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.\" This manpage has been automatically generated by docbook2man
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.\" Please send any bug reports, improvements, comments, patches,
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.\" etc. to Steve Cheng <steve@ggi-project.org>.
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.TH "WPA_SUPPLICANT" "8" "28 May 2007" "" ""
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wpa_supplicant \- Wi-Fi Protected Access client and IEEE 802.1X supplicant
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\fBwpa_supplicant\fR [ \fB-BddehLqqvw\fR ] [ \fB-i\fIifname\fB\fR ] [ \fB-c\fIconfig file\fB\fR ] [ \fB-D\fIdriver\fB\fR ] [ \fB-P\fIPID_file\fB\fR ]
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Wireless networks do not require physical access to the network equipment
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in the same way as wired networks. This makes it easier for unauthorized
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users to passively monitor a network and capture all transmitted frames.
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In addition, unauthorized use of the network is much easier. In many cases,
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this can happen even without user's explicit knowledge since the wireless
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LAN adapter may have been configured to automatically join any available
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Link-layer encryption can be used to provide a layer of security for
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wireless networks. The original wireless LAN standard, IEEE 802.11,
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included a simple encryption mechanism, WEP. However, that proved to
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be flawed in many areas and network protected with WEP cannot be consider
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secure. IEEE 802.1X authentication and frequently changed dynamic WEP keys
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can be used to improve the network security, but even that has inherited
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security issues due to the use of WEP for encryption. Wi-Fi Protected
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Access and IEEE 802.11i amendment to the wireless LAN standard introduce
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a much improvement mechanism for securing wireless networks. IEEE 802.11i
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enabled networks that are using CCMP (encryption mechanism based on strong
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cryptographic algorithm AES) can finally be called secure used for
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applications which require efficient protection against unauthorized
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\fBwpa_supplicant\fR is an implementation of
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the WPA Supplicant component, i.e., the part that runs in the
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client stations. It implements WPA key negotiation with a WPA
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Authenticator and EAP authentication with Authentication
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Server. In addition, it controls the roaming and IEEE 802.11
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authentication/association of the wireless LAN driver.
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\fBwpa_supplicant\fR is designed to be a
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"daemon" program that runs in the background and acts as the
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backend component controlling the wireless
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connection. \fBwpa_supplicant\fR supports separate
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frontend programs and an example text-based frontend,
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\fBwpa_cli\fR, is included with
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Before wpa_supplicant can do its work, the network interface
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must be available. That means that the physical device must be
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present and enabled, and the driver for the device must have be
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loaded. Note, however, that the '-w' option of the wpa_supplicant
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daemon instructs the daemon to continue running and to wait for
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the interface to become available. Without the '-w' option, the
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daemon will exit immediately if the device is not already
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After \fBwpa_supplicant\fR has configured the
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network device, higher level configuration such as DHCP may
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proceed. There are a variety of ways to integrate wpa_supplicant
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into a machine's networking scripts, a few of which are described
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The following steps are used when associating with an AP
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\fBwpa_supplicant\fR requests the kernel
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driver to scan neighboring BSSes
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\fBwpa_supplicant\fR selects a BSS based on
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\fBwpa_supplicant\fR requests the kernel
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driver to associate with the chosen BSS
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If WPA-EAP: integrated IEEE 802.1X Supplicant or
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external Xsupplicant completes EAP authentication with the
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authentication server (proxied by the Authenticator in the
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If WPA-EAP: master key is received from the IEEE 802.1X
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If WPA-PSK: \fBwpa_supplicant\fR uses PSK
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as the master session key
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\fBwpa_supplicant\fR completes WPA 4-Way
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Handshake and Group Key Handshake with the Authenticator
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\fBwpa_supplicant\fR configures encryption
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keys for unicast and broadcast
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normal data packets can be transmitted and received
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.SH "SUPPORTED FEATURES"
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Supported WPA/IEEE 802.11i features:
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WPA-PSK ("WPA-Personal")
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WPA with EAP (e.g., with RADIUS authentication server)
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("WPA-Enterprise") Following authentication methods are
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supported with an integrate IEEE 802.1X Supplicant:
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EAP-PEAP/MSCHAPv2 (both PEAPv0 and PEAPv1)
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EAP-PEAP/TLS (both PEAPv0 and PEAPv1)
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EAP-PEAP/GTC (both PEAPv0 and PEAPv1)
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EAP-PEAP/OTP (both PEAPv0 and PEAPv1)
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EAP-PEAP/MD5-Challenge (both PEAPv0 and PEAPv1)
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EAP-TTLS/EAP-MD5-Challenge
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EAP-TTLS/EAP-MSCHAPv2
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LEAP (note: requires special support from
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the driver for IEEE 802.11 authentication)
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(following methods are supported, but since
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they do not generate keying material, they cannot be used
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with WPA or IEEE 802.1X WEP keying)
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key management for CCMP, TKIP, WEP104, WEP40
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RSN/WPA2 (IEEE 802.11i)
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.SH "AVAILABLE DRIVERS"
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The available drivers to specify with the -D option are:
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(default) Host AP driver (Intersil Prism2/2.5/3).
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(this can also be used with Linuxant DriverLoader).
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Agere Systems Inc. driver (Hermes-I/Hermes-II).
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MADWIFI 802.11 support (Atheros, etc.).
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ATMEL AT76C5XXx (USB, PCMCIA).
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Linux wireless extensions (generic).
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Broadcom wl.o driver.
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Intel ipw2100/2200 driver.
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wpa_supplicant wired Ethernet driver
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BSD 802.11 support (Atheros, etc.).
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.SH "COMMAND LINE OPTIONS"
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Run daemon in the background.
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Interface to listen on.
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Path to configuration file.
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\fB-C ctrl_interface\fR
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Path to ctrl_interface socket (only used if -c is not).
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\fB-g global ctrl_interface\fR
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Path to global ctrl_interface socket.
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Driver to use. See the available options below.
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Increase debugging verbosity (-dd even more).
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Include keys (passwords, etc.) in debug output.
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Include timestamp in debug messages.
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Use external IEEE 802.1X Supplicant (e.g.,
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\fBxsupplicant\fR) (this disables the internal
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Help. Show a usage message.
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Show license (GPL and BSD).
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Decrease debugging verbosity (-qq even less).
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wait for interface to be added, if needed. normally,
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\fBwpa_supplicant\fR will exit if the interface
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Start describing new interface.
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In most common cases, \fBwpa_supplicant\fR is
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wpa_supplicant -Bw -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -iwlan0
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This makes the process fork into background and wait for the wlan0
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interface if it is not available at startup time.
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The easiest way to debug problems, and to get debug log for
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bug reports, is to start \fBwpa_supplicant\fR on
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foreground with debugging enabled:
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wpa_supplicant -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -iwlan0 -d
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\fBwpa_supplicant\fR can control multiple
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interfaces (radios) either by running one process for each
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interface separately or by running just one process and list of
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options at command line. Each interface is separated with -N
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argument. As an example, following command would start
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wpa_supplicant for two interfaces:
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-c wpa1.conf -i wlan0 -D hostap -N \\
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-c wpa2.conf -i ath0 -D madwifi
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.SH "OS REQUIREMENTS"
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Current hardware/software requirements:
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Linux kernel 2.4.x or 2.6.x with Linux Wireless
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Extensions v15 or newer
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Microsoft Windows with WinPcap (at least WinXP, may work
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.SH "SUPPORTED DRIVERS"
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\fBHost AP driver for Prism2/2.5/3 (development snapshot/v0.2.x)\fR
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(http://hostap.epitest.fi/) Driver needs to be set in
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Managed mode ('iwconfig wlan0 mode managed'). Please note
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that station firmware version needs to be 1.7.0 or newer to
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\fBLinuxant DriverLoader\fR
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(http://www.linuxant.com/driverloader/)
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with Windows NDIS driver for your wlan card supporting WPA.
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\fBAgere Systems Inc. Linux Driver\fR
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(http://www.agere.com/support/drivers/) Please note
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that the driver interface file (driver_hermes.c) and hardware
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specific include files are not included in the wpa_supplicant
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distribution. You will need to copy these from the source
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package of the Agere driver.
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\fBmadwifi driver for cards based on Atheros chip set (ar521x)\fR
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(http://sourceforge.net/projects/madwifi/) Please
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note that you will need to modify the wpa_supplicant .config
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file to use the correct path for the madwifi driver root
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directory (CFLAGS += -I../madwifi/wpa line in example
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\fBATMEL AT76C5XXx driver for USB and PCMCIA cards\fR
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(http://atmelwlandriver.sourceforge.net/).
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\fBLinux ndiswrapper\fR
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(http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/) with Windows
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\fBBroadcom wl.o driver\fR
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This is a generic Linux driver for Broadcom IEEE
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802.11a/g cards. However, it is proprietary driver that is
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not publicly available except for couple of exceptions, mainly
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Broadcom-based APs/wireless routers that use Linux. The driver
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binary can be downloaded, e.g., from Linksys support site
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(http://www.linksys.com/support/gpl.asp) for Linksys
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WRT54G. The GPL tarball includes cross-compiler and the needed
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header file, wlioctl.h, for compiling wpa_supplicant. This
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driver support in wpa_supplicant is expected to work also with
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other devices based on Broadcom driver (assuming the driver
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includes client mode support).
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\fB Intel ipw2100 driver\fR
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(http://sourceforge.net/projects/ipw2100/)
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\fBIntel ipw2200 driver\fR
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(http://sourceforge.net/projects/ipw2200/)
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\fBLinux wireless extensions\fR
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In theory, any driver that supports Linux wireless
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extensions can be used with IEEE 802.1X (i.e., not WPA) when
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using ap_scan=0 option in configuration file.
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\fBWired Ethernet drivers\fR
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\fBBSD net80211 layer (e.g., Atheros driver)\fR
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At the moment, this is for FreeBSD 6-CURRENT branch.
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The current Windows port requires WinPcap
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(http://winpcap.polito.it/). See README-Windows.txt for more
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wpa_supplicant was designed to be portable for different
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drivers and operating systems. Hopefully, support for more wlan
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cards and OSes will be added in the future. See developer.txt for
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more information about the design of wpa_supplicant and porting to
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other drivers. One main goal is to add full WPA/WPA2 support to
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Linux wireless extensions to allow new drivers to be supported
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without having to implement new driver-specific interface code in
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\fBwpa_supplicant\fR system consists of the following
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\fB\fIwpa_supplicant.conf\fB \fR
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the configuration file describing all networks that the
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user wants the computer to connect to.
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the program that directly interacts with the
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client program that provides a high-level interface to the
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functionality of the daemon.
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a utility needed to construct
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\fIwpa_supplicant.conf\fR files that include
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First, make a configuration file, e.g.
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\fI/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf\fR, that describes the networks
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you are interested in. See \fBwpa_supplicant.conf\fR(5)
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Once the configuration is ready, you can test whether the
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configuration works by running \fBwpa_supplicant\fR
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with following command to start it on foreground with debugging
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wpa_supplicant -iwlan0 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -d
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Assuming everything goes fine, you can start using following
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command to start \fBwpa_supplicant\fR on background
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wpa_supplicant -iwlan0 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -B
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Please note that if you included more than one driver
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interface in the build time configuration (.config), you may need
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to specify which interface to use by including -D<driver
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name> option on the command line.
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.SH "INTERFACE TO PCMCIA-CS/CARDMRG"
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For example, following small changes to pcmcia-cs scripts
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can be used to enable WPA support:
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Add MODE="Managed" and WPA="y" to the network scheme in
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\fI/etc/pcmcia/wireless.opts\fR\&.
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Add the following block to the end of 'start' action handler
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in \fI/etc/pcmcia/wireless\fR:
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if [ "$WPA" = "y" -a -x /usr/local/bin/wpa_supplicant ]; then
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/usr/local/bin/wpa_supplicant -Bw -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -i$DEVICE
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Add the following block to the end of 'stop' action handler
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(may need to be separated from other actions) in
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\fI/etc/pcmcia/wireless\fR:
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if [ "$WPA" = "y" -a -x /usr/local/bin/wpa_supplicant ]; then
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killall wpa_supplicant
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This will make \fBcardmgr\fR start
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\fBwpa_supplicant\fR when the card is plugged
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in. \fBwpa_supplicant\fR will wait until the
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interface is set up--either when a static IP address is configured
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or when DHCP client is started--and will then negotiate keys with
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\fBwpa_background\fR(8)
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\fBwpa_supplicant.conf\fR(5)
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\fBwpa_passphrase\fR(8)
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wpa_supplicant is copyright (c) 2003-2005,
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Jouni Malinen <j@w1.fi> and
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This program is dual-licensed under both the GPL version 2
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and BSD license. Either license may be used at your option.
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