wpa_supplicant
 

I finally got my wireless network working. Compaq R4012US laptop using ndiswrapper and my windows driver. Everything works fine if I don't use any encryption on my AP. I would really like to get wpa set up but so far no joy. I've installed the wpa_supplicant-0.4.7 package from AlienBob and setup my /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf as follows

# See /usr/doc/wpa_supplicant-0.4.8/wpa_supplicant.conf.sample
# for many more options that you can use in this file.

# This line enables the use of wpa_cli which is used by rc.wireless
# if possible (to check for successful association)
ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant
# By default, only root (group 0) may use wpa_cli
ctrl_interface_group=0
eapol_version=1
ap_scan=1
fast_reauth=1

# WPA protected network, supply your own ESSID and WPAPSK here:
network={
scan_ssid=0
ssid="rncWlan"
proto=WPA
key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
pairwise=TKIP
group=TKIP
psk=mysecretpsk
}

# Plaintext connection (no WPA, no IEEE 802.1X),
# nice for hotel/airport types of WiFi network.
# You'll need a recent version of wireless-tools for this!
network={
ssid="any"
key_mgmt=NONE
priority=2
}

I have my AP set to broadcast my SSID.Any ideas on what I need to do to get wpa working? any help is greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance,
GrayGhost

Assuming that you're running Slackware 10.2?
You will have to add some lines to /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf for WPA; now, if the section there for your wireless card would look like this:

you would have to add two WPA related lines like this:
Same, in case you have setup a fixed IP address of course.

Eric

Thanks for the reply Eric,
Sorry I forgot to post that I am running Slack 10.2 on this machine. I had changed /etc/rc.d/rcinet1.conf like this.....

## 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]="wlan0"
#IPADDR[4]=""
#NETMASK[4]=""
USE_DHCP[4]="yes"
#DHCP_HOSTNAME[4]=""
#DHCP_KEEPRESOLV[4]="yes"
#DHCP_KEEPNTP[4]=""
#DHCP_KEEPGW[4]=""
#DHCP_IPADDR[4]=""
WLAN_ESSID[4]=rncWlan
#WLAN_MODE[4]=Managed
##WLAN_RATE[4]="54M auto"
WLAN_CHANNEL[4]="auto"
##WLAN_KEY[4]=""
WLAN_IWPRIV[4]="AuthMode=WPAPSK EncrypType=TKIP
WPAPSK="MYSECRETKEY"
TxRate=0"
WLAN_WPA[4]="wpa_supplicant"
WLAN_WPADRIVER[4]="ndiswrapper"

Wireless works great w/o encryption but I don't really want to run my AP open w/o security and I see others have got wpa working with Slack. Should this .conf work?

Thanks,
Rick

This should be enough:
Eric

I changed /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf to :
IFNAME[4]="wlan0"
IPADDR[4]=""
NETMASK[4]=""
USE_DHCP[4]="yes"
WLAN_ESSID[4]=rncWlan
WLAN_CHANNEL[4]="auto"
WLAN_WPA[4]="wpa_supplicant"
WLAN_WPADRIVER[4]="ndiswrapper"

but it still didn't work.So i tried calling wpa_supplicant from the cli like this
root@cosmo:~# wpa_supplicant -Dndiswrapper -iwlan0 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf

and this is the error i got:
Line 21: Invalid PSK 'OHpsdnugkyPNvOGWmoMSGqjd3vP3sHppPn1FfPDmhiUeuSAQWzWMqUH3ANc9k99'.
Line 21: failed to parse psk 'OHpsdnugkyPNvOGWmoMSGqjd3vP3sHppPn1FfPDmhiUeuSAQWzWMqUH3ANc9k99'.
Line 22: WPA-PSK accepted for key management, but no PSK configured.
Line 22: failed to parse network block.
Failed to read configuration file '/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf'.

That is the same PSK that is on the Access point.
I then tried calling /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1 from the cli and this is the message i received:
root@cosmo:~# /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1
dhcpcd: MAC address = 00:0f:b0:6e:6f:49
/etc/rc.d/rc.inet1: wlan0 is 'Broadcom'
Error for wireless request "Set Frequency" (8B04) :
SET failed on device wlan0 ; Invalid argument.
Failed to connect to wpa_supplicant - wpa_ctrl_open: No such file or directory
dhcpcd: MAC address = 00:90:4b:a5:a8:92

the first MAC dhcpc shows is for eth0 (00:0f:b0:6e:6f:49) the last one is wlan0 (00:90:4b:a5:a8:92).

Any other ideas?

Thanks,
Rick

That is a PSK of 63 characters, one less than it should be. Maybe you copied/pasted an incomplete key?

Eric

YaaHooo it works !!!!!!!!!!

No I didn't copy and paste an incomplete key. I didn't realize it had to be 64 characters. On the Windows side it worked with only 63 characters but after I set my key in /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf to 64 characters it picked up my access point w/o trouble.
Thanks so much for the ndiswrapper and wpa_supplicant packages and Thanks for all the help Eric. I really appreciate it.


Rick

actually it shouldn't matter how many characters are in the key. mine only uses about 12 characters. I'm also using tkip

Same problem here. If the PSK in the wpa_supplicant.conf has less then 64 characters the error message above occurs, with exactly 64 it is ok. But I can't use 64 characters because my Access-Point accepts only 8 - 63 characters as PSK.

How can I solve this?

If that is true, perhaps the Access Point wants the key entered as a passphrase i.e. a string of ASCII characters from which the 64 HEX character key is calculated.

To get from a passphrase to a key, you should use the wpa_passphrase command. Wpa_passphrase outputs a "network" block that you can use in /wtc/wpa_supplicant.conf directly, like so:
Then configure the Accesspoint with the passphrase.

Eric

Have done the same as here, but before going to WPA, i am trying with my current WEP network.
WPA_SUPPLICANT works well with an open network, but when using WEP, iwconfig always shows this:-

wlan0 IEEE 802.11g ESSID:"adanddad" Nickname:"captainpugwash"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.452 GHz Access Point: 00:11:50:A2:25:83
Bit Rate=48 Mb/s Tx-Power:14 dBm
RTS thr=2347 B Fragment thr=2346 B
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality:70/100 Signal level:-51 dBm Noise level:-96 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

and with WPA_SUPPLICANT disabled, it shows this:-

wlan0 IEEE 802.11g ESSID:"adanddad" Nickname:"captainpugwash"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.452 GHz Access Point: 00:11:50:A2:25:83
Bit Rate=48 Mb/s Tx-Power:14 dBm
RTS thr=2347 B Fragment thr=2346 B
Encryption key:My WEP key Security mode:restricted
Power Management:off
Link Quality:68/100 Signal level:-52 dBm Noise level:-96 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

Any one any ideas?