[pkg-wpa-devel] Bug#659192: wpasupplicant: Please document 'priority' in wpa_supplicant.conf

[Erik Saule]

Package: wpasupplicant
Version: 0.6.10-2.1
Severity: wishlist


Dear Debian developpers,

I am using wpa supplicant in roaming mode. I was looking for a way to
specify which access point to use when multiple access points are
available. It is possible to specify it by using the 'priority' option
inside wpa_supplicant.conf. However that option is never clearly
documented. The only place the information is hinted at is in
/usr/share/doc/wpasupplicant/README.modes.gz where one can read:

> Fine Tuning the Roaming Setup
> =============================
>
> You may face situations where multiple known access points are in close
> proximity. You can choose which one is preferred manually, with wpa_cli or
> wpa_gui, or you can give each network its own priority. This is provided by the
> 'priority' option of wpa_supplicant.conf.

I am not sure if priorities only works in roaming mode, but I believe
this option should always work. It should be clearly documented within
the man page of wpa_supplicant.conf and/or an example of the feature
should be included in the list of examples.

Thank you,

Erik


-- System Information:
Debian Release: 6.0.3
  APT prefers stable
  APT policy: (500, 'stable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.32-5-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages wpasupplicant depends on:
ii  adduser                 3.112+nmu2       add and remove users and groups
ii  libc6                   2.11.2-10        Embedded GNU C Library: Shared lib
ii  libdbus-1-3             1.2.24-4         simple interprocess messaging syst
ii  libnl1                  1.1-6            library for dealing with netlink s
ii  libpcsclite1            1.5.5-4          Middleware to access a smart card 
ii  libreadline6            6.1-3            GNU readline and history libraries
ii  libssl0.9.8             0.9.8o-4squeeze3 SSL shared libraries
ii  lsb-base                3.2-23.2squeeze1 Linux Standard Base 3.2 init scrip

wpasupplicant recommends no packages.

Versions of packages wpasupplicant suggests:
pn  libengine-pkcs11-openssl      <none>     (no description available)
ii  wpagui                        0.6.10-2.1 graphical user interface for wpa_s

-- no debconf information