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6 .TH "WPA_SUPPLICANT" "8" "19 February 2008" "" ""
9 wpa_supplicant \- Wi-Fi Protected Access client and IEEE 802.1X supplicant
12 \fBwpa_supplicant\fR [ \fB-BddfhKLqqtuvwW\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 have be
56 loaded. Note, however, that the '-w' option of the wpa_supplicant
57 daemon instructs the daemon to continue running and to wait for
58 the interface to become available. Without the '-w' option, the
59 daemon will exit immediately if the device is not already
62 After \fBwpa_supplicant\fR has configured the
63 network device, higher level configuration such as DHCP may
64 proceed. There are a variety of ways to integrate wpa_supplicant
65 into a machine's networking scripts, a few of which are described
68 The following steps are used when associating with an AP
72 \fBwpa_supplicant\fR requests the kernel
73 driver to scan neighboring BSSes
76 \fBwpa_supplicant\fR selects a BSS based on
80 \fBwpa_supplicant\fR requests the kernel
81 driver to associate with the chosen BSS
84 If WPA-EAP: integrated IEEE 802.1X Supplicant or
85 external Xsupplicant completes EAP authentication with the
86 authentication server (proxied by the Authenticator in the
90 If WPA-EAP: master key is received from the IEEE 802.1X
94 If WPA-PSK: \fBwpa_supplicant\fR uses PSK
95 as the master session key
98 \fBwpa_supplicant\fR completes WPA 4-Way
99 Handshake and Group Key Handshake with the Authenticator
103 \fBwpa_supplicant\fR configures encryption
104 keys for unicast and broadcast
107 normal data packets can be transmitted and received
108 .SH "SUPPORTED FEATURES"
110 Supported WPA/IEEE 802.11i features:
113 WPA-PSK ("WPA-Personal")
116 WPA with EAP (e.g., with RADIUS authentication server)
117 ("WPA-Enterprise") Following authentication methods are
118 supported with an integrate IEEE 802.1X Supplicant:
127 EAP-PEAP/MSCHAPv2 (both PEAPv0 and PEAPv1)
130 EAP-PEAP/TLS (both PEAPv0 and PEAPv1)
133 EAP-PEAP/GTC (both PEAPv0 and PEAPv1)
136 EAP-PEAP/OTP (both PEAPv0 and PEAPv1)
139 EAP-PEAP/MD5-Challenge (both PEAPv0 and PEAPv1)
142 EAP-TTLS/EAP-MD5-Challenge
151 EAP-TTLS/EAP-MSCHAPv2
181 LEAP (note: requires special support from
182 the driver for IEEE 802.11 authentication)
185 (following methods are supported, but since
186 they do not generate keying material, they cannot be used
187 with WPA or IEEE 802.1X WEP keying)
203 key management for CCMP, TKIP, WEP104, WEP40
206 RSN/WPA2 (IEEE 802.11i)
215 .SH "AVAILABLE DRIVERS"
217 The available drivers to specify with the -D option are:
220 (default) Host AP driver (Intersil Prism2/2.5/3).
221 (this can also be used with Linuxant DriverLoader).
224 Agere Systems Inc. driver (Hermes-I/Hermes-II).
227 MADWIFI 802.11 support (Atheros, etc.).
230 ATMEL AT76C5XXx (USB, PCMCIA).
233 Linux wireless extensions (generic).
239 Broadcom wl.o driver.
242 Intel ipw2100/2200 driver.
245 wpa_supplicant wired Ethernet driver
248 BSD 802.11 support (Atheros, etc.).
252 .SH "COMMAND LINE OPTIONS"
255 Run daemon in the background.
258 Interface to listen on.
261 Path to configuration file.
266 \fB-C ctrl_interface\fR
267 Path to ctrl_interface socket (only used if -c is not).
269 \fB-g global ctrl_interface\fR
270 Path to global ctrl_interface socket.
273 Driver to use. See the available options below.
276 Log output to specified file instead of stdout.
279 Increase debugging verbosity (-dd even more).
282 Include keys (passwords, etc.) in debug output.
285 Include timestamp in debug messages.
288 Use external IEEE 802.1X Supplicant (e.g.,
289 \fBxsupplicant\fR) (this disables the internal
293 Help. Show a usage message.
296 Show license (GPL and BSD).
299 Decrease debugging verbosity (-qq even less).
305 wait for interface to be added, if needed. normally,
306 \fBwpa_supplicant\fR will exit if the interface
310 Start describing new interface.
313 In most common cases, \fBwpa_supplicant\fR is
319 wpa_supplicant -Bw -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -iwlan0
323 This makes the process fork into background and wait for the wlan0
324 interface if it is not available at startup time.
326 The easiest way to debug problems, and to get debug log for
327 bug reports, is to start \fBwpa_supplicant\fR on
328 foreground with debugging enabled:
333 wpa_supplicant -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -iwlan0 -d
337 \fBwpa_supplicant\fR can control multiple
338 interfaces (radios) either by running one process for each
339 interface separately or by running just one process and list of
340 options at command line. Each interface is separated with -N
341 argument. As an example, following command would start
342 wpa_supplicant for two interfaces:
348 -c wpa1.conf -i wlan0 -D hostap -N \\
349 -c wpa2.conf -i ath0 -D madwifi
352 .SH "OS REQUIREMENTS"
354 Current hardware/software requirements:
357 Linux kernel 2.4.x or 2.6.x with Linux Wireless
358 Extensions v15 or newer
364 Microsoft Windows with WinPcap (at least WinXP, may work
366 .SH "SUPPORTED DRIVERS"
368 \fBHost AP driver for Prism2/2.5/3 (development snapshot/v0.2.x)\fR
369 (http://hostap.epitest.fi/) Driver needs to be set in
370 Managed mode ('iwconfig wlan0 mode managed'). Please note
371 that station firmware version needs to be 1.7.0 or newer to
374 \fBLinuxant DriverLoader\fR
375 (http://www.linuxant.com/driverloader/)
376 with Windows NDIS driver for your wlan card supporting WPA.
378 \fBAgere Systems Inc. Linux Driver\fR
379 (http://www.agere.com/support/drivers/) Please note
380 that the driver interface file (driver_hermes.c) and hardware
381 specific include files are not included in the wpa_supplicant
382 distribution. You will need to copy these from the source
383 package of the Agere driver.
385 \fBmadwifi driver for cards based on Atheros chip set (ar521x)\fR
386 (http://sourceforge.net/projects/madwifi/) Please
387 note that you will need to modify the wpa_supplicant .config
388 file to use the correct path for the madwifi driver root
389 directory (CFLAGS += -I../madwifi/wpa line in example
392 \fBATMEL AT76C5XXx driver for USB and PCMCIA cards\fR
393 (http://atmelwlandriver.sourceforge.net/).
395 \fBLinux ndiswrapper\fR
396 (http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/) with Windows
399 \fBBroadcom wl.o driver\fR
400 This is a generic Linux driver for Broadcom IEEE
401 802.11a/g cards. However, it is proprietary driver that is
402 not publicly available except for couple of exceptions, mainly
403 Broadcom-based APs/wireless routers that use Linux. The driver
404 binary can be downloaded, e.g., from Linksys support site
405 (http://www.linksys.com/support/gpl.asp) for Linksys
406 WRT54G. The GPL tarball includes cross-compiler and the needed
407 header file, wlioctl.h, for compiling wpa_supplicant. This
408 driver support in wpa_supplicant is expected to work also with
409 other devices based on Broadcom driver (assuming the driver
410 includes client mode support).
412 \fB Intel ipw2100 driver\fR
413 (http://sourceforge.net/projects/ipw2100/)
415 \fBIntel ipw2200 driver\fR
416 (http://sourceforge.net/projects/ipw2200/)
418 \fBLinux wireless extensions\fR
419 In theory, any driver that supports Linux wireless
420 extensions can be used with IEEE 802.1X (i.e., not WPA) when
421 using ap_scan=0 option in configuration file.
423 \fBWired Ethernet drivers\fR
426 \fBBSD net80211 layer (e.g., Atheros driver)\fR
427 At the moment, this is for FreeBSD 6-CURRENT branch.
430 The current Windows port requires WinPcap
431 (http://winpcap.polito.it/). See README-Windows.txt for more
434 wpa_supplicant was designed to be portable for different
435 drivers and operating systems. Hopefully, support for more wlan
436 cards and OSes will be added in the future. See developer.txt for
437 more information about the design of wpa_supplicant and porting to
438 other drivers. One main goal is to add full WPA/WPA2 support to
439 Linux wireless extensions to allow new drivers to be supported
440 without having to implement new driver-specific interface code in
445 \fBwpa_supplicant\fR system consists of the following
448 \fB\fIwpa_supplicant.conf\fB \fR
449 the configuration file describing all networks that the
450 user wants the computer to connect to.
453 the program that directly interacts with the
458 client program that provides a high-level interface to the
459 functionality of the daemon.
462 a utility needed to construct
463 \fIwpa_supplicant.conf\fR files that include
467 First, make a configuration file, e.g.
468 \fI/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf\fR, that describes the networks
469 you are interested in. See \fBwpa_supplicant.conf\fR(5)
472 Once the configuration is ready, you can test whether the
473 configuration works by running \fBwpa_supplicant\fR
474 with following command to start it on foreground with debugging
480 wpa_supplicant -iwlan0 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -d
485 Assuming everything goes fine, you can start using following
486 command to start \fBwpa_supplicant\fR on background
492 wpa_supplicant -iwlan0 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -B
497 Please note that if you included more than one driver
498 interface in the build time configuration (.config), you may need
499 to specify which interface to use by including -D<driver
500 name> option on the command line.
501 .SH "INTERFACE TO PCMCIA-CS/CARDMRG"
503 For example, following small changes to pcmcia-cs scripts
504 can be used to enable WPA support:
506 Add MODE="Managed" and WPA="y" to the network scheme in
507 \fI/etc/pcmcia/wireless.opts\fR\&.
509 Add the following block to the end of 'start' action handler
510 in \fI/etc/pcmcia/wireless\fR:
515 if [ "$WPA" = "y" -a -x /usr/local/bin/wpa_supplicant ]; then
516 /usr/local/bin/wpa_supplicant -Bw -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -i$DEVICE
522 Add the following block to the end of 'stop' action handler
523 (may need to be separated from other actions) in
524 \fI/etc/pcmcia/wireless\fR:
529 if [ "$WPA" = "y" -a -x /usr/local/bin/wpa_supplicant ]; then
530 killall wpa_supplicant
536 This will make \fBcardmgr\fR start
537 \fBwpa_supplicant\fR when the card is plugged
538 in. \fBwpa_supplicant\fR will wait until the
539 interface is set up--either when a static IP address is configured
540 or when DHCP client is started--and will then negotiate keys with
544 \fBwpa_background\fR(8)
545 \fBwpa_supplicant.conf\fR(5)
547 \fBwpa_passphrase\fR(8)
550 wpa_supplicant is copyright (c) 2003-2005,
551 Jouni Malinen <j@w1.fi> and
555 This program is dual-licensed under both the GPL version 2
556 and BSD license. Either license may be used at your option.