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6 .TH "WPA_SUPPLICANT" "8" "02 December 2018" "" ""
9 wpa_supplicant \- Wi-Fi Protected Access client and IEEE 802.1X supplicant
12 \fBwpa_supplicant\fR [ \fB-BddfhKLqqsTtuvW\fR ] [ \fB-i\fIifname\fB\fR ] [ \fB-c\fIconfig file\fB\fR ] [ \fB-D\fIdriver\fB\fR ] [ \fB-P\fIPID_file\fB\fR ] [ \fB-f\fIoutput file\fB\fR ]
16 Wireless networks do not require physical access to the network equipment
17 in the same way as wired networks. This makes it easier for unauthorized
18 users to passively monitor a network and capture all transmitted frames.
19 In addition, unauthorized use of the network is much easier. In many cases,
20 this can happen even without user's explicit knowledge since the wireless
21 LAN adapter may have been configured to automatically join any available
24 Link-layer encryption can be used to provide a layer of security for
25 wireless networks. The original wireless LAN standard, IEEE 802.11,
26 included a simple encryption mechanism, WEP. However, that proved to
27 be flawed in many areas and network protected with WEP cannot be consider
28 secure. IEEE 802.1X authentication and frequently changed dynamic WEP keys
29 can be used to improve the network security, but even that has inherited
30 security issues due to the use of WEP for encryption. Wi-Fi Protected
31 Access and IEEE 802.11i amendment to the wireless LAN standard introduce
32 a much improvement mechanism for securing wireless networks. IEEE 802.11i
33 enabled networks that are using CCMP (encryption mechanism based on strong
34 cryptographic algorithm AES) can finally be called secure used for
35 applications which require efficient protection against unauthorized
38 \fBwpa_supplicant\fR is an implementation of
39 the WPA Supplicant component, i.e., the part that runs in the
40 client stations. It implements WPA key negotiation with a WPA
41 Authenticator and EAP authentication with Authentication
42 Server. In addition, it controls the roaming and IEEE 802.11
43 authentication/association of the wireless LAN driver.
45 \fBwpa_supplicant\fR is designed to be a
46 "daemon" program that runs in the background and acts as the
47 backend component controlling the wireless
48 connection. \fBwpa_supplicant\fR supports separate
49 frontend programs and an example text-based frontend,
50 \fBwpa_cli\fR, is included with
53 Before wpa_supplicant can do its work, the network interface
54 must be available. That means that the physical device must be
55 present and enabled, and the driver for the device must be
56 loaded. The daemon will exit immediately if the device is not already
59 After \fBwpa_supplicant\fR has configured the
60 network device, higher level configuration such as DHCP may
61 proceed. There are a variety of ways to integrate wpa_supplicant
62 into a machine's networking scripts, a few of which are described
65 The following steps are used when associating with an AP
69 \fBwpa_supplicant\fR requests the kernel
70 driver to scan neighboring BSSes
73 \fBwpa_supplicant\fR selects a BSS based on
77 \fBwpa_supplicant\fR requests the kernel
78 driver to associate with the chosen BSS
81 If WPA-EAP: integrated IEEE 802.1X Supplicant
82 completes EAP authentication with the
83 authentication server (proxied by the Authenticator in the
87 If WPA-EAP: master key is received from the IEEE 802.1X
91 If WPA-PSK: \fBwpa_supplicant\fR uses PSK
92 as the master session key
95 \fBwpa_supplicant\fR completes WPA 4-Way
96 Handshake and Group Key Handshake with the Authenticator
100 \fBwpa_supplicant\fR configures encryption
101 keys for unicast and broadcast
104 normal data packets can be transmitted and received
105 .SH "SUPPORTED FEATURES"
107 Supported WPA/IEEE 802.11i features:
110 WPA-PSK ("WPA-Personal")
113 WPA with EAP (e.g., with RADIUS authentication server)
114 ("WPA-Enterprise") Following authentication methods are
115 supported with an integrate IEEE 802.1X Supplicant:
124 EAP-PEAP/MSCHAPv2 (both PEAPv0 and PEAPv1)
127 EAP-PEAP/TLS (both PEAPv0 and PEAPv1)
130 EAP-PEAP/GTC (both PEAPv0 and PEAPv1)
133 EAP-PEAP/OTP (both PEAPv0 and PEAPv1)
136 EAP-PEAP/MD5-Challenge (both PEAPv0 and PEAPv1)
139 EAP-TTLS/EAP-MD5-Challenge
148 EAP-TTLS/EAP-MSCHAPv2
178 LEAP (note: requires special support from
179 the driver for IEEE 802.11 authentication)
182 (following methods are supported, but since
183 they do not generate keying material, they cannot be used
184 with WPA or IEEE 802.1X WEP keying)
200 key management for CCMP, TKIP, WEP104, WEP40
203 RSN/WPA2 (IEEE 802.11i)
212 .SH "AVAILABLE DRIVERS"
214 A summary of available driver backends is below. Support for each
215 of the driver backends is chosen at wpa_supplicant compile time. For a
216 list of supported driver backends that may be used with the -D option on
217 your system, refer to the help output of wpa_supplicant
218 (\fBwpa_supplicant -h\fR).
221 Linux wireless extensions (generic).
224 wpa_supplicant wired Ethernet driver
227 wpa_supplicant Broadcom switch driver
230 BSD 802.11 support (Atheros, etc.).
234 .SH "COMMAND LINE OPTIONS"
236 Most command line options have global scope. Some are given per
237 interface, and are only valid if at least one \fB-i\fR option
238 is specified, otherwise they're ignored. Option groups for different
239 interfaces must be separated by \fB-N\fR option.
242 Optional bridge interface name. (Per interface)
245 Run daemon in the background.
248 Path to configuration file. (Per interface)
250 \fB-C ctrl_interface\fR
251 Path to ctrl_interface socket (Per interface. Only used if
255 Interface to listen on. Multiple instances of this option can
256 be present, one per interface, separated by \fB-N\fR
260 Increase debugging verbosity (\fB-dd\fR even
264 Driver to use (can be multiple drivers: nl80211,wext).
265 (Per interface, see the available options below.)
267 \fB-e entropy file\fR
268 File for \fBwpa_supplicant\fR to use to
269 maintain its internal entropy store in over restarts.
272 Log output to specified file instead of stdout. (This
273 is only available if \fBwpa_supplicant\fR was
274 built with the CONFIG_DEBUG_FILE
277 \fB-g global ctrl_interface\fR
278 Path to global ctrl_interface socket. If specified, interface
279 definitions may be omitted.
282 Include keys (passwords, etc.) in debug output.
285 Help. Show a usage message.
290 \fB-o override driver\fR
291 Override the driver parameter for new
294 \fB-O override ctrl_interface\fR
295 Override the ctrl_interface parameter for new
299 Driver parameters. (Per interface)
305 Decrease debugging verbosity (\fB-qq\fR even
309 Log output to syslog instead of stdout. (This is only
310 available if \fBwpa_supplicant\fR was built
311 with the CONFIG_DEBUG_SYSLOG
315 Log output to Linux tracing in addition to any other
316 destinations. (This is only available
317 if \fBwpa_supplicant\fR was built with
318 the CONFIG_DEBUG_LINUX_TRACING
322 Include timestamp in debug messages.
325 Enable DBus control interface. If enabled, interface
326 definitions may be omitted. (This is only available
327 if \fBwpa_supplicant\fR was built with
328 the CONFIG_DBUS option.)
334 Wait for a control interface monitor before starting.
337 Start describing new interface.
340 In most common cases, \fBwpa_supplicant\fR is
346 wpa_supplicant -B -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -iwlan0
350 This makes the process fork into background.
352 The easiest way to debug problems, and to get debug log for
353 bug reports, is to start \fBwpa_supplicant\fR on
354 foreground with debugging enabled:
359 wpa_supplicant -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -iwlan0 -d
363 If the specific driver wrapper is not known beforehand, it is
364 possible to specify multiple comma separated driver wrappers on the command
365 line. \fBwpa_supplicant\fR will use the first driver
366 wrapper that is able to initialize the interface.
371 wpa_supplicant -Dnl80211,wext -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -iwlan0
375 \fBwpa_supplicant\fR can control multiple
376 interfaces (radios) either by running one process for each
377 interface separately or by running just one process and list of
378 options at command line. Each interface is separated with -N
379 argument. As an example, following command would start
380 wpa_supplicant for two interfaces:
386 -c wpa1.conf -i wlan0 -D nl80211 -N \\
387 -c wpa2.conf -i ath0 -D wext
390 .SH "OS REQUIREMENTS"
392 Current hardware/software requirements:
395 Linux kernel 2.4.x or 2.6.x with Linux Wireless
396 Extensions v15 or newer
402 Microsoft Windows with WinPcap (at least WinXP, may work
404 .SH "SUPPORTED DRIVERS"
406 \fBLinux wireless extensions\fR
407 In theory, any driver that supports Linux wireless
408 extensions can be used with IEEE 802.1X (i.e., not WPA) when
409 using ap_scan=0 option in configuration file.
411 \fBWired Ethernet drivers\fR
414 \fBBSD net80211 layer (e.g., Atheros driver)\fR
415 At the moment, this is for FreeBSD 6-CURRENT branch.
418 The current Windows port requires WinPcap
419 (http://winpcap.polito.it/). See README-Windows.txt for more
422 wpa_supplicant was designed to be portable for different
423 drivers and operating systems. Hopefully, support for more wlan
424 cards and OSes will be added in the future. See developer.txt for
425 more information about the design of wpa_supplicant and porting to
426 other drivers. One main goal is to add full WPA/WPA2 support to
427 Linux wireless extensions to allow new drivers to be supported
428 without having to implement new driver-specific interface code in
433 \fBwpa_supplicant\fR system consists of the following
436 \fB\fIwpa_supplicant.conf\fB \fR
437 the configuration file describing all networks that the
438 user wants the computer to connect to.
441 the program that directly interacts with the
446 client program that provides a high-level interface to the
447 functionality of the daemon.
450 a utility needed to construct
451 \fIwpa_supplicant.conf\fR files that include
455 First, make a configuration file, e.g.
456 \fI/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf\fR, that describes the networks
457 you are interested in. See \fBwpa_supplicant.conf\fR(5)
460 Once the configuration is ready, you can test whether the
461 configuration works by running \fBwpa_supplicant\fR
462 with following command to start it on foreground with debugging
468 wpa_supplicant -iwlan0 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -d
473 Assuming everything goes fine, you can start using following
474 command to start \fBwpa_supplicant\fR on background
480 wpa_supplicant -iwlan0 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -B
485 Please note that if you included more than one driver
486 interface in the build time configuration (.config), you may need
487 to specify which interface to use by including -D<driver
488 name> option on the command line.
489 .SH "INTERFACE TO PCMCIA-CS/CARDMRG"
491 For example, following small changes to pcmcia-cs scripts
492 can be used to enable WPA support:
494 Add MODE="Managed" and WPA="y" to the network scheme in
495 \fI/etc/pcmcia/wireless.opts\fR\&.
497 Add the following block to the end of \fBstart\fR
498 action handler in \fI/etc/pcmcia/wireless\fR:
503 if [ "$WPA" = "y" -a -x /usr/local/bin/wpa_supplicant ]; then
504 /usr/local/bin/wpa_supplicant -B -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -i$DEVICE
510 Add the following block to the end of \fBstop\fR
511 action handler (may need to be separated from other actions) in
512 \fI/etc/pcmcia/wireless\fR:
517 if [ "$WPA" = "y" -a -x /usr/local/bin/wpa_supplicant ]; then
518 killall wpa_supplicant
524 This will make \fBcardmgr\fR start
525 \fBwpa_supplicant\fR when the card is plugged
529 \fBwpa_background\fR(8)
530 \fBwpa_supplicant.conf\fR(5)
532 \fBwpa_passphrase\fR(8)
535 wpa_supplicant is copyright (c) 2003-2018,
536 Jouni Malinen <j@w1.fi> and
540 This program is licensed under the BSD license (the one with
541 advertisement clause removed).