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WAP54GP (POE VLAN AP)

Any users of the Linksys WAP54GP access point out there? The "P" stands for "Power over Ethernet", but its most interesting feature is its ability to handle a trunk line with multiple VLANs. I got several of those puppies running with dual wireless VLANs, one totally open (no security) and the other also ostensibly open but carrying 3rd-party (AirFortress) encryption. Despite a rather kludgy setup process, it all worked with no problems.

But now I want to replace the AirFortress VLAN with a more conventional VLAN using WPA2/AES. But that VLAN utterly fails to work: when a client computer tries to connect, the RADIUS server (Windows 2003, IAS) never sees the request. I was able to make it work, after a fashion, by turning off the VLAN feature, but even that had sporadic failures. (My RADIUS configuration is OK; if I substitute a WAP54GX access point, it works fine.)

I reported this problem to Linksys, who dismissed it with an offhand comment that the firmware must have gotten corrupted when I applied the upgrade needed for WPA2. Do it again, they said, and you should be OK. Today I went them one better and applied the upgrade to a brand new router. My test results were identical: it doesn't work. I'll write to Linksys again, but I think they're in denial. Their own Q&A site has a similar report from last July, and the user who submitted it doesn't seem to have gotten an answer either.

Has anyone here seen this problem? And (I hope) figured out what to do about it? Or am I just out of luck - or missing something obvious?

BTW, another glitch in that model is that the WPA2 "shared secret" is limited to 20 characters. Didn't someone in this very newsgroup recommend using at least 22? Some APs, I believe, allow 63.

Bob

Reply to
Robert Coe
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The allowed length can be anything from 8 to 63 ASCII characters. See comments in: |

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The WAP54GP should not have passed Wi-Fi WPA certification if the key length is limited to only 20 characters. It appears it passed WPA certification (Certification ID W003486) but not WPA2. I can see why: |
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Sorry, no clue on the VLAN problem.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

On Sat, 18 Nov 2006 06:03:11 GMT, Jeff Liebermann wrote in :

20 characters is sufficient for good security, especially if random characters are used.
Reply to
John Navas

John Navas hath wroth:

Sure, but it doesn't meet the requirements for WPA or WPA2 Wi-Fi certification. My guess(tm) is that Linksys ran out of available RAM and had to cut corners. I'm also wondering how it will do WPA-RADIUS, where the AP assigns a maximum length encryption key for each session.

Thou shalt not abrev. or trunc.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

On Sat, 18 Nov 2006 08:58:19 -0800, Jeff Liebermann wrote in :

I suspect it's a different issue -- the difference is not enough RAM to be significant.

That's part of what makes me think it's a different issue, or perhaps just some sort of misunderstanding.

Reply to
John Navas

John Navas hath wroth:

Maybe. In WPA2-RADIUS, the encryption key is unique for each session. Therefore, there has to be at least 64 bytes (hashed) per WPA key times the number of connections (probably 128) or 8KBytes of storage. That's not a huge amount, but still substantial considering most current devices have about 16MBytes of RAM. For example, my home WRT54GS v3.0 router shows 0.8MBytes available out of 16MBytes RAM with I think 128 MaxConnections. I've seen it with less on a WRT54G v5 router. See my memory tables at:

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Possibly. The obvious question is whether the WPA2 key is really limited to 20 characters on the WAP54GP or whether there's some manner of browser or internal web page issue. Dunno.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

On Sat, 18 Nov 2006 11:45:09 -0800, Jeff Liebermann wrote in :

That would be pretty sloppy programming, since only the fixed size hash need be saved, and I doubt that many connections are being fully maintained in static memory any event.

Yep.

Reply to
John Navas

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