losing WiFi password

[Dpfels]

Hi,
I seem to be having an odd problem. I am not sure if it is normal or not.
I have two servers currently. One of them runs Slimserver 6.3.1, the other runs 6.5.3 (soon to be 6.5.4). Obviously, when I switch from one to the other, the firmware on my Squeezebox is updated. The problem with this is that the update seems to wipe out my WiFi password every time. This is a bit of a pain, as reentering all those digits is a slow process.

Is there any reason this is happening? Is this a bug with 6.3.1?

Thanks,
Dan

[radish]

The password is stored in the players' flash memory which is wiped during the firmware upgrade. It's not really intended that you switch firmware on such a frequent basis - is there a reason you are running different server versions?

[peter]

losing WiFi password

radish wrote:
> The password is stored in the players' flash memory which is wiped
> during the firmware upgrade. It's not really intended that you switch
> firmware on such a frequent basis - is there a reason you are running
> different server versions?
>

That doesn't seem to be entirely true. I run 6.5.x and 7.x alternately
and I have to re-enter my wpa key when switching from 7.x to 6.5.x but
*no* the other way around...

It's a pain, though, especially if you use a (secure) long key.

Regards,
Peter

[msherman]

losing WiFi password

radish wrote:
> The password is stored in the players' flash memory which is wiped
> during the firmware upgrade. It's not really intended that you switch
> firmware on such a frequent basis - is there a reason you are running
> different server versions?

Firmware is only wiped on downgrades, not on upgrades. The new firmware
knows how to parse the stored config from the old one on upgrades, but
old firmware can't hope to know anything about data stored by newer
firmware, so a clean slate is the only safe way to do a downgrade.

- Marc

[radish]

Firmware is only wiped on downgrades, not on upgrades. The new firmware
knows how to parse the stored config from the old one on upgrades, but
old firmware can't hope to know anything about data stored by newer
firmware, so a clean slate is the only safe way to do a downgrade.

Makes perfect sense, thanks for the clarification!

[radish]

It's a pain, though, especially if you use a (secure) long key.

As an aside, using WPA you don't really need a particularly long key provided it has sufficient entropy. This article does a good job of explaining why: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=127. I use a 9 character a-z0-9 random string. Still a pain to reenter, but don't let anyone tell you need 50 chars or something.

[peter]

losing WiFi password

radish wrote:
> Peter;238164 Wrote:
>
>> It's a pain, though, especially if you use a (secure) long key.
>>
>>
>
> As an aside, using WPA you don't really need a particularly long key
> provided it has sufficient entropy. This article does a good job of
> explaining why: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=127. I use a 9 character
> a-z0-9 random string. Still a pain to reenter, but don't let anyone
> tell you need 50 chars or something.
>

Yesh, but who to believe? My math skills are insufficient to say who's
right. I do know a 20 character random key is more secure than a 9
character one. On most devices entering the key is a matter of
copy&paste. Not so on the SB's. It would be really nice if it remembered
its key on a firmware up/downgrade.

Regards,
Peter

[peter]

losing WiFi password

Marc Sherman wrote:
> radish wrote:
>
>> The password is stored in the players' flash memory which is wiped
>> during the firmware upgrade. It's not really intended that you switch
>> firmware on such a frequent basis - is there a reason you are running
>> different server versions?
>>
>
> Firmware is only wiped on downgrades, not on upgrades. The new firmware
> knows how to parse the stored config from the old one on upgrades, but
> old firmware can't hope to know anything about data stored by newer
> firmware, so a clean slate is the only safe way to do a downgrade.
>

That makes sense...

Regards,
Peter