Talk:Wpa supplicant

nl80211
According to the Arch wiki for WPA_supplicant, https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/WPA_supplicant

Note: nl80211 is preferred over the deprecated wext driver. For a list of supported drivers simply run wpa_supplicant without an argument.

EAP=TLS Unnecessary
The 'eap=TLS' in the example network blocks is unnecessary as no EAP is used with WPA-PSK (edited). khayyam

The quote strings on psk= can cause issues when the maximum key length (63 chars) is used, wpa_supplicant (at least =wpa_supplicant-0.7.3) will truncate the key to 63 chars and so the key will end up being passed to the AP as '"key' minus last char .. perhaps some warning should be provided or the quotes ommited khayyam

The advice "[t]his can be fine if the computer does not need to connect to many different access points" is just silly, and shows a lack of understanding of the various components of wpa_supplicant, most glaringly wpa_cli. wpa_gui is not the only tool provided to write/modify wpa_supplicant.conf nor is it the only means of enabling/disabling and/or switching networks, wpa_cli is infact far more advanced than wpa_gui as it provides access to many more features (such as debug and scan info) via the command line or via wpa_cli's interactive shell. I can remedy this with some detailed examples of usage. khayyam

While wpa_supplicant_wlan0="-Dwext" is the default "(generic)" setting, users with CFG80211 may be better off with wpa_supplicant_wlan0="-Dnl80211" infact perhaps the suggestion should be to use wpa_supplicant_wlan0="-Dnl80211,wext" as it will use CFG80211 if possible and otherwise fall back to WEXT. Additionally, some discussion of WEXT, CFG80211 and CFG80211_WEXT might be worth adding. This is what 'defconfig' for wpa_supplicant states: "Note: WEXT is deprecated in the current Linux kernel version and no new functionality is added to it. nl80211-based interface is the new replacement for WEXT and its use allows wpa_supplicant to properly control the driver to improve existing functionality like roaming and to support new functionality." khayyam

An examples of using EAP should be be provided as its fairly common for universities, etc. khayyam

An example of debugging should be provided, ie, enabling the 'debug' useflag and adding wpa_supplicant_wlan0="-Dnl80211 -dd -f /var/log/wpa_supplicant.log" and also wpa_supplicant_wlan0="-Dnl80211 -qq -f /var/log/wpa_supplicant.log" to respectively increase and decrease verbosity. [UPDATE] I have requested that the debug useflag be removed and that CONFIG_DEBUG_FILE=y be the default. See http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=439870 khayyam

WPA Config File Creation
Users need to create the wpa config file manually and is omitted within this wiki.


 * bzcat /usr/share/doc/wpa_supplicant-0.7.3-r5/wpa_supplicant.conf.bz2 > /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf


 * No, why would you want a ton of example networks in your config? The article already suggests to look at the wpa_supplicant.conf in doc, and it also provides two complete wpa_supplicant.conf examples. --Alec 18:54, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Other Missing Instructions
I'm stumped, don't users also have to do the following?


 * ln -s /etc/init.d/net.lo /etc/init.d/wlan0


 * I just put dhcpcd and wpa_suppliant to the default runlevel. --Alec 15:46, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Also, how about some troubleshooting techniques such as log files to watch?