Automating WPA_Supplicant with ath0

2Gnu · 10-14-2006, 10:20 AM

Slackware 11.0, using the latest rc.inet1 and rc.wireless scripts.

I've set up WPA with an Atheros card, as chronicled here: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...d.php?t=492269

I'm trying to get the interface, ath0, to authenticate on boot but it's not happening. At present, running /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1 start (or ath0 start) manually displays the MAC address of my wired NIC (not connected) and times out. On boot, I get errors waiting for DHCD broadcast.

Running these two commands works fine:

Code:

/usr/local/bin/wpa_supplicant -B -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -i ath0 -D madwifi
/sbin/dhcpcd ath0

My /etc/rc.d/rc.wireless.conf file looks like this:

Code:

case "$ADDRESS" in

*,*,*,*)

MODE="Managed"
# Added to call wpa_supplicant
WPA="y"
WPA_OPTIONS="-i ath0"
WPADRIVER="madwifi"
WPACONF=/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf

   ;;
esac

I've looked through the scripts to see how to deal with "athx" vs. "ethx" but I'm in way over my head. Any ideas, please?

Fluxx · 10-14-2006, 10:30 AM

Because I use several wifi pcmcia cards for testing I start a netgear wg511t (atheros chip ar5212, madwifi version 0.9.2, wpa_supplicant version 0.5.5 compiled against madwifi 0.9.2) with a short script :

Code:

#!/bin/bash
/sbin/ifconfig eth0 down
killall wpa_supplicant > /dev/null 2>&1
/sbin/rmmod ath_pci
/sbin/modprobe ath_pci countrycode=0
/sbin/iwpriv ath0 mode 3
/sbin/iwpriv ath0 turbo 1
/usr/local/sbin/wpa_supplicant -iath0 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -B -Dwext
/sbin/iwconfig ath0 channel 11 essid "my_essid"
/sbin/iwconfig ath0 channel 11 mode managed
/sbin/iwconfig ath0 rts 1401 frag 1400
/sbin/ifconfig ath0 my_IP up
/sbin/route add default gateway my_router_IP
/sbin/iwconfig ath0 txpower 1 rate 108M auto

In my /etc/rc.d/rc.local I added these lines to start this script if the netgear card is inserted:

Code:

if lspci | grep Atheros > /dev/null ; then
   sh /root/wpaath &
fi

This works fine for me, the other option with /etc/rc.d/rc.wireless.conf or /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf is not useful for my purpose.

Fluxx.

2Gnu · 10-14-2006, 11:43 AM

Thanks for the reply and for sharing your approach. It's a fine option if I can't get the stock scripts to work - which, I'm assuming would be helpful to other Slack users with similar configs.

Fluxx · 10-14-2006, 01:34 PM

Now I did it in your or let me say Slackware's way with /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf and /etc/rc.d/rc.wireless.conf and /etc/rc.d/rc.wireless.

At first I made rc.wireless executable with

Code:

chmod +x /etc/rc.d/rc.wireless

Then I edited the /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf in this way (because I need no eth0 I deleted the eth0 options. Here my rc.inet1.conf:

Code:

# /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf
#
# This file contains the configuration settings for network interfaces.
# If USE_DHCP[interface] is set to "yes", this overrides any other settings.
# If you don't have an interface, leave the settings null ("").

# You can configure network interfaces other than eth0,eth1... by setting
# IFNAME[interface] to the interface's name. If IFNAME[interface] is unset
# or empty, it is assumed you're configuring eth<interface>.

# Several other parameters are available, the end of this file contains a
# comprehensive set of examples.

# =============================================================================

# Config information for eth0:
IPADDR[0]=""
NETMASK[0]=""
USE_DHCP[0]=""
DHCP_HOSTNAME[0]=""

# Default gateway IP address:
GATEWAY="192.168.178.1"

# Change this to "yes" for debugging output to stdout.  Unfortunately,
# /sbin/hotplug seems to disable stdout so you'll only see debugging output
# when rc.inet1 is called directly.
DEBUG_ETH_UP="no"

## Example config information for wlan0.  Uncomment the lines you need and fill
## in your info.  (You may not need all of these for your wireless network)
IFNAME[4]="ath0"
IPADDR[4]="xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx"
NETMASK[4]="255.255.255.0"
USE_DHCP[4]=""
GATEWAY="xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx"
WLAN_WPA[4]="wpa_supplicant"
WLAN_WPADRIVER[4]="wext"

Then I edited my /etc/rc.d/rc.wireless.conf in this way:

Code:

# Wireless LAN adapter configuration
#
# Theory of operation :
#
# The script attempts to match a block of settings to the specific wireless
# card inserted, the *first* block matching the card is used.
# The address format is "hwaddr", with * as a wildcard.
# 'hwaddr' is the unique MAC address identifier of the wireless card.
# The MAC address is usually printed on the card, or can be found via ifconfig.
# Some examples here use only half of the MAC address with a wildcard to
# match a whole family of cards...
#
# All the Wireless specific configuration is done through the Wireless
# Extensions, so we will just call 'iwconfig' with the right parameters
# defined below.
# Of course, you need to have iwconfig installled on your system.
# To download iwconfig, or for more info on Wireless Extensions :
#       http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/Linux/Tools.html
#
# Note : you don't need to fill all parameters, leave them blank, in most
# cases the driver will initialise itself with sane defaults values or
# automatically figure out the value... And no drivers do support all
# possible settings...
#
# -- This is a modified '/etc/pcmcia/wireless.opts' script --
# -- I added sections for Prism/GT and Atheros based cards --
# --    (supported by the prism54 and madwifi drivers)     --
# --              16/sep/2004 * Eric Hameleers             --
#

VERBOSE=1

case "$HWADDR" in

## NOTE : Comment out the following five lines to activate the samples below ...
## --------- START SECTION TO REMOVE -----------
## Pick up any Access Point, should work on most 802.11 cards
*)
    ESSID="my_essid"
    ;;
## ---------- END SECTION TO REMOVE ------------


# Here are a few examples with a few Wireless LANs supported...
# The matching is done on the first 3 bytes of the MAC address

# Multiband Atheros based 802.11a/b/g universal NIC cards
*)
    INFO="Multiband Atheros based 802.11a/b/g universal NIC"
    # ESSID (extended network name) : My Network, any
    ESSID="my_essid"
    # Operation mode : Ad-Hoc, Managed, Master, Repeater, Secondary, auto
    MODE="Managed"
    # Frequency or channel : 1, 2, 3 (channel) ; 2.422G, 2.46G (frequency)
    CHANNEL="2"
    # Bit rate : auto, 1M, 11M,54M
    RATE="auto"
    ;;
esac

My /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf:

Code:

# WPA-PSK/TKIP

ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant

network={
        ssid="my_essid"
        scan_ssid=1
        key_mgmt=WPA-PSK WPA-EAP
        proto=WPA RSN
        pairwise=CCMP
        group=CCMP
        psk="my_key"
}

I use WPA2, therefore the proto=WPA RSN.

ath0 is started during boot process and available after booting, wpa_supplicant is running and everything works fine.

Fluxx.

Alien Bob · 10-15-2006, 02:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 2Gnu

My /etc/rc.d/rc.wireless.conf file looks like this:

Code:

case "$ADDRESS" in

*,*,*,*)

MODE="Managed"
# Added to call wpa_supplicant
WPA="y"
WPA_OPTIONS="-i ath0"
WPADRIVER="madwifi"
WPACONF=/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf

   ;;
esac

Try

Code:

case "$ADDRESS" in

*,*,*,*)

MODE="Managed"
# Added to call wpa_supplicant
WPA="wpa_supplicant"
WPADRIVER="madwifi"
WPACONF=/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf

   ;;
esac

And what dies the section for your ath0 interface in /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf look like?

Eric

2Gnu · 10-15-2006, 11:05 PM

Here's /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf after trying Fluxx's suggestions:

Code:

## Example config information for wlan0.  Uncomment the lines you need and fill
## in your info.  (You may not need all of these for your wireless network)
IFNAME[4]="ath0"
IPADDR[4]=""
NETMASK[4]="255.255.255.0"
USE_DHCP[4]="yes"
GATEWAY="192.168.1.1"
WLAN_WPA[4]="wpa_supplicant"
WLAN_WPADRIVER[4]="madwifi"

I assume I'd take out the last two lines if I modify my wireless.conf as you noted?

I'm also getting a message on boot that wpa_supplicant is already running, so it takes extra time to auth. I tried adding killall wpa_supplicant to rc.6, but that was a blind hack. Your rc.wireless script looks like it should deal with terminating wpa_supplicant if I get the conf file right. True?

Many thanks to both of you for the replies.

Alien Bob · 10-16-2006, 03:30 AM

True.

Also. If you use DHCP, don't set NETMASK and GATEWAY. You can indeed leave the WLAN_XXX parameters out of the rc.inet1.conf file if you add the associated XXX parameters in rc.wireless.conf.

Code:

IFNAME[4]="ath0"
IPADDR[4]=""
NETMASK[4]=""
USE_DHCP[4]="yes"
GATEWAY=""

should do it, then.

Eric