Clients having problems to connect to Wi-5

[josemariasaldana]

Devices that CAN connect to Wi-5

• Samsung Galaxy S2 (2012)
• Samsung Galaxy S4 GT-I9505
• Samsung Galaxy S8
• Debian Jessie

Devices that have problems

• Wileyfox Swift 2x needs ~3 attempts to connect
• LG Nexus 5X: does not connect at all
• Lenovo A806
• OnePlus 5T (Canot obtain IP address)
• Xiaomi Mi Note 3
• Samsung Galaxy J3 (2016)
• Lenovo ZUK Z2
• Iphone 5c

Devices that MAY have problems

• Windows 10 includes the possibility of using MAC randomization: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4027925/windows-how-and-why-to-use-random-hardware-addresses. You should disable it if you want to use Wi-5 solutions.

Possible explainings

We suspect this poses problems in connecting devices that apply MAC Randomization. The problem, explained step-by-step:

• Some clients perform MAC Randomization, i.e. broadcast scans (broadcast-oriented probe requests with an empty SSID) are performed each round with a new random MAC Address, to preserve the privacy of the STA.

• The Wi5 platform replies (probe response) to these broadcast-oriented probe requests with a BSSID whose last 3 bytes equal the randomized transmitter address.

• However, when the STA tries to connect to the LVAP, it uses its real transmitter MAC address and the previously generated BSSID (which is based on the STA’s previous (random) MAC address) as receiver address.

• The AP, however, responds with a new BSSID based on the real transmitter address.

Possible solutions

How to disable MAC randomization in Linux

You can just add a few lines to your NetworkManager.conf file to disable it.

Code:

[connection]
wifi.mac-address-randomization=1

The values are:

0: default
1: force off
2: force on