[pkg-wpa-devel] Non-roaming usage of the daemon: Radio kill switch

[Reinhard Tartler]

On Sat, Apr 08, 2006 at 04:12:57PM +0200, Felix Homann wrote:
> On Friday 07 April 2006 19:38, Reinhard Tartler wrote:
> > no, if you switch off the radio with the WLAN-button, wpasupplicant is
> > not stopped. Instead, your action script (if any) will be called with
> > parameter DISCONNECTED, where you can do any stuff your want. When you
> > switch your radio back on, wpasupplicant will connect to your location,
> > and call the action script again, this time with parameter CONNECTED,
> > where you can again do any stuff you want.
> 
> I actually don't know what I want any action script to do in order to get the 
> old behaviour back. The documentation doesn't tell me.

I think that the existing README.Debian, README.modes and Debian.NEWS
files make very clear that there is now a new behavior and explain how
that can be used in order to implement roaming. 

If youare unhappy with them, I'm happy to read your suggestions how to
reword them to make them even more clear. What kind of additional
information did you expect? and where?

> It just doesn't work as expected!

There seems to be a shift in expectations.

> (First, let me correct myself, unfortunately I've mixed up some things: I used 
> to use wpa_supplicant in daemon mode and *ifplugd* for watching the 
> interface.)

I think this is quite braindead. Nowhere in the old package it was
advertised that wpasupplicant would work with ifplugd at all. It rather
happens to work with that, and that specific undocumented behavior run
under the assumption, that wpasupplicant/ifplugd could control ifupdown.
Now we changed the situation, ifupdown now controls wpasupplicant, so
that configuration goes along with the rest of wireless-tools.

> In the meantime I've tried the suggested action 
> script "wpacli-action-dhclient" from wpasupplicant 0.5.2-2. 
> 
> At first sight it didn't seem to work at all: The documentation doesn't tell 
> that you have to make the script executable.

well, I'm happy you figured that out. it is a script, after all.

> At second sight it seemed to essentially reproduce the old behaviour, but it 
> doesn't:
> 
> In order to switch the network on and off by pressing the wlan button the 
> interface has to get up at least once. So adding "auto wlan" 
> to /etc/network/interfaces should work. But if the radio is switched off 
> while booting the whole boot process hangs for over a minute before wpa_cli 
> (or so) times out!

sure. you can customize the action script to your needs and perhaps
lower the timeout. the action script is waiting for the dhcp server that
that point. ifupdown runs /etc/network/if-up.d/* scripts, which expect
network connectivity.

If you cannot guarantee that you have a working location at system
bootup, don't set 'auto wlan0' in /etc/network/interfaces. But this is a
problem of ifupdown, and not in wpasupplicant.

> I've returned to the "deprecated" daemon/ifplugd solution. It has a big 
> advantage over the new "solution": It works!
> 

I'm glad you got your connectivity back.  have a nice day
reinhard