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6 .TH "WPA_SUPPLICANT" "8" "15 February 2009" "" ""
9 wpa_supplicant \- Wi-Fi Protected Access client and IEEE 802.1X supplicant
12 \fBwpa_supplicant\fR [ \fB-BddfhKLqqtuvW\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 (default) Host AP driver (Intersil Prism2/2.5/3).
222 (this can also be used with Linuxant DriverLoader).
225 Agere Systems Inc. driver (Hermes-I/Hermes-II).
228 MADWIFI 802.11 support (Atheros, etc.).
231 ATMEL AT76C5XXx (USB, PCMCIA).
234 Linux wireless extensions (generic).
240 Broadcom wl.o driver.
243 Intel ipw2100/2200 driver.
246 wpa_supplicant wired Ethernet driver
249 wpa_supplicant Broadcom switch driver
252 BSD 802.11 support (Atheros, etc.).
256 .SH "COMMAND LINE OPTIONS"
258 Most command line options have global scope. Some are given per
259 interface, and are only valid if at least one \fB-i\fR option
260 is specified, otherwise they're ignored. Option groups for different
261 interfaces must be separated by \fB-N\fR option.
264 Optional bridge interface name. (Per interface)
267 Run daemon in the background.
270 Path to configuration file. (Per interface)
272 \fB-C ctrl_interface\fR
273 Path to ctrl_interface socket (Per interface. Only used if
277 Interface to listen on. Multiple instances of this option can
278 be present, one per interface, separated by \fB-N\fR
282 Increase debugging verbosity (\fB-dd\fR even
286 Driver to use. (Per interface, see the available options
290 Log output to specified file instead of stdout.
292 \fB-g global ctrl_interface\fR
293 Path to global ctrl_interface socket. If specified, interface
294 definitions may be omitted.
297 Include keys (passwords, etc.) in debug output.
300 Include timestamp in debug messages.
303 Help. Show a usage message.
306 Show license (GPL and BSD).
309 Driver parameters. (Per interface)
315 Decrease debugging verbosity (\fB-qq\fR even
319 Enabled DBus control interface. If enabled, interface
320 definitions may be omitted.
326 Wait for a control interface monitor before starting.
329 Start describing new interface.
332 In most common cases, \fBwpa_supplicant\fR is
338 wpa_supplicant -B -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -iwlan0
342 This makes the process fork into background.
344 The easiest way to debug problems, and to get debug log for
345 bug reports, is to start \fBwpa_supplicant\fR on
346 foreground with debugging enabled:
351 wpa_supplicant -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -iwlan0 -d
355 \fBwpa_supplicant\fR can control multiple
356 interfaces (radios) either by running one process for each
357 interface separately or by running just one process and list of
358 options at command line. Each interface is separated with -N
359 argument. As an example, following command would start
360 wpa_supplicant for two interfaces:
366 -c wpa1.conf -i wlan0 -D hostap -N \\
367 -c wpa2.conf -i ath0 -D madwifi
370 .SH "OS REQUIREMENTS"
372 Current hardware/software requirements:
375 Linux kernel 2.4.x or 2.6.x with Linux Wireless
376 Extensions v15 or newer
382 Microsoft Windows with WinPcap (at least WinXP, may work
384 .SH "SUPPORTED DRIVERS"
386 \fBHost AP driver for Prism2/2.5/3 (development snapshot/v0.2.x)\fR
387 (http://hostap.epitest.fi/) Driver needs to be set in
388 Managed mode (\fBiwconfig wlan0 mode managed\fR).
389 Please note that station firmware version needs to be 1.7.0 or
390 newer to work in WPA mode.
392 \fBLinuxant DriverLoader\fR
393 (http://www.linuxant.com/driverloader/)
394 with Windows NDIS driver for your wlan card supporting WPA.
396 \fBAgere Systems Inc. Linux Driver\fR
397 (http://www.agere.com/support/drivers/) Please note
398 that the driver interface file (driver_hermes.c) and hardware
399 specific include files are not included in the wpa_supplicant
400 distribution. You will need to copy these from the source
401 package of the Agere driver.
403 \fBmadwifi driver for cards based on Atheros chip set (ar521x)\fR
404 (http://sourceforge.net/projects/madwifi/) Please
405 note that you will need to modify the wpa_supplicant .config
406 file to use the correct path for the madwifi driver root
407 directory (CFLAGS += -I../madwifi/wpa line in example
410 \fBATMEL AT76C5XXx driver for USB and PCMCIA cards\fR
411 (http://atmelwlandriver.sourceforge.net/).
413 \fBLinux ndiswrapper\fR
414 (http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/) with Windows
417 \fBBroadcom wl.o driver\fR
418 This is a generic Linux driver for Broadcom IEEE
419 802.11a/g cards. However, it is proprietary driver that is
420 not publicly available except for couple of exceptions, mainly
421 Broadcom-based APs/wireless routers that use Linux. The driver
422 binary can be downloaded, e.g., from Linksys support site
423 (http://www.linksys.com/support/gpl.asp) for Linksys
424 WRT54G. The GPL tarball includes cross-compiler and the needed
425 header file, wlioctl.h, for compiling wpa_supplicant. This
426 driver support in wpa_supplicant is expected to work also with
427 other devices based on Broadcom driver (assuming the driver
428 includes client mode support).
430 \fB Intel ipw2100 driver\fR
431 (http://sourceforge.net/projects/ipw2100/)
433 \fBIntel ipw2200 driver\fR
434 (http://sourceforge.net/projects/ipw2200/)
436 \fBLinux wireless extensions\fR
437 In theory, any driver that supports Linux wireless
438 extensions can be used with IEEE 802.1X (i.e., not WPA) when
439 using ap_scan=0 option in configuration file.
441 \fBWired Ethernet drivers\fR
444 \fBBSD net80211 layer (e.g., Atheros driver)\fR
445 At the moment, this is for FreeBSD 6-CURRENT branch.
448 The current Windows port requires WinPcap
449 (http://winpcap.polito.it/). See README-Windows.txt for more
452 wpa_supplicant was designed to be portable for different
453 drivers and operating systems. Hopefully, support for more wlan
454 cards and OSes will be added in the future. See developer.txt for
455 more information about the design of wpa_supplicant and porting to
456 other drivers. One main goal is to add full WPA/WPA2 support to
457 Linux wireless extensions to allow new drivers to be supported
458 without having to implement new driver-specific interface code in
463 \fBwpa_supplicant\fR system consists of the following
466 \fB\fIwpa_supplicant.conf\fB \fR
467 the configuration file describing all networks that the
468 user wants the computer to connect to.
471 the program that directly interacts with the
476 client program that provides a high-level interface to the
477 functionality of the daemon.
480 a utility needed to construct
481 \fIwpa_supplicant.conf\fR files that include
485 First, make a configuration file, e.g.
486 \fI/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf\fR, that describes the networks
487 you are interested in. See \fBwpa_supplicant.conf\fR(5)
490 Once the configuration is ready, you can test whether the
491 configuration works by running \fBwpa_supplicant\fR
492 with following command to start it on foreground with debugging
498 wpa_supplicant -iwlan0 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -d
503 Assuming everything goes fine, you can start using following
504 command to start \fBwpa_supplicant\fR on background
510 wpa_supplicant -iwlan0 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -B
515 Please note that if you included more than one driver
516 interface in the build time configuration (.config), you may need
517 to specify which interface to use by including -D<driver
518 name> option on the command line.
519 .SH "INTERFACE TO PCMCIA-CS/CARDMRG"
521 For example, following small changes to pcmcia-cs scripts
522 can be used to enable WPA support:
524 Add MODE="Managed" and WPA="y" to the network scheme in
525 \fI/etc/pcmcia/wireless.opts\fR\&.
527 Add the following block to the end of \fBstart\fR
528 action handler in \fI/etc/pcmcia/wireless\fR:
533 if [ "$WPA" = "y" -a -x /usr/local/bin/wpa_supplicant ]; then
534 /usr/local/bin/wpa_supplicant -B -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -i$DEVICE
540 Add the following block to the end of \fBstop\fR
541 action handler (may need to be separated from other actions) in
542 \fI/etc/pcmcia/wireless\fR:
547 if [ "$WPA" = "y" -a -x /usr/local/bin/wpa_supplicant ]; then
548 killall wpa_supplicant
554 This will make \fBcardmgr\fR start
555 \fBwpa_supplicant\fR when the card is plugged
559 \fBwpa_background\fR(8)
560 \fBwpa_supplicant.conf\fR(5)
562 \fBwpa_passphrase\fR(8)
565 wpa_supplicant is copyright (c) 2003-2007,
566 Jouni Malinen <j@w1.fi> and
570 This program is dual-licensed under both the GPL version 2
571 and BSD license. Either license may be used at your option.