[pkg-wpa-devel] Bug#610931: Please build wpasupplicant-udeb

[Kel Modderman]

On Sun, 24 Jul 2011 08:02:48 AM Gaudenz Steinlin wrote:
> Hi
> 
> I'm picking up the task to integrate WPA support into
> debian-installer. My goal is to have this finished by the end of
> Debconf. Is anyone of you also going to attend Debconf?

Nope.


> > 
> > nl80211 is the way forward. It would require libnl to be included in D-I.
> 
> AFAICS with my iwlwifi card both nl80211 and wext work. Is there any
> practical advantage of nl80211. If possible I would like to avoid
> having to include another library into d-i.

WEXT is deprecated upstream, nl80211 is in active development and all new wifi 
drivers will use it. Looking into my crystal ball I see that eventually the 
WEXT compat layer will decay into something that nobody wants to keep 
maintaining.

If D-I integration of wpasupplicant were to go ahead without including support 
for nl80211 it would be a waste of time imo.

> 
> > > > diff -urN wpasupplicant-0.6.10.orig/debian/control
> > > > wpasupplicant-0.6.10/debian/control [...]
> > > > +Architecture: linux-any
> > > > 
> > > > wpasupplicant is needed, and compatible with-, kFreeBSD as well, at
> > > > this moment kFreeBSD doesn't support wlan for unrelated reasons
> > > > (ifconfig not being able to configure wlan interfaces, besides the
> > > > open firmware issues, while firmwares are required for most
> > > > chipsets). So ignoring hurd, it should be "any" or at least
> > > > "linux-any kfreebsd-any".
> > > 
> > > Wireless config is disabled in d-i for kfreebsd, so there's no reason
> > > to build wpasupplicant-udeb for those arches.  However, if you're
> > > comfortable that a wpasupplicant-udeb will build correctly for those
> > > arches, it'd save changes down the line if/when kfreebsd gets d-i
> > > wireless support.
> > 
> > It'd probably be better to prepare early here and build
> > wpasupplicant-udeb for whatever it can build on.
> 
> I don't care that much as it mainly concerns your package, but as
> kfreebsd does not currently have wireless support in d-i, the package
> won't be used for now. I don't know how much work it would be to
> enable wireless for kfreebsd in d-i, but that's a another task.
> 
> I have another question:
> To connect to the debconf network I needed to additional kernel
> modules for the encryption algorithms: aes_generic.ko and
> aes-x86_64.ko. Are these the only crpyto modules required for WPA or
> are there configurations where other algorithms might be needed. Of
> course aes-x86_64 has to be replaced by the appropriate module on
> other architectures.

It's possible, I don't really know.

> 
> > > > Has there been any solution for the netcfg integration already, see
> > > > <201011041811.11753.kel at otaku42.de> [1], referring to the originally
> > > > proposed introduction of embedded source copies of wpasuppliant's
> > > > wpa_ctrl.[hc] into netcfg. Please also keep in mind that crda/
> > > > wireless-regdb is required for accessing channels 11-13/14 on modern
> > > > drivers.
> > > 
> > > I've applied the existing WPA netcfg support patches developed by Glenn
> > > Saberton, and they do appear to include a (stripped down) wpa_ctrl.c.
> > 
> > That stripped down crap probably was extracted from a sideline project
> > (python-wpactrl) I was working on, and is not good long term solution.
> > 
> > wpa_ctrl.{c,h} from current wpasupplicant source tree have lots more
> > dependency on other stuff. Extracting and patching wpa_ctrl.{c,h} to be
> > standalone is something which should be avoided - I just do not know how
> > currently.
> > 
> > Asked upstream wpa_supplicant if wpa_ctrl could be provided in a way
> > where it could be a shared library but received no response.
> 
> Is there any progress on this?

Nope.

> 
> > > I
> > > have no idea what the story is with crda/wireless-regdb, as I said
> > > before, I don't know anything about WPA.  If you'd like to help out,
> > > though, your knowledge would be greatly valued.
> > 
> > I wouldn't mind helping out, don't know how though, Have little idea
> > about D-I environment and took long enough to just reply to this request
> > to feel a little embarrassed.
> > 
> > Also haven't seen the proposed change to netcfg anytime in recent past to
> > comment further. Can that be reviewed?
> 
> It's in branch people/womble/wpa of
> git://git.debian.org/git/d-i/netcfg.
> 
> Gaudenz


Thanks for the link.

Kel.