Using wpa_supplicant with ndiswrapper
August 26, 2007 23:22:30 Last update: August 27, 2007 02:00:18
If you want to add security to your wireless network, you almost never want to use WEP. WPA is an improved encryption algorithm that avoids many of the WEP vulnerabilities. However, FC4 (Fedora Core) doesn't support WPA out of the box. I have to install wpa_supplicant in order to access my wireless AP with WPA encryption.
Since my Airlink wireless card only shipped with Windows drivers, I also needed ndiswrapper to make it work under Linux. This is my experience setting up wpa_supplicant with ndiswrapper.
1. Download wpa_supplicant 0.5.8 from http://hostap.epitest.fi/wpa_supplicant/. Extract files to a working directory.
2. Create a
The first line initially read
3.
4. Create
The
5. Start wpa_supplicant.
6. Automate wlan0 startup.
Since my Airlink wireless card only shipped with Windows drivers, I also needed ndiswrapper to make it work under Linux. This is my experience setting up wpa_supplicant with ndiswrapper.
1. Download wpa_supplicant 0.5.8 from http://hostap.epitest.fi/wpa_supplicant/. Extract files to a working directory.
2. Create a
.config file that contains:
CONFIG_DRIVER_NDISWRAPPER=y CONFIG_CTRL_IFACE=y
The first line initially read
CONFIG_DRIVER_WEXT=y following the ndiswrapper documentation, but that didn't work for me.
3.
make and copy wpa_cli, wpa_passphrase, wpa_supplicant to /usr/local/bin
4. Create
/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf with the following contents:
ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant
ap_scan=2
network={
scan_ssid=1
ssid="thessid"
psk="my secret key"
key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
proto=WPA
pairwise=TKIP
}
The
ap_scan=2 line and scan_ssid=1 were added since I disabled ssid broadcasting for the wireless router.
5. Start wpa_supplicant.
ifconfig wlan0 up wpa_supplicant -Dndiswrapper -iwlan0 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -dd dhclient wlan0
6. Automate wlan0 startup.
