NetworkManager - Why Doesn't nm-applet have a way of using WPA-PSK?

[Dan Williams]

On Tue, 2007-11-20 at 15:05 +0100, Christopher Aillon wrote:
> On 11/20/2007 02:33 PM, Jesse Keating wrote:
> > On Tue, 20 Nov 2007 14:30:37 +0100
> > Christopher Aillon <caillon at redhat.com> wrote:
> > 
> >> What really should be happening is NM should notice there is a 
> >> new/different encryption scheme and offer to let you enter it.  You 
> >> shouldn't have to force it.  If this is not happening, file a bug.
> > 
> > After talking to Dan, often it is impossible to tell.  All we can do is
> > fail to associate with the old method, and then popup a box to allow
> > you to pick a different auth method.  If all the auth methods aren't
> > available in that popup, /that/ would be a bug.

Jesse's only partially right, actually... He's talking about WEP auth
modes, which cannot be distinguished.  With WPA though, the AP
broadcasts and Information Element telling what capabilities it supports
(thankfully somebody had a clue).  So we can tell between WEP and
not-WEP [1].

When connecting to an AP that's changed properties, the APs current
properties should override the properties of the stored connection
details.  If they don't, it's a bug.  But it's also true that changing
the capabilities on the fly isn't as well tested as connecting to them
in the first place, mainly because people connect to APs much more often
than they switch their APs settings.  So I call bug.

Dan


[1] though we cannot tell when Enterprise class APs support _both_ WEP
and WPA at the same time, but the user only wants to use WEP or only has
a WEP-capable card.  Some APs only broadcast the WPA-TKIP capability but
accept WEP connections as well as a backwards compat measure.