[pkg-wpa-devel] Bug#360387: wpasupplicant: grave policy violation

[Norbert Preining]

severity 360387 grave
quit

Package: wpasupplicant
Version: 0.4.8-1
Followup-For: Bug #360387

Hi all!

I change the severity level of this bug to grave. I consider it a
grave violation to break the usage of this program. Mentioning
something in {NEWS,README}.Debian is not enough. It makes this package
unusable for many users.

It is all about the roaming usage of laptops, and I have to concur with
the OP that this is the normal usage of a laptop. I myself have 5
different wlan ap configured in my conf file, together with a fall back
dhcp without any encryption.

Now I couldn't connect at all to any of the points.

Even after adding the
	wpa-conf /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
file to my wlan0 stanza in /e/n/i and ifup-ing the interface it was
working for some time before being brought down again.

To sum it up: If you make such a drastic change to the package, you
should provide:
- a clear guide on HOW to upgrade from the old roaming usage to the new
  system, and ensuring that it is actually working
- ensure that if you upgrade from one of the respective setups, that you
  don't break usage
- or at least ask while installation which mode should be used.
- in the worst case you should leave the /etc/init.d file around and
  change the mode of working only via /etc/default. So the admin would
  also need to have to edit /e/d/wpasupplicant

I hope that this is soon fixed, I currently don't see any way to go back
to my original setup, and I couldn't find any explanation how to
recreate the original operation mode with the new version.

Best wishes

Norbert

/e/n/interface stanza:
iface wlan0 inet dhcp
        client          gandalf

/e/wpa_supplicant.conf
ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant
ctrl_interface_group=0
eapol_version=1
ap_scan=1
network={
        ssid="aaaaa"
	...
}
...
...
network={
        ssid="bbbbb"
        key_mgmt=NONE
        scan_ssid=1
        priority=1
}

-- System Information:
Debian Release: testing/unstable
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (10, 'experimental')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Shell:  /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Kernel: Linux 2.6.16-mm2
Locale: LANG=de_AT at euro, LC_CTYPE=de_AT at euro (charmap=ISO-8859-15)

Versions of packages wpasupplicant depends on:
ii  libc6                         2.3.6-4    GNU C Library: Shared libraries an
ii  libncurses5                   5.5-1      Shared libraries for terminal hand
ii  libreadline5                  5.1-7      GNU readline and history libraries
ii  libssl0.9.8                   0.9.8a-8   SSL shared libraries

wpasupplicant recommends no packages.

-- no debconf information