wpa_supplicant craps out under heavy load

[Bill Davidsen]

Justin P. Mattock wrote:
> I've noticed this with ubuntu about a year ago,
> and now I see this with redhat(fedora)
> 
> under wpa_supplicant.log I see:
> 
> CTRL-EVENT-CONNECTED - Connection to xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx completed (auth)
> [id=0 id_str=]
> CTRL-EVENT-DISCONNECTED - Disconnect event - remove keys
> Trying to associate with xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx (SSID='XX' freq=2422 MHz)
> Association request to the driver failed
> Associated with xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
> CTRL-EVENT-CONNECTED - Connection to xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx completed
> (reauth) [id=0 id_str=]
> CTRL-EVENT-DISCONNECTED - Disconnect event - remove keys
> Trying to associate with xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx (SSID='XX' freq=2422 MHz)
> Association request to the driver failed
> Associated with xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
> CTRL-EVENT-CONNECTED - Connection to xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx completed
> (reauth) [id=0 id_str=]
> CTRL-EVENT-DISCONNECTED - Disconnect event - remove keys
> Trying to associate with xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx (SSID='XX' freq=2422 MHz)
> Association request to the driver failed
> Associated with xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
> 
> 
> the above is caused probably all the time, but not noticeable until
> heavy load.
> 
> The system becomes vary sluggish, hulu craps out, radio craps out
> (not fun)...
> 
When you say heavy load, do you mean heavy network load (traffic) or system load 
(CPU)? I think there are timeouts in the key exchange which might fail if the 
system were really loaded. Then again that probably wouldn't effect established 
connections. The snippet below looks as if the connection was dropping and 
resetting, may be a driver issue.

> After disabling NetworkManager and compiling wpa_supplicant from
> the source(using the default .config they supply for compiling)
> 
> wpa_supplicant looks like this:
> 
> [name at name wpa_supplicant]$
> sudo /home/name/Sources/wpa_supplicant-0.6.9/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant -Dwext -ieth1 -c /home/name/wpa
> CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-RESULTS 
> Trying to associate with xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx (SSID='XX' freq=2422 MHz)
> ioctl[SIOCSIWAP]: Device or resource busy
> Association request to the driver failed
> Associated with xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
> CTRL-EVENT-CONNECTED - Connection to xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx completed (auth)
> [id=0 id_str=]
> 
> still shows some errors, but I'm able to stream music, plus watch movies
> without having a sluggish system, nor having stuckage of internet.
> 
> I would file a bug, but there probably already is, since this is
> something I've seen for some time now right!
> 
> Justin P. Mattock
> 
Using a humble old Celeron laptop and FC11, doing
   ssh host2 "dd bs=5k count=50k" </dev/zero >/dev/null
doesn't show much CPU in use.

Casual test, one line and 'top' to see who uses CPU.

Thanks for the bug#, will follow there.

-- 
Bill Davidsen <davidsen at tmr.com>
   "We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from
the machinations of the wicked."  - from Slashdot