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For some reason, my computer (running Kubuntu netbook edition now, previously UNR) won't connect to my router when it's set to AES+TKIP. As soon as I switch the router to TKIP only, the computer connects.

  1. Should I be concerned about this? Doesn't TKIP bring me back down to the ultimately flawed WPA?
  2. If so, is there a way to get [K]ubuntu to use AES?

EDIT: this is the 10.04 release version of Kubuntu Netbook

Hardware: Asus EeePC 1000H (WiFi chipset: RALINK RT2860)

Oli
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Jono
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2 Answers2

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This has everything to do with the RALINK RT2860 chipset (or more its driver) that's embedded in your Asus EeePC 1000H. This thread details upgrading the driver. This might seem a little extreme but from what I've seen of the RT2860, you either upgrade or forget about AES.

There are a few formatting issues, problems with files, etc with that post, so I'm rewriting it here.

  1. Head to http://www.ralinktech.com, hover over software, click linux and look for RT2860 (current string is RT2860PCI/mPCI/CB/PCIe(RT2760/RT2790/RT2860/RT2890), version 2.4.0.0)

  2. Download it and extract it. I had problems extracting it in Gnome. I had to rename it from .tar.bz2 to .tar.gz.

  3. Open a terminal window, cd into the extracted directory.

  4. Edit os/linux/config.mk and change options HAS_WPA_SUPPLICANT and HAS_NATIVE_WPA_SUPPLICANT_SUPPORT to =y

  5. Edit common/cmm_wpa.c (gedit will throw an encoding error - select Western and click retry). Search for MIX_CIPHER_NOTUSE and replace the entire line with this:

    WPA_MIX_PAIR_CIPHER FlexibleCipher = WPA_TKIPAES_WPA2_TKIPAES;

  6. It's finally time to compile and install! Yey!

    sudo apt-get install build-essential
sudo make
sudo make install
sudo ifconfig wlan0 down
sudo rmmod rt2860sta

  7. We need to move the old driver out the way. We probably shouldn't delete it in case we need it again so:

    sudo mv /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel/drivers/staging/rt2860/rt2860sta.ko rt2860sta.ko.dist

    If you're using a 64bit installation, you might need to change /lib/ to /lib64/

  8. Now we just need to move in the new driver and load it.

    sudo cp os/linux/rt2860sta.ko /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel/drivers/staging/rt2860/

    /lib64/... for 64bit installs, again.

    sudo depmod -a
sudo modprobe rt2860sta

    Everything should burst into life. If it doesn't you may need to run sudo ifconfig wlan0 up

  9. For persistence run sudoedit /etc/modules and add rt2860sta as a new line at the end. This will make sure the driver gets loaded at boot.

If it all goes to pot and the new driver doesn't work, just remove the version you copied in and remove the .dist off the old version we renamed.

Note: If you change kernel a lot, you want to invest in some DKMS script to do all this. There may even be deb packages for this driver.

Oli
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1

This issue has been resolved in Maverick. I just upgraded and it actually works better than before.

Jono
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