Re: [gentoo-dev] Wireless driver / firmware ebuilds & wireless-tools

[Stroller]

On May 23, 2005, at 11:04 am, Roy Marples wrote:
> On Sat, 2005-05-21 at 09:25 +0100, Stroller wrote:
>> What's the difference between wpa_supplicant & wireless-tools, then?
>
> Both do the same job - provide the tools to configure your wireless
> card.
>
> wpa_supplicant is a daemon that runs in the background and when it
> associates with an AP in your list it applies the pre-defined security
> settings. Any current wireless security on SOHO boxes is supported.
>
> wireless-tools is a set of programs that configure your card per your
> settings and call it a day. Gentoo baselayout does some rudimentry
> scanning and AP selection, so it's not that bad. Only WEP security is
> supported.

Thanks to both yourself & Mr Gianelloni for clarification. I'm sorry 
for the confusion.

Sounds like wpa_supplicant is the more sophisticated software - I shall 
look into it.

One minor point:

On May 23, 2005, at 7:58 pm, Chris Gianelloni wrote:
>>     Surely a user who emerges prism54-firmware will depend upon
>> wireless-tools?
>
> ...  They could also be setting up their card
> as an access point or as a sniffer device.

I think the access-point will need `iwconfig` (or similar if it's 
provided by wpa_supplicant) to set the SSID & (optionally) WEP key. 
That's what I use around here, anyway.

I intended to cover the sniffing aspect in an earlier posting - it's a 
fairly niche usage, and I'd imagine it to be rare that a machine will 
be dedicated to sniffing for networks & never used to connect to one.

But in any case, the functionality contained in wpa_supplicant covers 
my arguments, and I apologise for not being aware of it.

Stroller

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