:0f:ec:ab:9e:9c IEEE 802.11: disassociated
Jul  9 13:22:10 turris hostapd: wlan1: AP-STA-DISCONNECTED f0:0f:ec:ab:9e:9c
Jul  9 13:22:18 turris hostapd: wlan0: AP-STA-DISCONNECTED f0:0f:ec:ab:9e:9c
Jul  9 13:22:18 turris hostapd: wlan0: STA-OPMODE-N_SS-CHANGED f0:0f:ec:ab:9e:9c 1
Jul  9 13:22:18 turris hostapd: wlan0: STA f0:0f:ec:ab:9e:9c IEEE 802.11: authenticated
Jul  9 13:22:18 turris hostapd: wlan0: STA-OPMODE-N_SS-CHANGED f0:0f:ec:ab:9e:9c 2
Jul  9 13:22:18 turris hostapd: wlan0: STA f0:0f:ec:ab:9e:9c IEEE 802.11: associated (aid 2)
Jul  9 13:22:18 turris hostapd: wlan0: AP-STA-CONNECTED f0:0f:ec:ab:9e:9c
Jul  9 13:22:18 turris hostapd: wlan0: STA f0:0f:ec:ab:9e:9c RADIUS: starting accounting session 94D51C98453B0A56
Jul  9 13:22:18 turris hostapd: wlan0: STA f0:0f:ec:ab:9e:9c WPA: pairwise key handshake completed (RSN)
Jul  9 13:22:25 turris hostapd: wlan0: AP-STA-DISCONNECTED f0:0f:ec:ab:9e:9c
Jul  9 13:22:25 turris hostapd: wlan0: STA f0:0f:ec:ab:9e:9c IEEE 802.11: disassociated
Jul  9 13:22:26 turris hostapd: wlan0: STA f0:0f:ec:ab:9e:9c IEEE 802.11: deauthenticated due to inactivity (timer DEAUTH/REMOVE)
Jul  9 13:22:27 turris hostapd: wlan0: STA f0:0f:ec:ab:9e:9c IEEE 802.11: authenticated
Jul  9 13:22:27 turris hostapd: wlan0: STA-OPMODE-N_SS-CHANGED f0:0f:ec:ab:9e:9c 2
Jul  9 13:22:27 turris hostapd: wlan0: STA f0:0f:ec:ab:9e:9c IEEE 802.11: associated (aid 2)
Jul  9 13:22:27 turris hostapd: wlan0: AP-STA-CONNECTED f0:0f:ec:ab:9e:9c
Jul  9 13:22:27 turris hostapd: wlan0: STA f0:0f:ec:ab:9e:9c RADIUS: starting accounting session 608AAB960CB9A50C
Jul  9 13:22:27 turris hostapd: wlan0: STA f0:0f:ec:ab:9e:9c WPA: pairwise key handshake completed (RSN)

Perhaps the DHCP packets are being dropped? But not all the time? So weird :frowning:

4

STA association and DHCP IP assignment are different processes, of course DHCP will not work if the client looses STA association in between.

First the apparent association issue should be sorted, I am no expert on that matter, just if

is a hint you might want to look into the WLan settings and try different settings there, start with simple settings and increase complexity (ciphers, WPA3, RADIUS, Fast Transition, Mesh and whatever other extra there might be for your use case). WLan can be finicky particularly if devices are bending standards and/or the router’s WLan driver being buggy…

Once you got the association issue sorted tackle whatever else that needs sorting.

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