[pkg-wpa-devel] Is this a bug?

[Kel Modderman]

Hi,

On Tuesday 19 February 2008 13:42:39 rouble wrote:
> Hi Kel,
> 
> Thanks much for responding. I am trying to set up my wireless in roaming mode.
> 
> Here is my /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf:
> <code>
> ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant
> 
> ### Associate with any open access point
> ### Scans/ESSID changes can be done with wpa_cli
> network={
>        key_mgmt=NONE
>        priority=3
> }
> 
> network={
>        ssid="SSID"
>        id_str="work"
>        scan_ssid=1
>        key_mgmt=WPA-EAP
>        eap=PEAP
>        identity="USERNAME"
>        password="PASSWORD"
>        phase1="peaplabel=0"
>        phase2="auth=MSCHAPV2"
>        priority=2
> }
> 
> network={
>        ssid="homerun"
>        id_str="home"
>        scan_ssid=1
>        key_mgmt=NONE
>        wep_key0=KEY
>        priority=1
> }
> </code>
> 
> And here is my /etc/network/interfaces:
> <code>
> auto lo
> iface lo inet loopback
> 
> auto wlan0
> iface wlan0 inet manual
>     wpa-driver wext
>     wpa-roam /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
> 
> iface default inet dhcp
> 
> iface home inet dhcp
> 
> iface work inet dhcp
> </code>
> 
> Now, sometimes when I reboot, wireless does not work. So I want to
> debug what is going on, so I was been trying to start and stop
> wireless like this:
> 
> sudo /etc/init.d/networking stop
> sudo /etc/init.d/networking start
> 
> ...to test it without rebooting. But, when I do 'sudo
> /etc/init.d/networking stop' it does not stop the wpa_supplicant
> process etc. I am thinking that is how the OS stop starts the wireless
> (right?)

Currently, the wpa_cli process cannot be stopped by:
	`/etc/init.d/networking stop`
	`ifdown wlan0`
due to a design limitation for the integration, as outlined in discussion
on links in previous email.

It must be stopped by `wpa_action wlan0 down|stop` if it is currently under
control of the roaming daemon. Sorry, but i have not found a way around that
with the current ifupdown (but see opportunity to fix this when the development
version of ifupdown is released, but I won't hold my breath for it to happen
soon...)

> 
> Also, the log file /var/log/wpa_action.log contains very minimal logs.
> Is it possible to see the logs from the wpa_supplicant daemon also
> somewhere?

Not with the version of wpasupplicant shipped with Ubuntu. Not until they
upgrade their "forked" package to upstream 0.5.10 or above, or sync with
Debian.

The best output you can get with the software you use is via a wpa_cli console.
Launch wpa_cli, and issue "level 0" command. Periodically check the "status"
command output. This is pretty crap, I admit, but newer version of
wpa_supplicant are able to log all debug output to file, so something to look
forward to in the near future.

Thanks, Kel.