Joe Emenaker wrote:
Freddy Freeloader wrote:
Joe Emenaker wrote:
Stuart Prescott wrote:
[1] <rant>Long story... when I was setting this system up that was
the recommended way to do it. It worked really well for me. Then
the wpa_supplicant maintainers changed their minds...
I was similarly pissed about the change....
I have never had this specific problem, but I ran into the confusing
change in wpa_supplicant on a laptop rebuild a while back. I figured
that change out and actually thought it was quite an improvement.
Okay, I did some reading and have cleared up my understanding of the
current state of wpasupplicant.
First, to recap... if you look in
/usr/share/doc/wpasupplicant/NEWS.Debian, you'll come across the
message that most people discovered too late:
-- Kel Modderman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Tue, 13 Jun 2006 22:33:16 +1000
IF YOU HAVE USED WPASUPPLICANT BEFORE, THIS UPGRADE PROBABLY BROKE
YOUR
CONNECTION!
This package does not ship any configuration to wpasupplicant in
/etc/{wpa_supplicant/,}wpa{,_}supplicant.conf anymore.
...
... Therefore, in order to actually use wpasupplicant in this
package, you are required to edit your /etc/network/interfaces in
order to start wpasupplicant. Please read the file README.modes...
The "old way" was to have your wifi interfaces *not* set to auto in
/etc/network/interfaces, and then to start wpasupplicant which would
automatically ifup/ifdown the interface when it associated with an AP.
The maintainers decided that they didn't like this. They wanted more
of the network info to be kept in /etc/network/interfaces whenever
possible.... so ifupdown was changed so that it recognized a bunch of
new options, like:
iface ath0 inet static
wpa-driver madwifi
wpa-ssid HotSpot1
wpa-bssid 00:1a:2b:3c:4d:5e
wpa-psk madhotspot
wpa-key-mgmt WPA-PSK
wpa-pairwise TKIP CCMP
wpa-group TKIP CCMP
wpa-proto WPA RSN
This allowed you to keep all of your wifi settings in
/etc/network/interfaces with all of your other stuff. The *problem*,
however, was that you could only specify a single wpa-ssid, a single
WPA key, etc. <sarcasm>This made it great for people with wifi desktop
machines and for laptop users who never take their laptop anywhere. In
other words, about 5% of wpasupplicant's user base</sarcasm>
There's also a bit of a "Chicken or Egg" problem, where you might have
some network settings that need to be set in /etc/network/interfaces,
but you don't know which values to use until wpasupplicant knows which
AP it has associated with, but, under the new system, wpasupplicant
doesn't get run until the interface is ifup'd from
/etc/network/interfaces.
The way they eventually dealt with this seems to be like this:
1 - In your /etc/network/interfaces, you define your wifi interface as
"manual", and you give a path to a conf file for wpasupplicant.
iface eth1 inet manual
wpa-driver wext
wpa-roam /path/to/wpa_supplicant.conf
2 - Also in /etc/network/interfaces, you define some pseudo interface
names which will, later, be referenced by wpasupplicant depending upon
which AP you're connected to:
iface plain_dhcp inet dhcp
iface at_home inet static
address 192.168.0.20
gateway 192.168.0.1
iface at_work inet static
address 12.34.56.78
gateway 12.34.56.1
3 - Then, in your wpasupplicant conf file (the one mentioned in the
"wpa-roam" line), you define the AP's and you use the id_str option to
reference which of these pseudo interfaces to map to:
network={
ssid="HomeSweetHome"
id_str="at_home"
key_mgmt=NONE
}
network={
ssid="BigCorp"
id_str="at_work"
psk=123456789...
}
network={
ssid=""
key_mgmt=NONE
id_str="plain_dhcp"
}
IMHO, it's a little demented to have the settings go from
/etc/network/interfaces, out to a wpasupplicant.conf, and then *back*
into /etc/network/interfaces under a different name... but I can't
think of a better way to do it if they're committed to having
everything go through /etc/network/interfaces, first.
Hope this helps some people....
- Joe
Actually, I can roam without any settings in /etc/network/interfaces
other than my home network settings which uses WPA to secure the
connection. If a reachable access point is open my laptop will make a
connection.
I was surprised that it does, but it does. Since the first connection I
made before I was aware of it I have used my laptop in a couple of
different public libraries that have open access points. Roaming just
seems to work without any configuration. That's a huge improvement over
the way things used to be. I have made no entries in the
wpasupplicant.conf either.
I can see where the current manner of configuration be sort of a hassle
if you use your laptop at work with a wireless connection, but I don't
see how making wpa_supplicant easier to use overall is worth getting as
sarcastic as you got though.
You're obviously running Sid or Etch, and wireless is under heavy
development, so what do you expect? Nothing to ever change? Nothing to
ever break? I think that's an unreasonable assumption myself. I
couldn't imagine how screwed up daily builds of a MS OS would be.
I'll gladly put up with some breakage of older setups if improvements
such as the developers in the wireless area have been making continue to
be made. It's much easier to configure a wireless connection now than
it used to be.
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