On Sat, Nov 14, 2015 at 11:41:56PM +0100, Didier Kryn wrote:
> Le 14/11/2015 21:20, Brian Nash a écrit :
> >I never did figure out (or remember) how to use wpa_supplicant, although
> >IIRC connecting to a wifi network is just two commands.
>

>     1) Follow this howto:
> http://www.debuntu.org/how-to-wifi-roaming-with-wpa-supplicant/
>     2) change the config file to set the gid of the control interface and
> make yourself a member of this group,
>     3) then install wpa_gui

>

>     This is a modular set up which involves the traditional ifupdown
> mechanism, and in which wpa_supplicant is running in daemon mode and wpa_gui
> is a graphical config helper for it. If you also want some roaming for
> Ethernet, then you also need ifplugd. wpa_gui is provided upstream together
> with wpa_supplicant, but some people dislike it because it is based on Qt.

>

>     If you prefer to completely bypass ifupdown and /etc/network/interfaces,
> and integrate all in one app, then I understood netman is doing what you
> want; AFAIU, netman is the daemon and it invokes wpa_supplicant in
> non-daemon mode.

wpa_supplicant has no non-daemon mode. When it exits, it deconfigures the
interface.

AFAIU, netman uses ifupdown but bypasses /etc/network/interfaces, writing
its own alternate interfaces files (utilized by spawning 'ifup -i ...').
These files use the "fire-and-forget" mode of the wpa_supplicant ifconfig
plugin (wpa_essid and so forth).
Actually, I'm not sure exactly how much forgetting ifupdown does.
But I know that this mode is *not* utilising the ability of wpa_supplicant
to handle multiple networks; netman seemed to repeatedly call a helper
in order to do what wpa_supplicant could do, if properly configured.

The developer intends to call wpa_* directly at some point; I hope that
he takes the opportunity to make it use wpa_supplicant's abilities.

>

>     I don't know where wicd is in this plot.

It's a two-part python/dbus interface that runs wpa_supplicant from a
daemon and controls it from a client.

HTH,
Isaac Dunham