Wifi without wpa_supplicant: is this stupid?

Gullible Jones · 2010-03-15 04:14:28

After spending way to long trying to figure out how to get the new netcfg, or some form of wpa_supplicant based wireless, working on Arch, I gave up. My configuration now looks like this:

- wireless_tools package is installed
- sudoers is configured to give passwordless permission for iwlist and iwconfig to the network group
- ifplugd is installed and configured for both eth0 and wlan0.

Are there any concerns regarding this though? As far as I can tell it shouldn't be less secure than a wpa_supplicant setup, but then, I'm no security expert; also, there was a bit in the wireless_tools man page about passphrases not being supported, so I'm wondering if that will be a problem at some point.

Daenyth · 2010-03-15 04:21:53

I'm pretty sure that without wpa_supplicant you are unable to connect to WPA networks, meaning you can do only open and WEP.

tomk · 2010-03-15 07:07:41

That's correct. Without WPA support, your wifi is essentially completely open to anyone who's near enough and interested enough. WEP hasn't ever been effective, and can be broken in minutes by tools like aircrack.

Gullible Jones · 2010-03-15 12:27:44

Huh? I thought most modern cards had hardware support for WPA or somesuch?

Edit: Oh I see, mine has no private controls. So it doesn't. So much for that setup.

Last edited by Gullible Jones (2010-03-15 12:31:32)

broch · 2010-03-15 14:32:44

wireless security
1) RADIUS
2) WPA2-AES
3) everything else

to be honest, I doubt that linux is really serious about networking:
1) failing dhcp clients
2) no full support for cisco vpn
3) problems with wpa2
4) some people support absolutely open wireless so anyone can connect though consequences may be severe.

personally I gave up on UI/GUIs for linux networking and use simple commands. This works much better and usually does not fail, though with vpn linux has nasty tendency to change something with each new kernel release only to make point that no non-free stuff allowed. I doubt that this has anything to do with security though.

Last edited by broch (2010-03-15 14:33:11)

.:B:. · 2010-03-15 15:25:37

Hardware support doesn't mean it will authenticate by itself...

zenlord · 2010-03-16 09:32:54

broch wrote:

to be honest, I doubt that linux is really serious about networking:
1) failing dhcp clients
2) no full support for cisco vpn
3) problems with wpa2
4) some people support absolutely open wireless so anyone can connect though consequences may be severe.

OT, but if that were the case, than you would think that all those sysadmins that use linux for there (web)servers are really stupid, no?

There are problems with wireless networking, but most or all of those are to be attributed to
1. failing driver support from the manufacturers (and that is less and less the case)
2. user failure to set it all up correctly

IMHO the order of those 2 reasons is wrong. Mind you I have no experience with 'cisco vpn', but if it is compatible with openVPN, that should pose no problem?

And lastly: have you tried netcfg? That is absolutely the best UI to connect to networks I have seen.

broch · 2010-03-17 15:46:48

zenlord wrote:

broch wrote:
to be honest, I doubt that linux is really serious about networking:
1) failing dhcp clients
2) no full support for cisco vpn
3) problems with wpa2
4) some people support absolutely open wireless so anyone can connect though consequences may be severe.
OT, but if that were the case, than you would think that all those sysadmins that use linux for there (web)servers are really stupid, no?
There are problems with wireless networking, but most or all of those are to be attributed to
1. failing driver support from the manufacturers (and that is less and less the case)
2. user failure to set it all up correctly
IMHO the order of those 2 reasons is wrong. Mind you I have no experience with 'cisco vpn', but if it is compatible with openVPN, that should pose no problem?
And lastly: have you tried netcfg? That is absolutely the best UI to connect to networks I have seen.

well, topic is about wireless, so unless you are running server on wireless (which is by definition insecure) nobody is questioning your sanity
openvpn does not handle encrypted pcf, so this is not real option.
nope, problem is with dhcp clients (dhcpcd and dhclients are open), both have plenty of bugs submitted
netcfg has bugs open and I think that I am not gaining much

zenlord · 2010-03-18 07:38:43

:-) OK, but 'an open bug' != always a security issue, no?

broch · 2010-03-18 13:09:59

I think that most current network related bugs that I have seen are related to connection issues. Unfortunately, I can't afford unstable network at work. While at home I could switch switch wireless-to-wired-and-back as needed (though wired would be painfull as I removed all cat5) at work connection must be reliable, so no more netcfg, networkmanager wicd and such. I also appended dhcp client to "Ignore" group in pacman config group and compile samba/cups from abs rather than install from pacman. This really works miracles

It is pity that network (wireless) is still not stable under linux (putting aside driver problems).

Arch Linux

#1 2010-03-15 04:14:28

Wifi without wpa_supplicant: is this stupid?

#2 2010-03-15 04:21:53

Re: Wifi without wpa_supplicant: is this stupid?

#3 2010-03-15 07:07:41

Re: Wifi without wpa_supplicant: is this stupid?

#4 2010-03-15 12:27:44

Re: Wifi without wpa_supplicant: is this stupid?

#5 2010-03-15 14:32:44

Re: Wifi without wpa_supplicant: is this stupid?

#6 2010-03-15 15:25:37

Re: Wifi without wpa_supplicant: is this stupid?

#7 2010-03-16 09:32:54

Re: Wifi without wpa_supplicant: is this stupid?

#8 2010-03-17 15:46:48

Re: Wifi without wpa_supplicant: is this stupid?

#9 2010-03-18 07:38:43

Re: Wifi without wpa_supplicant: is this stupid?

#10 2010-03-18 13:09:59

Re: Wifi without wpa_supplicant: is this stupid?

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