WPA wifi. Help please! (I am desperate)

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David wrote:
> I have a router encrypted with WPA, I have the key,
hexadecimal and 
> 26 characters long,

WPA keys' hex values are not 26 characters long.  However,
WEP-104 keys
are.  (WEP-104 is also sometimes called WEP-128 by vendors
that try to
make it seem better than it really is.  It only uses 104
bits' worth of
key material.  104 bits is 13 bytes, which is 26 hex
characters.)

> "NOTE: the 'wpa-psk' value is only valid if: 1) It
is a plaintext
> (ascii) string between 8 and 63 characters in length 2)
It is a
> hexadecimal string of 64 characters".

Yep, that's right.  WPA-PSK keys are 32 bytes (256 bits)
long, which is
64 characters.  There's also a hash function that will
combine an ASCII
string (<=63 characters' worth) with the SSID to generate
a 256-bit key.

> So, what about my 26 character hexadecimal key?

It's a WEP(-104) key, not a WPA key.  
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David wrote:
> They told me that it is right, but that WPA keys can be
shorter than 
> 64 characters as well...

*Only* if the string is treated as an ASCII key (the type of
key that
gets hashed with the SSID to generate the real key).  There
is no way to
treat a 26-character string as a hex WPA key; WPA keys are
256 bits
long.

> Maybe a hint can come from the fact that, in Windows
XP, introducing
> the 26 character key works OK.

I have no idea how XP's supplicant is coded, but I suspect
that it
treats any string shorter than 64 characters as an ASCII key
and hashes
it.  For wpa_supplicant, try putting the key in double
quotes, since
that's what flags wpa_supplicant to treat the string as an
ASCII key and
hash it.
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David wrote:
> Uf, still desperate. I tried to write the
wpa_supplicant.conf

OK, what did you put in it?  (Obviously you'll want to
replace the
passphrase and any other sensitive info when posting it
here.)

> run wpa_supplicant and then dhclient. The output of
wpa_supplicant
> did not make me be optimistic and, of course, dhclient
failed.

How did it fail?  What exactly did wpa_supplicant say?

> What do I have to do? Is this sequence right?
> 
> 1) Write the wpa_supplicant.conf file.
> 2) Run wpa_supplicant -dd -D madwifi -i ath0 -c
> /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf and leave it running?

Maybe.  I believe the madwifi backend is no longer
recommended; I
believe the wext backend should be used instead (-D wext). 
But that may
depend on your version of madwifi and your kernel.  (IIRC,
it's also
true that not all versions of madwifi CVS actually work well
-- but I
don't remember any details.  Maybe those issues have been
fixed by now,
too.)

> 3) Then, dhclient ath0?

Or whatever other DHCP client you want to use, yes.  Once
wpa_supplicant
has a connection up and working, that is.

> If yes, can you please tell me the wpa_supplicant.conf
file, based on
> the output of iwlist ath0 scan that I wrote in the
previous email?

I suspect you can use the WPA-PSK network section (the first
network
section: skip the global options) from the example config
file:

http://w1.fi/gitweb
/gitweb.cgi?p=hostap.git;a=blob_plain;f=wpa_supplicant/wpa_s
upplicant.conf

but you would not need the priority.  If you want to specify
proto,
key_mgmt, pairwise, and group, set them to WPA, WPA-PSK,
TKIP, and TKIP,
respectively (as in the first ssid="example"
network in the sample
config file).  But that should not be required if
"iwlist scan" is
showing the BSSID and the right info.
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