urtwn(4) narcolepsy

[Frank Wille <frank%phoenix.owl.de@localhost>]

Hi,

I'm using an Edimax EW-7811UN WLAN USB-stick on a Raspberry Pi (model B+).
The WLAN module works fine and has a good range, despite its tiny size, but
it suffers from some kind of narcolepsy. Did anybody ever notice this
behaviour with the urtwn(4) driver?

When I leave the system alone for some minutes or hours (don't know the
exact period, maybe it differs) then the WLAN connection falls asleep and I
can no longer connect from outside. Also a ping is not answered.

Then I additionally connected an ethernet cable to analyze the situation. I
can connect via LAN and see that the system is still up and running. And as
soon as I use the WLAN interface from inside (e.g. with ping(8)) it wakes
up, and also connections from outside are possible again.

What's going on there? Is it the driver or the hardware?

According to the access point, running hostapd(8), the RPi still does
handshaking but does no longer allow any connects:

Sep 15 15:00:36 alix hostapd: ath0: STA 74:da:38:3a:xx:xx WPA: group key
handshake completed (WPA)
Sep 15 15:10:36 alix hostapd: ath0: STA 74:da:38:3a:xx:xx WPA: group key
handshake completed (WPA)
Sep 15 15:20:36 alix hostapd: ath0: STA 74:da:38:3a:xx:xx WPA: group key
handshake completed (WPA)
Sep 15 15:30:37 alix hostapd: ath0: STA 74:da:38:3a:xx:xx WPA: group key
handshake completed (WPA)
[...]

Same effect with urtwn(4) in -current. Is it a bug?

-- 
Frank Wille