Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 220982
knetworkmananger forgets its WEP keys if association times out
Last modified: 2007-11-30 17:11:52 EST
Description of problem: If knetworkmanager isn't able to associate with a WEP-protected access point before its internal timeout is exceeded, it forgets its WEP key and asks for another one. This means that knetworkmanager is destroying user profile data in the presence of intermittent network faults. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): NetworkManager-0.6.4-5.fc6 knetworkmanager-0.1-0.5.svn20061113.fc6 How reproducible: Always (assuming the network fault is in effect). A "network fault" that would prevent access point authentication would include things like 1. invalid (or trivially mis-spelled) WEP key 2. transient device layer problems (see BUG220980). Steps to Reproduce: 1. Enable knetworkmanager 2. Attempt to connect to a flaky access point 3. Actual results: knetworkmanager times out, and deletes its WEP key. Expected results: 1. knetworkmanager should have a configurable timeout 2. knetworkmanager should offer to re-associate using the saved WEP key Additional info: A workaround for the issue is as follows: 1. cancel the WEP key dialog 2. quit knetworkmanager 3. restart knetworkmanager
Do you have kwalletmanager setup and running? all keys are stored in your encrypted wallet. I have not seen this problem and i have keys stored for multiple networks and i can switch between them all with out this issue.
I am using kwalletmanager, yes. As I noted in my workaround, if I cancel the WEP dialog and restart knetworkmanager, it's able to read the saved passphrase again from kwalletmanager. The bug here is that, after the association fails, knetworkmanager shows its dialog *without* the saved WEP key. If you proceed with the dialog, it erases/overwrites the previous key from kwalletmanager.
knetworkmanager is assuming that you have an incorrect password. and prompting for a new one. if it was made to just use the old one always you would then need to go into kwalletmanager if you change your wep id. I believe it is doing the correct and intended behavior. If you adimitly think it should be changed please file a bug in KDE's bug system
This is now being tracked on bugs.kde.org as BUG148039. I do think that it's a bug, but I won't necessarily hold RedHat/Fedora responsible for it.