bin/42581: wpa_supplicant(8) does not work on USB ral(4)

[hansdinsenhansen%gmail.com@localhost]

>Number:         42581
>Category:       bin
>Synopsis:       wpa_supplicant(8) does not work on USB ral(4)
>Confidential:   no
>Severity:       serious
>Priority:       medium
>Responsible:    bin-bug-people
>State:          open
>Class:          sw-bug
>Submitter-Id:   net
>Arrival-Date:   Tue Jan 05 16:35:00 +0000 2010
>Originator:     Hans Dinsen-Hansen
>Release:        NetBSD 5.0.1
>Organization:
Pensioner
>Environment:
NetBSD phoebos.dino.mynet 5.0.1 NetBSD 5.0.1 (GENERIC) #0: Thu Jul 30 00:08:07 
UTC 2009  builds%b7.netbsd.org@localhost:\
/home/builds/ab/netbsd-5-0-1-RELEASE\
/amd64/200907292356Z-obj/home/build\s/ab/\
netbsd-5-0-1-RELEASE/src/sys/arch/amd64/compile/GENERIC amd64
>Description:
The manual wpa_supplicant(8) claims that ral(4) should work,
However, if i run:
   wpa_supplicant -d -i ral0 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
in one console and
   wpa_cli in an other,  wpa_cli writes:

... ...
17:48:02.244: CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-RESULTS
17:48:02.244: Trying to associate with 00:19:70:24:84:24 (SSID='MY_SSID' 
freq=2457 MHz)
17:48:02.244: Association request to the driver failed
17:48:07.296: Authentication with 00:19:70:24:84:24 timed out.
... ... (repeated until the wpa_cli command "terminate")

The dmesg say:
ral0 at uhub3 port 1
ral0: Ralink 802.11g WLAN USB Dongle, rev 2.00/0.01, addr 2
ral0: MAC/BBP RT2570 (rev 0x03), RF RT2526
ral0: 11b rates: 1Mbps 2Mbps 5.5Mbps 11Mbps
ral0: 11g rates: 1Mbps 2Mbps 5.5Mbps 11Mbps 6Mbps 9Mbps 12Mbps 18Mbps 24Mbps 
36Mbps 48Mbps 54Mbps
My /etc/ifconfig.ral0 runs:
up media OFDM54
dhcp
and ifconfig -a says:
ral0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
        ssid ""
        powersave off
        address: 00:08:a1:42:f6:40
        media: IEEE802.11 OFDM54 (OFDM54 mode 11g)
        status: no network
        inet6 fe80::208:a1ff:fe42:f640%ral0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x1
...  ...

The same goes for a USB-rum(4) dongle:
 Linksys compact Wireless-G USB Adapter, model WUSB54GC,
The manual for wpa_supplicant says nothing about rum(4), however.

>How-To-Repeat:
Test wpa_supplicant with wireless and an USB-ral-dongle.  There are
several laying around.

>Fix: