Wireless Access

Hello everyone,

I know this may seem a question from a far away past.. but I need to know if wep key encryption with shared-key authentication (so not wep+open) is supported by Aruba controllers and APs?

I 've found no reference..nothing in the docs and nothing in the user guide (and of course I didn't find where to set this option).

I have to replace an existing WEP wifi with Aruba but the client don't connect and sniffing on the wireless it seems that the client request in the authentication frame the shared key.. so, is it supported? and if it is, how do i set it?

thanks in advance.

Rgds.

Valerio Galantini

Are you trying to do WEP plus TKIP/AES PSK? If so, it's not supported, you'll need to run two different SSIDs.

-awl

Valerio,

When you mean that you want to replace an existing WEP network, where a passphrase is used instead of a hexadecimal key, the answer is yes. The aruba controller does not take the passphrase directly.

You need to convert the passphrase into a hexadecimal key. You can use the online converter on http://www.powerdog.com/wepkey.cgi

Please be aware that technically, it is just WEP, can be cracked within minutes, and all communications in the past and future can be decrypted when in possession of the WEP key.

Thanks for the replies, but the problem is different.

The SSID has only wep with a pre-shared key and the pre-shared key is already in the hexadecimal format.

New PC clients can authenticate and associate to both the old network and the new one (the new one is the one made by the Aruba APs) without any change in the configuration but the existing legacy clients (that are integrated in some serial appliances with no user interface) authenticate and associate only to the SSID propagated by the old APs.

I've made a capture of the wifi communication using an AP as a wireless sniffer and I see that in 802.11 authentication frames the client set the Authentication Algorithm flag is set to 1 (Shared-key authentication) and the Aruba replies with a status code 0d00 that is: the AP does not support the required authentication algorithm.

Searching for troubleshooting 've found this document:

www.connect802.com/download/aruba/Aruba_Client_Troubleshooting.pdf

where at page 6 it says that Aruba indeed does not support shared-key authentication.

I know about the weakness of the system but I don't think the customer will be willing to change the configuration of the legacy clients to something different (which is actually no easy task).. so I'm looking for a workaround.

Any ideas?

Is there a work around to support WEP with shared authentication? I know on Cisco and motorola I have to use the CLI to enable it.  Is this possible on Aruba?