Moving from Network Manager to wpa_supplicant

Hey,
I’m looking to move my wireless configuration from Network Manager to wpa_supplicant\ifconfig. I do have a couple of questions that I’m going to break up into sections. The network I am rying connecting to is a WPA PSK with TKIP for group and pairwise.

Before I get too far, I need to clear up some of the terminology I’ll be using:

When I refer to wpa_supplicant, this means I’m running it by hand.
When I refer to YaST, this means having YaST set up wpa_supplicant and running by however it does.
When I refer to Network Manager, this means Network Manager setting up wpa_supplicant and running it however it does.
(Just wanted to get that said before I get replies about how the later two use wpa_supplicant)


From Network Manager to wpa_supplicant


Now, there are a million different posts on the internet of how to use wpa_supplicant, but there doesn’t seem to be that much in the ways of going from Network Manager to wpa_supplicant.

I know that Network Manager uses wpa_supplicant, but does anyone know where it keeps the configuration at?


From YaST to wpa_supplicant


Something that I’ve noticed as well, I can set up a wireless card in YaST. It then puts the configuration into /etc/sysconfig/network/ifcfg-wlan0. As I look through this, there are some parts of the configuration that seems to be missing. This being group and pairwise are not mentioned at all. How does YaST\wpa_supplicant know what the network is? The only guess I have is that it scans the network and pulls out what it needs…


wpa_supplicant issues


I’ve gotten wpa_supplicant to work for a few networks, but not without issues.

The biggest one being is when I am associated with a point, it’ll get connected and then it’ll drop out and reconnect. It does this on a fairly regular basis. When it is connected, and I’ve get up DNS and default gateway everything works just fine. Does anyone have an idea why it would drop and pick backup? It does not do this when using network manager or when it is set up with YaST.

The next one, I’m only getting an IP address from my AP when using wpa_supplicant. When it is set up with YaST it gets an IP, DNS, and default gateway. Is there a entry I might be missing in my wpa_supplicant.conf?

Below is my wpa_supplicant.conf for reference, nothing too exciting though:


network={
  ssid="my-network"
  proto=WPA
  key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
  pairwise=TKIP
  group=TKIP
  psk="my-unencrypted-password"
}

Anyway, hope I’ve explained everything well enough, and hopefully I can get things cleared up!

I suggest that you make it easy on yourself by just switching to “ifup” mode in Yast network configuration.

If you are going to do that, I suggest that you also change


DHCLIENT_BIN="dhclient"
DHCLIENT_DEBUG="yes"

You can either directly edit “/etc/sysconfig/network/dhcp” or change them in Yast sysconfig settings.

IMPORTANT: The reason for the DHCLIENT_DEBUG setting, is that there is currently a bug in “dhclient” and the debug setting is a workaround - it prevents the bug from showing up.

The default is to use “dhcpcd” to handle the DHCP requests. But some people have found that “dhclient” does a better job, particularly if there is wireless in the mix.

Hmm, to get “ifup” settings to work, you also need to edit the “ifup” settings for your ethernet interface. Change to starting on cable connect (instead of on bootup). Otherwise the system will assume that routing to the internet has to go through the eth interface.