Problems with WDS on WRT3200

Installing and Using OpenWrt
1

Hello,

I've got a weird issue with my network recently and I don't know what to do about it.

Every day almost at the exact same time, I get wireless connection issues. My devices
disconnect and are not able to reestablish a connection. After a time of x it works magically
again.

I've read the logs of my 3 OpenWrt devices to figure out where this problem could came from. The only thing I could find that would fit this issue is the following:

I've anonymized the real MAC with changing it to "MAC_ADDRESS"

Sat Jan  9 17:31:24 2021 daemon.notice wpa_supplicant[1558]: wlan0: WPA: Group rekeying completed with MAC_ADDRESS [GTK=CCMP]
Sat Jan  9 17:31:24 2021 daemon.notice wpa_supplicant[1558]: wlan0: WPA: Group rekeying completed with MAC_ADDRESS [GTK=CCMP]
Sat Jan  9 17:31:25 2021 daemon.notice wpa_supplicant[1558]: wlan0: WPA: Group rekeying completed with MAC_ADDRESS [GTK=CCMP]
Sat Jan  9 17:31:26 2021 daemon.notice wpa_supplicant[1558]: wlan0: WPA: Group rekeying completed with MAC_ADDRESS [GTK=CCMP]
Sat Jan  9 17:31:27 2021 kern.info kernel: [177133.731986] wlan0: deauthenticated from MAC_ADDRESS (Reason: 2=PREV_AUTH_NOT_VALID)
Sat Jan  9 17:31:27 2021 kern.info kernel: [177133.748670] br-lan: port 2(wlan0) entered disabled state
Sat Jan  9 17:31:27 2021 daemon.notice netifd: Network device 'wlan0' link is down
Sat Jan  9 17:31:28 2021 daemon.notice wpa_supplicant[1558]: wlan0: CTRL-EVENT-DISCONNECTED bssid=MAC_ADDRESS reason=2
Sat Jan  9 17:31:31 2021 daemon.notice wpa_supplicant[1558]: wlan0: SME: Trying to authenticate with MAC_ADDRESS (SSID='Everest' freq=5180 MHz)
Sat Jan  9 17:31:31 2021 kern.info kernel: [177135.081441] wlan0: authenticate with MAC_ADDRESS
Sat Jan  9 17:31:31 2021 kern.info kernel: [177135.214759] wlan0: send auth to MAC_ADDRESS (try 1/3)
Sat Jan  9 17:31:31 2021 daemon.notice wpa_supplicant[1558]: wlan0: Trying to associate with MAC_ADDRESS (SSID='Everest' freq=5180 MHz)
Sat Jan  9 17:31:31 2021 kern.info kernel: [177135.227302] wlan0: authenticated
Sat Jan  9 17:31:31 2021 kern.info kernel: [177135.235518] wlan0: associate with MAC_ADDRESS (try 1/3)
Sat Jan  9 17:31:31 2021 kern.info kernel: [177135.254133] wlan0: RX AssocResp from MAC_ADDRESS (capab=0x11 status=0 aid=1)
Sat Jan  9 17:31:31 2021 kern.info kernel: [177135.269685] wlan0: associated
Sat Jan  9 17:31:31 2021 daemon.notice wpa_supplicant[1558]: wlan0: Associated with MAC_ADDRESS
Sat Jan  9 17:31:31 2021 daemon.notice wpa_supplicant[1558]: wlan0: CTRL-EVENT-SUBNET-STATUS-UPDATE status=0
Sat Jan  9 17:31:31 2021 daemon.notice netifd: Network device 'wlan0' link is up
Sat Jan  9 17:31:31 2021 daemon.notice wpa_supplicant[1558]: wlan0: WPA: Key negotiation completed with MAC_ADDRESS [PTK=CCMP GTK=CCMP]
Sat Jan  9 17:31:31 2021 daemon.notice wpa_supplicant[1558]: wlan0: CTRL-EVENT-CONNECTED - Connection to MAC_ADDRESS completed [id=0 id_str=]
Sat Jan  9 17:31:31 2021 kern.info kernel: [177135.283554] br-lan: port 2(wlan0) entered blocking state
Sat Jan  9 17:31:31 2021 kern.info kernel: [177135.294384] br-lan: port 2(wlan0) entered listening state
Sat Jan  9 17:31:33 2021 kern.info kernel: [177135.990073] br-lan: port 2(wlan0) entered learning state
Sat Jan  9 17:31:36 2021 kern.info kernel: [177136.697645] br-lan: port 2(wlan0) entered forwarding state
Sat Jan  9 17:31:36 2021 kern.info kernel: [177136.708771] br-lan: topology change detected, propagating

This output is from a "Client (WDS)" router that seems to try to rekeying with the "AP (WDS)" router. This exact output comes everyday at the shown time.

All OpenWrt routers are on 19.07.5 with the default image.

Could this be the problem and if so, how am I able to fix this?

Greetings, Ben

2

Which router is that? Some Linksys routers drop WDS clients during WPA rekeying.

1 Like
3

If it's tied to a regularly occurring time of day, you also need to consider external factors (e.g. your neighbour using a broken microwave oven).

2 Likes
4

Hey @eduperez @slh,

thanks for your replies. It seems like I put two things in correlation that have nothing to do
with each other. Forget about the time. I'll open up a new thread with a better title and more information.

5

Hey @eduperez, I'm using a Linksys wrt3200acm as my main router. I answer you because it seems like this is exactly one of my issues with the network at the moment.

The clients are an ex3800 and an archer C7 V5.

I hope you can help me with this one.

6

You should be able to edit the title of your post, you could make it something like "Problems with WDS on WRT3200"

7

Sadly I'm not able to change the thread title for whatever reason. :frowning:

8

I did it for you, cheers.

2 Likes
9

In this case, you need to disable group rekeying (set "wpa_group_rekey" to zero). This is a known bug with the drivers for this device.

10

Hey @eduperez,

first of all thanks for the reply.

Could you explain what this option does and where I need to set it to zero?

Do I need to change this option only on the linksys router or also on both clients?

11

You just need to change it on the Linksys router.

This is a security measure, it prevents attacks to WPA, that rely on being able to observe the encrypted traffic over long periods of time.

12

After I looked for the option in the wiki I found out that this option is for WPA Enterprise which I don't use.

I use "psk2" as my encryption method.

Does the wiki tell something wrong or do I need to change the encryption method?

13

I would say the wiki is wrong, or perhaps my memory is failing me (I no longer use WDS)...

Change the value to something small, and see if the problem happens more frequently; then disable it, and see if it stops happening.

14

Which method do you use if not WDS?

I changed the value to zero and I will check if connection problems will still happen.

15

A couple of powerline adapters...

16

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