wpa_supplicant

WPA_SUPPLICANT(8)                                            WPA_SUPPLICANT(8)

NAME
       wpa_supplicant  - Wi-Fi Protected Access client and IEEE 802.1X suppli-
       cant

SYNOPSIS
       wpa_supplicant [ -BddfhKLqqsTtuvW ] [ -iifname ] [ -cconfig  file  ]  [
       -Ddriver ] [ -PPID_file ] [ -foutput file ]

OVERVIEW
       Wireless  networks do not require physical access to the network equip-
       ment in the same way as wired networks. This makes it easier for  unau-
       thorized users to passively monitor a network and capture all transmit-
       ted frames.  In addition, unauthorized use of the network is much  eas-
       ier. In many cases, this can happen even without user's explicit knowl-
       edge since the wireless LAN adapter may have been configured  to  auto-
       matically join any available network.

       Link-layer  encryption  can  be used to provide a layer of security for
       wireless networks. The original wireless LAN standard, IEEE 802.11, in-
       cluded  a  simple encryption mechanism, WEP. However, that proved to be
       flawed in many areas and network protected with WEP cannot be  consider
       secure.  IEEE  802.1X authentication and frequently changed dynamic WEP
       keys can be used to improve the network security, but even that has in-
       herited  security  issues  due  to the use of WEP for encryption. Wi-Fi
       Protected Access and IEEE 802.11i amendment to the wireless  LAN  stan-
       dard  introduce a much improvement mechanism for securing wireless net-
       works. IEEE 802.11i enabled networks that are  using  CCMP  (encryption
       mechanism  based  on strong cryptographic algorithm AES) can finally be
       called secure used for applications which require efficient  protection
       against unauthorized access.

       wpa_supplicant  is  an  implementation of the WPA Supplicant component,
       i.e., the part that runs in the client stations. It implements WPA  key
       negotiation  with  a  WPA Authenticator and EAP authentication with Au-
       thentication Server. In addition, it  controls  the  roaming  and  IEEE
       802.11 authentication/association of the wireless LAN driver.

       wpa_supplicant  is  designed  to be a "daemon" program that runs in the
       background and acts as the backend component controlling  the  wireless
       connection.  wpa_supplicant  supports separate frontend programs and an
       example text-based frontend, wpa_cli, is included with wpa_supplicant.

       Before wpa_supplicant can do its work, the network  interface  must  be
       available.  That means that the physical device must be present and en-
       abled, and the driver for the device must be loaded.  The  daemon  will
       exit immediately if the device is not already available.

       After  wpa_supplicant  has  configured the network device, higher level
       configuration such as DHCP may proceed.  There are a variety of ways to
       integrate  wpa_supplicant into a machine's networking scripts, a few of
       which are described in sections below.

       The following steps are used when associating with an AP using WPA:

       o wpa_supplicant requests the kernel driver to scan neighboring BSSes

       o wpa_supplicant selects a BSS based on its configuration

       o wpa_supplicant requests the kernel driver to associate with the  cho-
         sen BSS

       o If WPA-EAP: integrated IEEE 802.1X Supplicant completes EAP authenti-
         cation with the authentication server (proxied by  the  Authenticator
         in the AP)

       o If WPA-EAP: master key is received from the IEEE 802.1X Supplicant

       o If WPA-PSK: wpa_supplicant uses PSK as the master session key

       o wpa_supplicant  completes WPA 4-Way Handshake and Group Key Handshake
         with the Authenticator (AP)

       o wpa_supplicant configures encryption keys for unicast and broadcast

       o normal data packets can be transmitted and received

SUPPORTED FEATURES
       Supported WPA/IEEE 802.11i features:

       o WPA-PSK ("WPA-Personal")

       o WPA with EAP (e.g., with RADIUS authentication  server)  ("WPA-Enter-
         prise")  Following authentication methods are supported with an inte-
         grate IEEE 802.1X Supplicant:

         o EAP-TLS

         o EAP-PEAP/MSCHAPv2 (both PEAPv0 and PEAPv1)

         o EAP-PEAP/TLS (both PEAPv0 and PEAPv1)

         o EAP-PEAP/GTC (both PEAPv0 and PEAPv1)

         o EAP-PEAP/OTP (both PEAPv0 and PEAPv1)

         o EAP-PEAP/MD5-Challenge (both PEAPv0 and PEAPv1)

         o EAP-TTLS/EAP-MD5-Challenge

         o EAP-TTLS/EAP-GTC

         o EAP-TTLS/EAP-OTP

         o EAP-TTLS/EAP-MSCHAPv2

         o EAP-TTLS/EAP-TLS

         o EAP-TTLS/MSCHAPv2

         o EAP-TTLS/MSCHAP

         o EAP-TTLS/PAP

         o EAP-TTLS/CHAP

         o EAP-SIM

         o EAP-AKA

         o EAP-PSK

         o EAP-PAX

         o LEAP (note: requires special  support  from  the  driver  for  IEEE
           802.11 authentication)

         o (following  methods  are  supported, but since they do not generate
           keying material, they cannot be used with WPA or  IEEE  802.1X  WEP
           keying)

         o EAP-MD5-Challenge

         o EAP-MSCHAPv2

         o EAP-GTC

         o EAP-OTP

       o key management for CCMP, TKIP, WEP104, WEP40

       o RSN/WPA2 (IEEE 802.11i)

         o pre-authentication

         o PMKSA caching

AVAILABLE DRIVERS
       A  summary  of  available driver backends is below. Support for each of
       the driver backends is chosen at wpa_supplicant  compile  time.  For  a
       list  of  supported driver backends that may be used with the -D option
       on your system, refer to the help output of wpa_supplicant (wpa_suppli-
       cant -h).

       nl80211
              Uses  the  modern Linux nl80211/cfg80211 netlink-based interface
              (most new drivers).

       wext   Uses the legacy Linux wireless extensions ioctl-based  interface
              (older hardware/drivers).

       wired  wpa_supplicant wired Ethernet driver

       roboswitch
              wpa_supplicant Broadcom switch driver

       bsd    BSD 802.11 support (Atheros, etc.).

       ndis   Windows NDIS driver.

COMMAND LINE OPTIONS
       Most  command line options have global scope. Some are given per inter-
       face, and are only valid if at least one -i option is specified, other-
       wise  they're  ignored.  Option groups for different interfaces must be
       separated by -N option.

       -b br_ifname
              Optional bridge interface name. (Per interface)

       -B     Run daemon in the background.

       -c filename
              Path to configuration file. (Per interface)

       -C ctrl_interface
              Path to ctrl_interface socket (Per interface. Only used if -c is
              not).

       -i ifname
              Interface to listen on. Multiple instances of this option can be
              present, one per interface, separated by -N option (see below).

       -d     Increase debugging verbosity (-dd even more).

       -D driver
              Driver to use (can be multiple drivers: nl80211,wext).  (Per in-
              terface, see the available options below.)

       -e entropy file
              File  for wpa_supplicant to use to maintain its internal entropy
              store in over restarts.

       -f output file
              Log output to specified file instead of stdout.  (This  is  only
              available if wpa_supplicant was built with the CONFIG_DEBUG_FILE
              option.)

       -g global ctrl_interface
              Path to global ctrl_interface socket.  If  specified,  interface
              definitions may be omitted.

       -K     Include keys (passwords, etc.) in debug output.

       -h     Help.  Show a usage message.

       -L     Show license (BSD).

       -o override driver
              Override the driver parameter for new interfaces.

       -O override ctrl_interface
              Override the ctrl_interface parameter for new interfaces.

       -p     Driver parameters. (Per interface)

       -P PID_file
              Path to PID file.

       -q     Decrease debugging verbosity (-qq even less).

       -s     Log  output to syslog instead of stdout. (This is only available
              if wpa_supplicant was built  with  the  CONFIG_DEBUG_SYSLOG  op-
              tion.)

       -T     Log  output  to  Linux tracing in addition to any other destina-
              tions. (This is only available if wpa_supplicant was built  with
              the CONFIG_DEBUG_LINUX_TRACING option.)

       -t     Include timestamp in debug messages.

       -u     Enable DBus control interface. If enabled, interface definitions
              may be omitted. (This is only available  if  wpa_supplicant  was
              built with the CONFIG_CTRL_IFACE_DBUS_NEW option.)

       -v     Show version.

       -W     Wait for a control interface monitor before starting.

       -N     Start describing new interface.

EXAMPLES
       In most common cases, wpa_supplicant is started with:

              wpa_supplicant -B -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -iwlan0

       This makes the process fork into background.

       The  easiest  way  to  debug problems, and to get debug log for bug re-
       ports, is to start wpa_supplicant on foreground with debugging enabled:

              wpa_supplicant -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -iwlan0 -d

       If the specific driver wrapper is not known beforehand, it is  possible
       to  specify  multiple  comma  separated  driver wrappers on the command
       line. wpa_supplicant will use the first driver wrapper that is able  to
       initialize the interface.

              wpa_supplicant -Dnl80211,wext -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -iwlan0

       wpa_supplicant  can control multiple interfaces (radios) either by run-
       ning one process for each interface separately or by running  just  one
       process  and  list  of options at command line. Each interface is sepa-
       rated with -N argument. As an example, following  command  would  start
       wpa_supplicant for two interfaces:

              wpa_supplicant \
                   -c wpa1.conf -i wlan0 -D nl80211 -N \
                   -c wpa2.conf -i ath0 -D wext

OS REQUIREMENTS
       Current hardware/software requirements:

       o Linux kernel 2.6.30 or higher with nl80211/cfg80211 support

       o Linux  kernel  2.4.x  or higher with Linux Wireless Extensions v15 or
         newer

       o FreeBSD 6-CURRENT

       o Microsoft Windows with WinPcap (at least WinXP, may work  with  other
         versions)

SUPPORTED DRIVERS
       Linux nl80211/cfg80211
              This is the preferred driver for Linux.

       Linux wireless extensions
              In  theory,  any  driver that supports Linux wireless extensions
              can be  used  with  IEEE  802.1X  (i.e.,  not  WPA)  when  using
              ap_scan=0 option in configuration file.

       Wired Ethernet drivers
              Use ap_scan=0.

       BSD net80211 layer (e.g., Atheros driver)
              At the moment, this is for FreeBSD 6-CURRENT branch.

       Windows NDIS
              The   current   Windows   port   requires  WinPcap  (http://win-
              pcap.polito.it/).  See README-Windows.txt for more information.

       wpa_supplicant was designed to be portable for  different  drivers  and
       operating systems. Hopefully, support for more wlan cards and OSes will
       be added in the future. See developer.txt for  more  information  about
       the  design  of  wpa_supplicant  and porting to other drivers. One main
       goal is to add full WPA/WPA2 support to Linux  wireless  extensions  to
       allow  new  drivers  to  be  supported  without having to implement new
       driver-specific interface code in wpa_supplicant.

ARCHITECTURE
       The wpa_supplicant system consists of the following components:

       wpa_supplicant.conf
              the configuration file describing all  networks  that  the  user
              wants the computer to connect to.

       wpa_supplicant
              the program that directly interacts with the network interface.

       wpa_cli
              the  client  program that provides a high-level interface to the
              functionality of the daemon.

       wpa_passphrase
              a utility needed to construct wpa_supplicant.conf files that in-
              clude encrypted passwords.

QUICK START
       First,  make a configuration file, e.g.  /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf, that
       describes  the  networks  you  are  interested  in.   See   wpa_suppli-
       cant.conf(5) for details.

       Once the configuration is ready, you can test whether the configuration
       works by running wpa_supplicant with following command to start  it  on
       foreground with debugging enabled:

              wpa_supplicant -iwlan0 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -d

       Assuming everything goes fine, you can start using following command to
       start wpa_supplicant on background without debugging:

              wpa_supplicant -iwlan0 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -B

       Please note that if you included more than one driver interface in  the
       build  time  configuration (.config), you may need to specify which in-
       terface to use by including -D<driver name> option on the command line.

INTERFACE TO PCMCIA-CS/CARDMRG
       For example, following small changes to pcmcia-cs scripts can  be  used
       to enable WPA support:

       Add  MODE="Managed"  and  WPA="y"  to  the  network scheme in /etc/pcm-
       cia/wireless.opts.

       Add the following block to the end of start action handler in /etc/pcm-
       cia/wireless:

              if [ "$WPA" = "y" -a -x /usr/local/bin/wpa_supplicant ]; then
                  /usr/local/bin/wpa_supplicant -B -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -i$DEVICE
              fi

       Add  the following block to the end of stop action handler (may need to
       be separated from other actions) in /etc/pcmcia/wireless:

              if [ "$WPA" = "y" -a -x /usr/local/bin/wpa_supplicant ]; then
                  killall wpa_supplicant
              fi

       This will make cardmgr start wpa_supplicant when the  card  is  plugged
       in.

SEE ALSO
       wpa_background(8) wpa_supplicant.conf(5) wpa_cli(8) wpa_passphrase(8)

LEGAL
       wpa_supplicant  is copyright (c) 2003-2019, Jouni Malinen <j@w1.fi> and
       contributors.  All Rights Reserved.

       This program is licensed under the BSD license (the one with advertise-
       ment clause removed).

                                 01 March 2021               WPA_SUPPLICANT(8)
Man Pages Copyright Respective Owners. Site Copyright (C) 1994 - 2024 Hurricane Electric. All Rights Reserved.