Hi,
I've seen this error mentioned on random forum posts, but its always
associated with a kernel crash/warning or some very obvious negative
behavior. I've noticed this occasionally and at one location very
frequently during FT roaming, specifically just after CMD_ASSOCIATE is
issued. For our company run networks I'm not seeing any negative
behavior apart from a 3 second delay in sending the re-association frame
since the kernel waits for this timeout. But we have some networks our
clients run on that we do not own (different vendor), and we are seeing
association timeouts after this error occurs and in some cases the AP is
sending a deauthentication with reason code 8 instead of replying with a
reassociation reply and an error status, which is quite odd.
We are chasing down this with the vendor of these APs as well, but the
behavior always happens after we see this key removal failure/timeout on
the client side. So it would appear there is potentially a problem on
both the client and AP. My guess is _something_ about the re-association
frame changes when this error is encountered, but I cannot see how that
would be the case. We are working to get PCAPs now, but its through a
3rd party, so that timing is out of my control.
From the kernel code this error would appear innocuous, the old key is
failing to be removed but it gets immediately replaced by the new key.
And we don't see that addition failing. Am I understanding that logic
correctly? I.e. this logic:
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/net/mac80211/key.c#n503
Below are a few kernel logs of the issue happening, some with the deauth
being sent by the AP, some with just timeouts:
--- No deauth frame sent, just association timeouts after the error ---
Jul 11 00:05:30 kernel: wlan0: disconnect from AP <previous BSS> for new
assoc to <new BSS>
Jul 11 00:05:33 kernel: ath10k_pci 0000:02:00.0: failed to install key
for vdev 0 peer <previous BSS>: -110
Jul 11 00:05:33 kernel: wlan0: failed to remove key (0, <previous BSS>)
from hardware (-110)
Jul 11 00:05:33 kernel: wlan0: associate with <new BSS> (try 1/3)
Jul 11 00:05:33 kernel: wlan0: associate with <new BSS> (try 2/3)
Jul 11 00:05:33 kernel: wlan0: associate with <new BSS> (try 3/3)
Jul 11 00:05:33 kernel: wlan0: association with <new BSS> timed out
Jul 11 00:05:36 kernel: wlan0: authenticate with <new BSS>
Jul 11 00:05:36 kernel: wlan0: send auth to <new BSS>a (try 1/3)
Jul 11 00:05:36 kernel: wlan0: authenticated
Jul 11 00:05:36 kernel: wlan0: associate with <new BSS> (try 1/3)
Jul 11 00:05:36 kernel: wlan0: RX AssocResp from <new BSS> (capab=0x1111
status=0 aid=16)
Jul 11 00:05:36 kernel: wlan0: associated
--- Deauth frame sent amidst the association timeouts ---
Jul 11 00:43:18 kernel: wlan0: disconnect from AP <previous BSS> for new
assoc to <new BSS>
Jul 11 00:43:21 kernel: ath10k_pci 0000:02:00.0: failed to install key
for vdev 0 peer <previous BSS>: -110
Jul 11 00:43:21 kernel: wlan0: failed to remove key (0, <previous BSS>)
from hardware (-110)
Jul 11 00:43:21 kernel: wlan0: associate with <new BSS> (try 1/3)
Jul 11 00:43:21 kernel: wlan0: deauthenticated from <new BSS> while
associating (Reason: 8=DISASSOC_STA_HAS_LEFT)
Jul 11 00:43:24 kernel: wlan0: authenticate with <new BSS>
Jul 11 00:43:24 kernel: wlan0: send auth to <new BSS> (try 1/3)
Jul 11 00:43:24 kernel: wlan0: authenticated
Jul 11 00:43:24 kernel: wlan0: associate with <new BSS> (try 1/3)
Jul 11 00:43:24 kernel: wlan0: RX AssocResp from <new BSS> (capab=0x1111
status=0 aid=101)
Jul 11 00:43:24 kernel: wlan0: associated
