I am unable to connect my Pepwave MAX to the WIFI at my house. The problem is almost certainly that the router I am forced to use is hot garbage. By that, I mean that it’s a little slow. According to the event log, almost every time I attempt to log in to the router, it times out during authentication. I unfortunately NEED to use this WIFI for the next few weeks at least.
I do not see any option to increase the WPA auth timeout threshold in the web GUI or the SSH console.
I DO, however, see that I can download and modify settings by downloading/uploading config files. Unfortunately, this seems to be in a binary format that is not well documented in the user manual.
Is it possible to change this specific setting by editing the config file, and if so, how do I parse the config file so that I can comprehend what I’m doing without bricking it?
Model: Pepwave MAX Transit
Firmware: 8.1.1 build 5040
I am a bit confused - you mean the Max Transit won’t let you log in? Or you cannot connect the wifi as wan to the “slow hot garbage” wifi’s router? I only ask because I have never seen WPA come close to timing out if the pre-shared key was correct. The only time I have ever heard of anything like that is when RADIUS authentication was used and the Radius server had really slow spinning hard drives that would always be asleep and take too long to wake up and serve the response back.
The config files for all peplink devices are encoded - they cannot be edited by users at all. In some instances, you can send your config file to Peplink and they can manipulate it – but I have only ever seen that happen when someone goes from a Balance 20/30 to a Balance One (or something like that). I have also never seen a timeout value exposed in the GUIs. Granted, I don’t have a Max Transit to look at.
What antennas are you using and how far is the access point you are trying to connect to?
Hi jmjones, thanks for the quick reply, I appreciate it.
I am attempting to use a WIFI connection as WAN. Below are some pertinent lines from the Max Transit’s event log.
Mar 23 00:33:51
WAN: Wi-Fi WAN on 5 GHz fails to connect 5GNET (WPA: authentication timeout)
Mar 23 00:28:43
WAN: Wi-Fi WAN on 2.4 GHz changes applied
Mar 23 00:26:39
WAN: Wi-Fi WAN on 2.4 GHz fails to connect 2GNET (WPA: authentication timeout)
Mar 23 00:26:32
Admin: admin (192.168.50.12) login successful
Mar 23 00:26:28
System: Wi-Fi AP Normal Mode
Mar 23 00:26:02
System: Started up (8.1.1 build 5040)
Mar 23 00:14:00
WAN: Wi-Fi WAN on 2.4 GHz fails to connect 2GNET (WPA: authentication timeout)
Mar 23 00:13:40
WAN: Wi-Fi WAN on 2.4 GHz changes applied
Mar 23 00:12:50
Admin: admin (192.168.50.12) login successful
Mar 22 22:28:19
WAN: Wi-Fi WAN on 2.4 GHz fails to associate 2GNET (WPA: shared key may be incorrect)
Mar 22 21:37:39
Admin: admin (192.168.50.12) logout
Mar 22 19:56:51
WAN: Wi-Fi WAN on 5 GHz fails to connect 5GNET (WPA: authentication timeout)
Mar 22 19:17:08
WAN: Wi-Fi WAN on 2.4 GHz fails to associate 2GNET (WPA: shared key may be incorrect)
Mar 22 17:34:26
WAN: Wi-Fi WAN on 2.4 GHz changes applied
Mar 22 17:33:14
WAN: Wi-Fi WAN on 2.4 GHz fails to connect 2GNET (WPA: authentication timeout)
As you can see, there is one instance in which the 2GNET’s key was incorrect, but I corrected it. All other connection attempts to 2GNET or 5GNET (2.4 GHZ and 5 GHZ networks served by the same hot garbage router) both time out.
I have two laptops and a smartphone that all connect to these networks. Not without difficulty (the network drops periodically), but they do connect with relative ease to the Transit MAX, which has so far not successfully connected at all.
I am using a Poynting multiband external antenna. The hot garbage router is about 100 feet away, and both networks have 4 bars of signal.
Rather unfortunate that Peplink has chosen to both obscure the settings contained in the config file, and also not provide us with true CLI access. Not even a BusyBox, guys? I am disappoint.
Hi disappoint, I am J. Sorry, it was too available to pass up.
I would be interested to see what a channel scan looks like for your area. If you are in a densely populated space with multiple wireless networks broadcasting – chances are your signals are being stomped on. You may want to see if you can manually select different channels in the “hot trashcan” of a router.
Only other thing I can think of is “duplicate mac” type of issues. If you have messed with the layer 2 addresses, you may want to doublecheck that there are no duplicates.
Is it possible to get a wired connection to that router?
If the problem is a wifi signal that is getting stomped on, then perhaps change the channel width on the garbage router. If you can. A narrow channel might work better.
Maybe the problem is that the garbage router is over-taxed? If the cpu load was at the max, it might not be able to handle your connection in a timely manner.
Sorry, it was too available to pass up.