[gentoo-user] wpa_supplicant connect-disconnect loop

[Valmor de Almeida <val.gentoo@gmail.com>]

Hello,

The output of

  wpa_supplicant -Dwext -c/etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
-iwlan0 -d dhcpcd

on my laptop shows continuous output to screen which appears to be
looping on association and disassociation to my wireless router (I am
not posting this long list here). The corresponding effect is this

-> ping yahoo.com
PING yahoo.com (72.30.2.43) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from ir1.fp.vip.sk1.yahoo.com (72.30.2.43): icmp_req=1 ttl=47
time=88.2 ms
64 bytes from ir1.fp.vip.sk1.yahoo.com (72.30.2.43): icmp_req=2 ttl=47
time=88.6 ms
64 bytes from ir1.fp.vip.sk1.yahoo.com (72.30.2.43): icmp_req=3 ttl=47
time=91.1 ms
ping: sendmsg: Network is unreachable
ping: sendmsg: Network is unreachable
ping: sendmsg: Network is unreachable
ping: sendmsg: Network is unreachable
[snip]
ping: sendmsg: Network is unreachable
ping: sendmsg: Network is unreachable
ping: sendmsg: Network is unreachable
64 bytes from ir1.fp.vip.sk1.yahoo.com (72.30.2.43): icmp_req=21 ttl=47
time=94.8 ms
64 bytes from ir1.fp.vip.sk1.yahoo.com (72.30.2.43): icmp_req=22 ttl=47
time=90.7 ms
64 bytes from ir1.fp.vip.sk1.yahoo.com (72.30.2.43): icmp_req=23 ttl=47
time=87.6 ms
64 bytes from ir1.fp.vip.sk1.yahoo.com (72.30.2.43): icmp_req=24 ttl=47
time=89.5 ms
ping: sendmsg: Network is unreachable
ping: sendmsg: Network is unreachable
ping: sendmsg: Network is unreachable
ping: sendmsg: Network is unreachable
ping: sendmsg: Network is unreachable
ping: sendmsg: Network is unreachable
ping: sendmsg: Network is unreachable
ping: sendmsg: Network is unreachable
^C
--- yahoo.com ping statistics ---
32 packets transmitted, 7 received, 78% packet loss, time 31009ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 87.615/90.125/94.813/2.283 ms

I have never setup wireless networking and have been reading the web and
other information on how to use wpa_supplicant to connect to my home
router. I would appreciate help on this. I emerged wpa_supplicant with
the following USE flags:

-> equery uses wpa_supplicant
[ Searching for packages matching wpa_supplicant... ]
[ Colour Code : set unset ]
[ Legend : Left column  (U) - USE flags from make.conf              ]
[        : Right column (I) - USE flags packages was installed with ]
[ Found these USE variables for net-wireless/wpa_supplicant-0.7.2-r3 ]
 U I
 - - dbus           : Enable dbus support for anything that needs it
(gpsd, gnomemeeting, etc)
 - - debug          : Enable extra debug codepaths, like asserts and
extra output. If you want to get meaningful backtraces see
http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/qa/backtraces.xml
 - - eap-sim        : Add support for EAP-SIM authentication algorithm
 - - fasteap        : Add support for FAST-EAP authentication algorithm
 - - gnutls         : Adds support for net-libs/gnutls (TLS 1.0 and SSL
3.0 support)
 - - kernel_FreeBSD : KERNEL setting for system using the FreeBSD kernel
 + + kernel_linux   : KERNEL setting for system using the Linux kernel
 - - madwifi        : Add support for madwifi (Atheros chipset)
 - - ps3            : Add support for ps3 hypervisor driven gelic wifi
 - - qt4            : Adds support for the Qt GUI/Application Toolkit
version 4.x
 + + readline       : Enables support for libreadline, a GNU
line-editing library that almost everyone wants
 + + ssl            : Adds support for Secure Socket Layer connections
 - - wps            : Add support for Wi-Fi Protected Setup

There were a number of steps to get to where I am now and I would be
glad to post additional information if required.

Thanks a lot.

--
Valmor