info encryption: off (no key set) for WPA2

[jkldgoefgkljefogeg]

on info screen, Interface section says wlan1 (IEEE 802.11abgn, WPA/WPA2), however, Info section says encryption: off (no key set)

[grrtrr]

The information in the header displays supported features, WPA, WPA2 are shown because they are supported. Other information that can appear in the header is TKIP and CCMP, if they are supported.

The information section on encryption displays what key (if any) is currently in use. It may require root privileges if an encryption key is set; otherwise it will inform if, and possibly what, key is set.

[jkldgoefgkljefogeg]

I am a bit confused here. For WPA/WPA2, either TKIP or CCMP has to be used but it's not listed. What do you mean supported?

In info section, encryption: off (no key set). I am running wavemon as root and the connection is WPA2-PSK/CCMP.

[wgmk]

I believe there are situations where the driver (or something) fails to report a key (though one is set) and wavemon interprets this as encryption being off. This is misleading and it would be great to have it fixed, or at least have encryption info marked as "best-effort".

I've observed this with wavemon 0.8.0 in situations where I'm ssh'd into a device over a WPA2 network, and encryption is definitely being used. I also see the below on the device in question:

mode: Managed, connected to: <correct AP MAC>, time: 0 sec, inactive: 0.0s
frequency/channel: n/a

station flags: (none), preamble: short, slot: long
power mgt: off
retry: long limit 7,  rts/cts: off,  frag: off
encryption: off (no key set)

status in wpa_cli shows:

bssid=<AP MAC>
ssid=<SSID>
id=8
mode=station
frequency=2437
pairwise_cipher=CCMP
group_cipher=CCMP
key_mgmt=WPA2/IEEE 802.1X/EAP
wpa_state=COMPLETED
ip_address=<client IP>
address=<client MAC>
Supplicant PAE state=AUTHENTICATED
suppPortStatus=Authorized
EAP state=SUCCESS
selectedMethod=25 (EAP-PEAP)
EAP TLS cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA
EAP-PEAPv0 Phase2 method=MSCHAPV2
uuid=<...>

[grrtrr]

@wgmk - which driver were you using with wpa_supplicant:

• wext (for Linux Wireless Extensions), or
• nl80211 (based on libnetlink)?

I had closed this issue earlier since there seemed to be no way with Wireless Extensions to fix this, i.e. the key information is based on what the Wireless Extensions kernel module reports. The Linux Wireless extensions are in maintenance mode, and are in fact quite old (late '90s). I am not 100% sure, but I think the meaning of encryption off in this context means "no WEP key in use".

If you look into the development branch, you will see a variant of wavemon mostly based on nl80211/libnetlink. This is the more modern interface using netlink sockets instead of the wext ioctls. I had held off releasing it due to issue #13 - there are some kernel drivers that do support wext, but not nl80211.

I am not sure whether libnl has the same kind of encryption information. One solution would be to deprecate the encryption output, since it does seem that the output is confusing.

[nixpulvis]

Not really adding anything useful here, but I'm also seeing a discrepancy between the output of iwlist <interface> scanning and what wavemon reports as far as encryption goes.

[grrtrr]

iwlist is using the old interface which is in maintenance. Best to compare the scan results with iw scan.

This issue is for the info screen, still have not decided what to do with the old encryption information.

[nixpulvis]

Ah nice, yep iw <interface> scan gives me more encryption information than I know what to make of.

It would be nice if wavemon at least didn't tell people the link is unencrypted when it actually is. Maybe just remove that part of the info screen if it's not supported by the underlying interfaces.

[sliddjur]

Wavemon gives me the same issue, it shows encryption off.
I have Network controller: Intel Corporation Wireless 7265 (rev 48)

lshw -class network
       description: Wireless interface
       product: Wireless 7265
       vendor: Intel Corporation
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:03:00.0
       logical name: wlo1
       version: 48
       serial: xxxxxxxxx
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
       configuration: broadcast=yes driver=iwlwifi driverversion=4.13.0-32-generic firmware=17.608620.0 ip=192.168.43.149 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11
       resources: irq:54 memory:c1100000-c1101fff

[grrtrr]

Closing this issue, since encryption information is no longer being displayed - it was already removed a year ago, in 2008209

[nixpulvis]

Oh interesting, my version of wavemon is pretty old. I'll have to figure out how to update it on the arch package repository.

Any idea where I should start with that?

[grrtrr]

Currently the only way is to compile from master. Release 0.8.2 is planned.