Wpa -- not working to examine wifi network

English Applications
1

Trying to examine my wifi network. I primarily rely on ethernet. Internet search led me to wpa. Does not seem to work as it is supposed to. See below, wpa fails asking for wpa_supplicant that has been installed.

(base) tom@mydesktop: ~ $ sudo  wpa_cli
[sudo] password for root: 
wpa_cli v2.10
Copyright (c) 2004-2022, Jouni Malinen <j@w1.fi> and contributors

This software may be distributed under the terms of the BSD license.
See README for more details.



Interactive mode

Could not connect to wpa_supplicant: (nil) - re-trying

Then does nothing more; at least 10 minutes. But, wpa_supplicant is installed. wpa_cli is part of wpa_supplicant package.

(base) tom@mydesktop: ~ $ sudo zypper se wpa
Loading repository data...
Reading installed packages...

S  | Name                     | Summary                                                      | Type
---+--------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+-----------
   | growpart                 | Grow a partition                                             | package
   | growpart-generator       | Grow a partition automatically                               | package
   | growpart-rootgrow        | Simple Wrapper for growpart                                  | package
   | growpart-rootgrow        | Simple Wrapper for growpart                                  | srcpackage
   | python3-awpa             | A Working Python AST                                         | package
   | texlive-newpax           | Experimental package to extract and reinsert PDF annotations | package
   | texlive-newpax-doc       | Documentation for texlive-newpax                             | package
   | texlive-zwpagelayout     | Page layout and crop-marks                                   | package
   | texlive-zwpagelayout-doc | Documentation for texlive-zwpagelayout                       | package
i+ | wpa_supplicant           | WPA supplicant implementation                                | package
   | wpa_supplicant           | WPA supplicant implementation                                | srcpackage
i+ | wpa_supplicant-gui       | WPA supplicant graphical front-end                           | package
   | wpan-tools               | Utilities to manage the Linux 802.15.4 WPAN stack            | package
(base) tom@mydesktop: ~ $

wpa is new to me. Perhaps I am missing something.
Any advice? thanks, tom kosvic

2

Additionally, wpa_supplicant-gui installed but not found.

sudo: wpa_supplicant-gui: command not found
(base) tom@mydesktop: ~ $

thanks, tom kosvic

3

@tckosvic that’s because it’s not called that… you need to look at using tab completion, enter wpa then press the tab key twice it will show ALL the commands available starting with wpa for the current user. Things like sudo may not work, I don’t use it.

4

I did check installed file and you are right. The gui is wpa_gui but still doesn’t run. See below:

base) tom@mydesktop: ~ $ sudo wpa_gui
[sudo] password for root: 
qt.qpa.plugin: Could not load the Qt platform plugin "xcb" in "" even though it was found.
This application failed to start because no Qt platform plugin could be initialized. Reinstalling the application may fix this problem.

Available platform plugins are: eglfs, linuxfb, minimal, minimalegl, offscreen, vnc, wayland-egl, wayland, wayland-xcomposite-egl, wayland-xcomposite-glx, xcb.

(base) tom@mydesktop: ~ $
5

I am using network manager; not wicked. Network panel applet shows I am connected to both ethernet and wifi and shows the right wifi connection established. Applet shows both ethernet and wifi enabled. Not proficient on sending image capture but will look up how to do it.

Perhaps there is a better tool to look at wifi. Want to see what’s connected.
I will look for alternative tp wpa.

6

@tckosvic likely won’t run with sudo… like I said, it’s not smart or configured and causes more problems than what its worth as an import from another distribution.

What do you mean by connected?

7

Not sure what you mean about sudo. Won’r run at all as User.

(base) tom@mydesktop: ~ $ wpa_gui
Absolute path to 'wpa_gui' is '/usr/sbin/wpa_gui', so running it may require superuser privileges (eg. root).
(base) tom@mydesktop: ~ $ wpa_cli
Absolute path to 'wpa_cli' is '/usr/sbin/wpa_cli', so running it may require superuser privileges (eg. root).
(base) tom@mydesktop: ~ $

I want to find devices connected to my wifi. I have a cable company supplied modem and router.

8

@tckosvic correct you have to be root user

9

@tckosvic Then you need to login to the router to see the client list. You could probably run wireshark and see lookups from the router and the reply to the device.

10

Maybe. You forgot to explain what you were trying to achieve.

11

I did su - to root user. wpa_gui now opens a gui but the gui says “no networks found”.
wpa_cli displays same text I have presented previously and sits there searching for something it never finds.

I did not know that sudo is different than being root. Always thought that sudo was a temporary way to be root.

I will look into router access.

In any case wpa still does not work. But I may not need it.

thanks, tom kosvic