wifi connection problems

[TheOldPresbyope]

@lurkio

I'm in France using a mac and english qwerty keyboard

I don't know enough about Macs and nothing about international editions of MacOS.
Before making you do any more detective work [1], let's see if Tim's upcoming point release solves the problem.
The introduction of the PSK was rolled out with moOde 6.0 so earlier point releases won't help.

Regards,
Kent
[1] - We could ask you to examine the contents of the moOde database to see if the stored PSK is the same as the one  you computed on the command line, but I think we can already infer it isn't. 
One quicky test on the Mac side might be to store a similar password in a text file and then do a character dump of the file. In Linux I use a CLI tool named od (originally that stood for octal dump, which shows how old it is!). Perhaps it or a similar tool exists in MacOS.

[lurkio]

@lurkio

I'm in France using a mac and english qwerty keyboard

I don't know enough about Macs and nothing about international editions of MacOS.
Before making you do any more detective work [1], let's see if Tim's upcoming point release solves the problem.
The introduction of the PSK was rolled out with moOde 6.0 so earlier point releases won't help.

Regards,
Kent
[1] - We could ask you to examine the contents of the moOde database to see if the stored PSK is the same as the one  you computed on the command line, but I think we can already infer it isn't. 
One quicky test on the Mac side might be to store a similar password in a text file and then do a character dump of the file. In Linux I use a CLI tool named od (originally that stood for octal dump, which shows how old it is!). Perhaps it or a similar tool exists in MacOS.

Hi Kent - I can od using mac terminal  - all seems fine locally to me but you are running up against the limits of my tec knowledge
surely to test this i would somehow have to enter text via the web browser in order to check it ?
It isn't a problem for anything else so I think it is unlikely
How could I examine the contents of the Moode Db ?
I'm happy to wait for the 6.4 release to see if that helps anything

Lx

[TheOldPresbyope]

@lurkio

There's an old joke about a drunkard searching around a streetlamp at midnight. When asked what he's doing, he replies that he's looking for his car keys. When asked if this is where he dropped them, he says, "no, I dropped them in that dark alley but here under the streetlamp is where I can see." That's what I'm doing with a check of the keyboard output  

OK, so here's how to examine the stored PSK. From the moOde CLI, we query the cfg_network table in the moOde sqlite3 database:

Code:

pi@moode4b:~ $ sqlite3 /var/local/www/db/moode-sqlite3.db
SQLite version 3.27.2 2019-02-25 16:06:06
Enter ".help" for usage hints.
sqlite> .schema cfg_network
CREATE TABLE cfg_network (id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY, iface CHAR (5), method CHAR (6), ipaddr CHAR (15), netmask CHAR (15), gateway CHAR (15), pridns CHAR (15), secdns CHAR (15), wlanssid CHAR (32), wlansec CHAR (4), wlanpwd CHAR (64), wlan_psk CHAR (64), wlan_country CHAR (2), wlan_channel CHAR (3));
sqlite> select wlan_psk from cfg_network where iface="wlan0";
e0cdc20da23a5fc6133a6********************b99e5a06c79683b9983d842
sqlite> .exit
pi@moode4b:~ $

I ran the first sqlite command ".schema" just to show the organization of the network config table. The second command is the money maker. It should return exactly the same 64-character character string you generated by hand using wpa_passphrase. (I hand-edited 20 characters in my result to asterisks! The threat is low but I don't like passing any kind of security credential in plaintext.).

Regards,
Kent

PS - There's a curious remark you made back in post #20.

There is a funny behavior where safari suggests a password on the network configuration page but seems to get confused with the access point password field below it, however we have checked that is is registering and providing a key so I don't think it can be that

I have no way of replicating this. I believe Tim's a Mac user. I wonder if he can comment whether this is a clue or a distraction.

[Tim Curtis]

Its a super annoying "feature".

IIRC to turn it off open Settings, Passwords & Accounts then turn of AutoFill Passwords

[JonPike]

@lurkio

Are you sure you've entered the WiFi client SSID/password credentials? What you are describing sounds suspiciously like they were entered but not correctly.

Regards,
Kent

I'd like to pitch for a "unhide" feature on the password,  like I see on some logins lately.  Either being able to turn off the masking, or have a button to hit to momentarily show the entered password before hitting that enter key.  It's not like you get feedback in a second and retry again, youre waiting for a full system reboot and wifi logon before you know it worked.

That would eliminate typoing long complicated passwords, something I'm kinda prone to do.

[Tim Curtis]

Prolly not a bad idea. I'll look into it :-)

[ab.basu]

Hi!
I am using the release Moode 6.5.2 and I find that I have problem connecting to WiFi due to special characters in the SSID name "$"

pi@moode:~ $ sudo wpa_passphrase "$ChelseaFC$" "anitabasu"
network={
       ssid="$"
       #psk="anitabasu"
       psk=ab3e8b33c0738d7ede748d69d3b4bd0b605284265b9ccc38599c9bee673fdb11
}

So, it does not registers anything after $

But if I remove the "$" then it works
pi@moode:~ $ sudo wpa_passphrase "ChelseaFC" "anitabasu"
network={
       ssid="ChelseaFC"
       #psk="anitabasu"
       psk=91d0bdea944152d85823a3fdd7edaad5dccbcd1c44c8bec572ad38631f8fd576
}

But this is the first time time I have faced this problem.

[TheOldPresbyope]

In bash, the single quote mark (') and the double quote mark (") are treated differently. Special characters such as dollar sign ($) and  reverse solidus (\) are interpreted in strings contained within double quotes; they aren't in strings contained within single quotes.

Examples:

Code:

pi@moodelr:~ $ wpa_passphrase "$MyFavoriteFootie$" "the $illy name of the captain"
network={
    ssid="$"
    #psk="the  name of the captain"
    psk=a298bf7833845d0fe2eb1bacc9b8c71b2666c803f427a1c22c28fe57613227df
}
pi@moodelr:~ $ wpa_passphrase '$MyFavoriteFootie$' 'the $illy name of the captain'
network={
    ssid="$MyFavoriteFootie$"
    #psk="the $illy name of the captain"
    psk=678bdc6bb2e32a5842c5539da7eebae1732ad8bcde202d3040dab4b65e77b7f4

Note that the reverse solidus can be used to prevent the interpretation of the following character when contained within double quotes:

Code:

pi@moodelr:~ $ wpa_passphrase "\$MyFavoriteFootie\$" "the \$illy name of the captain"
network={
    ssid="$MyFavoriteFootie$"
    #psk="the $illy name of the captain"
    psk=678bdc6bb2e32a5842c5539da7eebae1732ad8bcde202d3040dab4b65e77b7f4

Regards,
Kent

[ab.basu]

In bash, the single quote mark (') and the double quote mark (") are treated differently. Special characters such as dollar sign ($) and  reverse solidus (\) are interpreted in strings contained within double quotes; they aren't in strings contained within single quotes.

Examples:

Code:

pi@moodelr:~ $ wpa_passphrase "$MyFavoriteFootie$" "the $illy name of the captain"
network={
    ssid="$"
    #psk="the  name of the captain"
    psk=a298bf7833845d0fe2eb1bacc9b8c71b2666c803f427a1c22c28fe57613227df
}
pi@moodelr:~ $ wpa_passphrase '$MyFavoriteFootie$' 'the $illy name of the captain'
network={
    ssid="$MyFavoriteFootie$"
    #psk="the $illy name of the captain"
    psk=678bdc6bb2e32a5842c5539da7eebae1732ad8bcde202d3040dab4b65e77b7f4

Note that the reverse solidus can be used to prevent the interpretation of the following character when contained within double quotes:

Code:

pi@moodelr:~ $ wpa_passphrase "\$MyFavoriteFootie\$" "the \$illy name of the captain"
network={
    ssid="$MyFavoriteFootie$"
    #psk="the $illy name of the captain"
    psk=678bdc6bb2e32a5842c5539da7eebae1732ad8bcde202d3040dab4b65e77b7f4

Regards,
Kent

Thanks, I did and it works and accepts the new SSID and password and generates the auto codes but the configuration set from the Network Settings overwrite it during boot.
Any suggestions.

[ab.basu]

So even when setting the SSID name password via SSH terminal is as below,

Code:

pi@moode:~ $ wpa_passphrase "\$ChelseaFC\$" "anitabasu"                        
network={
       ssid="$ChelseaFC$"
       #psk="anitabasu"
       psk=9abc04d557b44c50d07dd101f719eb643a991beea756d53ee87de797b38f0f3f
}

But after reboot the psk shown in Network settings is changing to "ab3e8b33c0738d7ede748d69d3b4bd0b605284265b9ccc38599c9bee673fdb11" which is for,

Code:

pi@moode:~ $ sudo wpa_passphrase "$ChelseaFC$" "anitabasu"
network={
      ssid="$"
      #psk="anitabasu"
      psk=ab3e8b33c0738d7ede748d69d3b4bd0b605284265b9ccc38599c9bee673fdb11
}

I even tried setting the SSID name manually at Network settings \$ChelseaFC\$, but then it generates a completely new psk code

I know this problem is due to this special char in SSID name bcoz when i am doing hotspot from my mobile device it is connecting without any issues.
If you have nay solution then kindly share.

BR
Basu