Arch Linux

gtklocker

Member

Registered: 2009-09-01

Posts: 462

How to connect to WPA2 networks when wpa_supplicant doesn't exist?

I have a modem with a custom software, which is actually Linux. There I have some basic tools for networking, but I don't have wpa_supplicant.

Is there a way for me to connect to a WPA2 network without this?

xvello

Member

Registered: 2010-05-15

Posts: 81

Website

Re: How to connect to WPA2 networks when wpa_supplicant doesn't exist?

Hello

The WPA2 (or IEEE_802.11i-2004) protocol uses temporary shared keys, to avoid exposing the master key as much as possible (that was the weakness of WEP, every frame was encoded with the master key, so someone could discover the key by sniffing traffic).

This handshaking / key reneway process is quite complex, and is managed by wpa_supplicant, not the kernel. The conclusion seems to be that wpa_supplicant is required for WPA/WPA2 to work on a linux machine

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11i-2004