NAME

wpa_supplicant — WPA/802.11i Supplicant for wireless network devices

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

The wpa_supplicant utility is an implementation of the WPA Supplicant component, i.e., the part that runs in the client stations. It implements WPA key negotiation with a WPA Authenticator and EAP authentication with an Authentication Server. In addition, wpa_supplicant controls the roaming and IEEE 802.11 authentication/association support of the wlan(4) module and can be used to configure static WEP keys based on identified networks.

The wpa_supplicant utility is designed to be a “daemon” program that runs in the background and acts as the backend component controlling the wireless connection. It supports separate frontend programs such as the text-based wpa_cli(8) program.

The following arguments must be specified on the command line:

-i ifname

Use the specified wireless interface.

-c config-file

Use the settings in the specified configuration file when managing the wireless interface. See wpa_supplicant.conf(5) for a description of the configuration file syntax and contents.

Changes to the configuration file can be reloaded by sending a SIGHUP to the wpa_supplicant process or with the wpa_cli(8) utility, using “wpa_cli reconfigure”.

OPTIONS

The following options are available:

-b

Optional bridge interface name.

-B

Detach from the controlling terminal and run as a daemon process in the background.

-d

Enable debugging messages. If this option is supplied twice, more verbose messages are displayed.

-D

Driver name (can be multiple drivers: nl80211,wext).

-f

Log output to debug file instead of stdout.

-g

Global ctrl_interface.

-h

Show help text.

-K

Include key information in debugging output.

-L

Display the license for this program on the terminal and exit.

-N

Start describing a new interface.

-o

Overrides driver parameter for new interfaces.

-O

Override ctrl_interface parameter for new interfaces.

-p

Specify driver parameters.

-P

File in which to save the process PID.

-q

Decrease debugging verbosity (i.e., counteract the use of the -d flag).

-s

Send log messages through syslog(3) instead of to the terminal.

-t

Include timestamp in debug messages.

-v

Display version information on the terminal and exit.

-W

Wait for a control interface monitor before starting.

SEE ALSO

an(4), ath(4), ipw(4), iwi(4), ral(4), rum(4), ural(4), wi(4), wlan(4), wpi(4), zyd(4), wpa_supplicant.conf(5), devd(8), ifconfig(8), wpa_cli(8)

HISTORY

The wpa_supplicant utility first appeared in FreeBSD 6.0.

AUTHORS

The wpa_supplicant utility was written by Jouni Malinen <j@w1.fi>. This manual page is derived from the README file included in the wpa_supplicant distribution.