Re: [gentoo-user] Lenovo T400 wifi scan and connect questions

[Michael <confabulate@kintzios.com>]

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On Wednesday, 31 August 2022 20:15:41 BST Walter Dnes wrote:
>   During launch, wpa_supplicant blows up on...
> 
> DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=wheel
> DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=0

Hmm ... so the example page syntax is wrong.  I wonder if I came across this 
too in the distant past.  :-/

I have this in my config and it works:

ctrl_interface_group=wheel
ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant


> https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Wpa_supplicant#Configuration recommends...
> 
> ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=wheel
> 
>   The 3 lines in my wpa_supplicant.conf that are not commented out are...
> 
> ctrl_interface_group=0
> ap_scan=1
> ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=wheel
> 
>   Thank you for your help.  It works.  

Cool.  :-)


>   I live in a condo building.  As
> a regular user "wpa_cli scan" followed by "wpa_cli scan_result" shows
> approximately a couple of dozen machines.  BTW I've disabled MVM and
> wifi still works.
> 
>   One last question; I occasionally see signs in various places saying
> 
> Our network name is "foo" and password is "bar".
> 
>   My reading of the wpa_cli man page indicates I should use...
> 
> wpa_cli password foo bar
> 
> ...to log on.  Is that correct?

The wpa_cli command syntax is:

password <network id> <password>
       configure password for an SSID

However, I'm not sure <network id> == SSID.  When you add a network in 
interactive mode with:

add_network

the shell outputs a network id number; e.g. 3, which you are meant to use 
thereafter to set up variables for the AP; e.g.:

set_network 3 ssid "starvebux"
set_network 3 psk "Not Free"
enable_network 3

In addition, I understand the wpa_cli command 'password', as opposed to 
variable 'psk' which is used in the interactive shell, to be for a EAP-PEAP 
authentication scheme.  For a pre-shared key you'll use interactively:

set_network 3 psk 0f0fbfdadff6271a5107a49cfb5db9e921138ee74a66b0.....

or if it is a passphrase you'll enclose it in double quotes "Not Free" as 
above.

This is the reason I use the wpa_supplicant GUI when not restricted to working 
in a console, because the qt5 wpa_supplicant GUI makes it easier to click and 
fill in a PSK, compared to the multiple commands required in a terminal.

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