Re: WPA support

[Tim Warberg <twarberg gmail com>]

On 5/2/05, Dan Williams <dcbw redhat com> wrote:
> I'd advocate using the control socket to WPA supplicant rather than
> making it a library though.  It would be easier to simply drop in a new
> wpa_supplicant and to track upstream, and Jouni hasn't been very
> receptive to the idea of making a library out of wpa_supplicant. Given
> that and the fact that I don't want to maintain a fork of
> wpa_supplicant, I think using a control socket is the best way to go.

Can't argue with that. 

> > WPA_Supplicant already have a mode where SSID scanning and association
> > is controlled by user and i think this is a good base for
> > NetworkManager integration. Also for now i think it would be a good
> > idea to let wpa_supplicant configure hardware for WPA using it's
> > drivers at least until WPA is completely implemented through Wireless
> > Extension and kernel modules support this.
> 
> Yes, this had been more or less my idea.  Basically, wpa_supplicant is
> too smart in its default mode, and what we need is a "connect to this
> access point on this interface with this passphrase", and nothing more.
> We do not want wpa_supplicant to do its own scanning, its own
> config-file parsing, or anything else.  Users should not have to edit
> the wpa_supplicant config file, since that information is stored in the
> user session by the info-daemon in NetworkManager's world.  We need
> wpa_supplicant in a "slave" mode.
 
> Jouni has said that approach is acceptable, I think somebody just needs
> to fix up the patches for it.

I'll give it a try. Hopefully I'll end up with something Jouni find
acceptable :)

Perhaps the easiest way is a syntax similar to the one in the config
file. Something like:
interface=wlan0;driver=SomeDriver;ssid="SomeSSID";proto=WPA;key_mgmt=WPA-PSK;pairwise=TKIP;group=TKIP;psk="MyVerySecretPassword"

--
Tim Warberg