[the] Code Girl (aka UnrulyGrrl)

Well that was WAY easier than I thought. Coming to you live from my laptop, over 802.11g with WPA-PSK for the encryption scheme. Now I get a new encryption key every time, auto-negotiated with the AP. It’s all seamless to me.

To get it working:

1. Emerged ‘wpa_supplicant‘ (already in Gentoo portage tree)
2. Added a passphrase to my AP
3. Configured

   /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf

   like so:

   network={
        ssid=<my ESSID goes here>
        psk=<my passphrase goes here>
        priority=1
   }
   

   All other settings were left at the default

   To make sure the system would use it when I insert my DWLG650, I created

   /etc/init.d/net.ath0

   with the following contents:

   #!/bin/bash
   wpa_supplicant -B -K -t -Dmadwifi -iath0 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
   sleep 3
   dhcpcd -d ath0
   

I give the system 3-4 seconds to associate with the AP and negotiate the encryption keys before I attempt to request an IP address (hence the ’sleep 3′).

This isn’t the best solution, WPA with a RADIUS server would be, but it will do for now. At least I feel a little better about keeping out my nosy neighbors. At last count, I could see 8 other access points from my laptop. So far I’m the only one who is using a form of WPA.

Edit:

Ok, scratch this. I just noticed that my speed is stuck at 5MBps. I want my 54MBps back. :-/ I don’t feel like troubleshooting. Going back to WEP. Hopefully the problem is just the version of the madwifi I’m using

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 26th, 2005 at 2:18 pm and is filed under linux, 802.11abgn. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.