WPA Supplicant for Dummies?

Donald:

I am using it with a wireless Linksys NIC that also does not support WPA. It took me some time but I have it working. It also took me some trial and error. I now have it set as a service so that it starts when the computer reboots.

My router/access point is a Linksys WRT54G.

Here is my wpa_supplicant.conf file:

# WPA-PSK/TKIP ap_scan=2

#ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant

network={ ssid="hahnfamily" key_mgmt=WPA-PSK proto=WPA pairwise=TKIP group=TKIP psk="a_random_string_of_characters" }

When I run win_if_list.exe in a cmd console, I get the following output:

ifname: \Device\NPF_GenericDialupAdapter description: Adapter for generic dialup and VPN capture

ifname: \Device\NPF_{3C2E7B86-E71E-424A-8095-505395F11703} description: Wireless-G PCI Adapter

From the README-Windows.txt file, using the information above, I would run the following command:

wpa_supplicant.exe -i'\Device\NPF_{3C2E7B86-E71E-424A-8095-505395F11703}' -c /path/to/wpa_supplicant.conf -d

Note: The above is all on one line, my Newsreader may wrap the line. Other lines may have also been wrapped.

I sat at the command console and kept rerunning the above line until I got the syntax correct. Once I had that part correct, I then moved to trying to setup wpa_supplicant so that it ran as a service.

There is a win_example.reg file which can be modified so that the correct registry entries get written. Just edit the file when you get the above command line version running.

When you get the registry setup, just run:

wpasvc.exe reg /full_path/to/wpasvc.exe

Make sure you include the program name of wpasvc.exe at the end.

I also seem to have to run the Windows software that originally came with the Linksys wireless NIC. Not sure why. I would think that it would not be needed. I tried removing the Windows Linksys software and everything broke. Maybe it also removed some needed drivers for the Linksys wireless NIC.

Try this and see if any of the above helps.

I am sure there may be some typos in the above. If so, let me know, and I will try and correct.

Good luck.