WPA Supplicant

WPA_Supplicant

Introduction

Most laptops and many desktops use wireless network interfaces as their primary means of staying connected to the internet. The <a href="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=wpa_supplicant">wpa_supplicant(8)</a> tool which is distributed as a part of FreeBSD's base helps handle all these networks with ease, so that you won't have to lift a finger to connect to whichever one of your wireless networks is available.

  * Supports Plaintext Networks
  * Supports Static WEP Encrypted Networks
  * Supports Pre-Shared Key WPA Encrypted Networks
  * Supports EAP-Authenticated WPA Encrypted Networks
  * Supports EAP-Authenticated IEEE8021X (optionally Dynamic WEP Encrypted) Networks

Documentation

Man Pages

  * <a href="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=wpa_supplicant">wpa_supplicant(8)</a>
  * <a href="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=wpa_supplicant.conf">wpa_supplicant.conf(5)</a>

Other

  * <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wpa_supplicant">Wpa_supplicant on Wikipedia</a>

Examples

Example 1 - Static WEP

I have an iwi0 interface which connects to multiple WEP-encrypted networks. Here's how to set it up so that it automatically picks up whichever network is in range.

/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf

  network={
      ssid="homenet"
      key_mgmt=NONE
      wep_tx_keyidx=0
      wep_key0=fedcba98765432109876543210
      }
  network={
      ssid="worknet"
      key_mgmt=NONE
      wep_tx_keyidx=0
      wep_key0=98765432109876543210abcdef
      }

/etc/rc.conf

  ifconfig_iwi0="WPA DHCP"