[pkg-wpa-devel] wpasupplicant from ifupdown?

[Reinhard Tartler]

On Mon, Mar 06, 2006 at 12:47:19AM +0100, Joachim Breitner wrote:
> I just read wpasupplicatn's NEWS.Debian. I wonder how I should change
> this setup to fit the "new" style. I currently have:
> 
> 1. wpasupplicant as a daemon is started on boot, keeps scanning for
> networks and will associate with any known network.

We just had a thread discussing exactly this point. I have worked on the
experimental branch a bit, you can see the that here:

http://svn.debian.org/wsvn/pkg-wpa/branches/wpasupplicant-0.5/?rev=0&sc=0

> 2. This will be detected by ifplugd (which also runs all the time),
> which itself will ifup the device.
> 
> 3. ifupdwon uses guessnet and mappings to find out what the right device
> (e.g. ath0=university), as different WLANs need different settings (e.g.
> which openvpn tunnels to start)

Interesting setup. I'm currently using whereami, which works a bit
differently.

> This setting works very nice, I am automatically online, no matter where
> I am, and no matter whether the network needs WPA or not. But obviously,
> this does not work if wpasupplicant is to be started by ifupdown. Does
> that mean I have to dig out waproamd again? Or is there some other "scan
> for WLANs and ifup the device" daemon?

I have started to write some documentation about the planned modes of
operation of wpasupplicant. I assume that you would use mode 3 as
outlined here:

http://svn.debian.org/wsvn/pkg-wpa/branches/wpasupplicant-0.5/debian/README.modes?op=file&rev=0&sc=0

Please comment on them if this helps you.
 
> I can see the benefit of having all configuration in /e/n/i. Maybe
> wpasupplicant could read /e/n/i as an alternative configuration file
> (as, e.g., guessnet already does in a way)?

I don't understand this point. Perhaps it helps you to understand how
this works by looking at our (well, Kel wrote it in fact) pre-up script:

http://svn.debian.org/wsvn/pkg-wpa/branches/wpasupplicant-0.5/debian/pre-up?op=file&rev=0&sc=0

> But please consider that when credentials appear in /e/n/i, it must be
> root-read-only, which is not really nice to regular users - it's handy
> to have a look at the network configuration.

This is http://bugs.debian.org/295581. I agree with Guus in this point.

I hope this helps you.

Gruesse,
	Reinhard