Re: WPA_supplicant status

[Dan Williams <dcbw redhat com>]

On Wed, 2005-09-28 at 19:36 +0200, Nikolaus Filus wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I'm reading the list now for a long time waiting for the glorious message, 
> that network-manager finally supports wpa - but so far no news ...
> 
> Several people asked for wpa, but didn't got any answer (hope, that 
> doesn't happen to me :)
> wpa support ist the only thing stopping me (and possibly lot of others) 
> from really using networkmanager, as usefull and cool it is. So
> 
> What's the status on WPA? I know there were already some patches and some 
> integration discussions, but nothing happened afterwards? Which patch is 
> compatible with current cvs?
> 
> Thanks in advance,

Right, here's the current plan.

To get _something_ working, I've decided to just launch a wpa_supplicant
or xsupplicant with the appropriate generated config file and command
line args to do the WPA stuff.  Slave mode can be done later I guess.
I'd limit it to WPA PSK to get this working, then deal with
EAP/LEAP/PEAP/etc after that.

A few things need to happen, anyone who wants to can pitch in.

a) Add WPA constants to NetworkManager.h for authentication modes and
passphrase types

b) Add code to detect, using Wireless Extensions, whether certain cards
can actually do WPA or not, and pass that info to the applet somehow

c) In the applet, don't let people do WPA on cards that don't support
WPA

d) Build a wpa-manager that handles the wpa_supplicant/xsupplicant child
process and gets state from it by talking to its control socket

e) redo the wireless connection code to allow WPA connections, either by
letting all association even for WEP be done by the supplicant, or just
route WPA through the supplicant.  Caveat: some cards that work fine
with NetworkManager (ie, Cisco cards) don't work with the supplicants
due to various driver oddities.

Dan