wep key index in examples of section 29.3 in handbook

[Marc Fonvieille]

On Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 02:35:14AM -0700, Krishna Mohan Gundu wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> After I put some effort into building a ndis driver for my wireless
> 802.11g card, I proceeded to configure the network. For me the section
> that seemed to be most relevant was "29.3.3.1.4 WEP". So I chose the
> example as a template to configure my device. In the hindsight, after
> spending a few hours in correctly configuring my wireless device, I
> realized that the document could have saved me those hours if only it
> had used wep key index of 1 instead 3 in the example. I would like to
> raise the following concerns
> 
> 1) A novice would not know that WEP access points can use any of the
> four keys it uses for encryption and that all these keys have to be
> set correctly. I got to know this only after reading the wikipedia
> page on WEP at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wired_Equivalent_Privacy .
> Further that most access points only use one key and I believe the
> index of this key is mostly 1. This discussion could be added to some
> subsection.
>

Hello,

But if we read this section we have:

---
WEP can be set up with ifconfig:

# ifconfig ath0 ssid my_net wepmode on weptxkey 3 wepkey 3:0x3456789012 \
	inet 192.168.1.100 netmask 255.255.255.0

	- The weptxkey means which WEP key will be used in the
	  transmission. Here we used the third key. This must match the
	  setting in the access point.
---

The answer of this problem is written just after the command line.

Regarding the reason why we used an example with the third key and not
the default 1, it's to push people to really check their config to make
sure what key they use.

> 2) The above discussion can be deemed to be too technical to be
> included in the document. However changing the wep key index from 3 to
> 1 would save many more novices like me hours of searching, reading,
> agony etc.
> 

The same will happen for people who have a config with a different key
from the number 1 :)

> The bottom line is "Is the wep key index most likely to be 1? If so
> the document should use that number in the examples."
> 

I dunno.  But when we talk about wireless it's difficult to give
examples that people could blindly copy&paste without reading the
following explanations.  Cause the command can work in many cases and
just not work in some others.

> Please let me know if I should file a document bug about this.

I'm not sure it's a bug since we clearly mention what key we use and
that people have to be sure what key they use.  We can s/1/3/ but this
doesn't change the fact some people will face up problems if they don't
read the surrounding text.

-- 
Marc