man wpa_supplicant(8) - Wi-Fi Protected Access client and IEEE 802.1X supplicant

NAME

wpa_supplicant - Wi-Fi Protected Access client and IEEE 802.1X supplicant

SYNOPSIS

wpa_supplicant [-BddfhKLqqtuvwW] [-iifname] [-cconfig file] [-Ddriver] [-PPID_file] [-foutput file]

OVERVIEW

Wireless networks do not require physical access to the network equipment in the same way as wired networks. This makes it easier for unauthorized users to passively monitor a network and capture all transmitted frames. In addition, unauthorized use of the network is much easier. In many cases, this can happen even without user's explicit knowledge since the wireless LAN adapter may have been configured to automatically 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, included 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 inherited security issues due to the use of WEP for encryption. Wi-Fi Protected Access and IEEE 802.11i amendment to the wireless LAN standard introduce a much improvement mechanism for securing wireless networks. 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 Authentication 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 enabled, and the driver for the device must have be loaded. Note, however, that the '-w' option of the wpa_supplicant daemon instructs the daemon to continue running and to wait for the interface to become available. Without the '-w' option, 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 chosen BSS

o If WPA-EAP: integrated IEEE 802.1X Supplicant completes EAP authentication 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-Enterprise") Following authentication methods are supported with an integrate 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

The available drivers to specify with the -D option are:

hostap

(default) Host AP driver (Intersil Prism2/2.5/3). (this can also be used with Linuxant DriverLoader).

hermes

Agere Systems Inc. driver (Hermes-I/Hermes-II).

madwifi

MADWIFI 802.11 support (Atheros, etc.).

atmel

ATMEL AT76C5XXx (USB, PCMCIA).

wext

Linux wireless extensions (generic).

ndiswrapper

Linux ndiswrapper.

broadcom

Broadcom wl.o driver.

ipw

Intel ipw2100/2200 driver.

wired

wpa_supplicant wired Ethernet driver

bsd

BSD 802.11 support (Atheros, etc.).

ndis

Windows NDIS driver.

COMMAND LINE OPTIONS

-b br_ifname

Optional bridge interface name.

-B

Run daemon in the background.

-c filename

Path to configuration file.

-C ctrl_interface

Path to ctrl_interface socket (only used if -c is not).

-i ifname

Interface to listen on.

-d

Increase debugging verbosity (-dd even more).

-D driver

Driver to use. See the available options below.

-f output file

Log output to specified file instead of stdout.

-g global ctrl_interface

Path to global ctrl_interface socket.

-K

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

-t