Re: Prism54 WPA Support - wpa_supplicant - Linux general wpa support

[Luis R. Rodriguez]

On Wed, Jun 02, 2004 at 06:23:14AM -0700, Jouni Malinen wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 02, 2004 at 03:14:49AM -0400, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:
> 
> > I'm glad wpa_supplicant exists :). Interacting with it *is* our missing
> > link to getting full WPA support (great job Jouni). In wpa_supplicant 
> > cvs I see a base code for driver_prism54.c (empty routines, just providing skeleton).
> > Well I'll be diving in it now and see where I can get. If anyone else is
> > interested in helping with WPA support for prism54, working with
> > wpa_supplicant is the way to go.
> 
> I have a bit more code for this in my work directory somewhere (setting
> the WPA IE and a new ioctl for this for the driver). I did not submit
> these yet since the extended MLME mode was not working and the changes
> were not yet really working properly. I can try to find these patches
> somewhere.. Anyway, I would first like to see the extended MLME mode
> working with any (even plaintext) AP and then somehow add the WPA IE to
> the AssocReq. After that, it should be only TKIP/CCMP key configuration
> and that's about it..

If you find the patches that'd be great :). I'll see what I can do about
fixing up extended MLME. I'll keep you posted. 

> > I'm curious though -- wpa_supplicant is pretty much userspace. This was
> > done with good intentions from what I read but before we get dirty 
> > with wpa_supplicant I'm wondering if we should just integrate a lot of 
> > wpa_supplicant into kernel space (specifically wireless tools).
> 
> Why? Which functionality would you like to move into kernel? Not that
> I'm against moving some parts, but I would certainly like to hear good
> reasons whenever moving something to kernel space if it can be done (or
> in this case, has already been done) in user space..

I have yet to review most of the wpa_supplicant code so I cannot say for
sure yet what I think should go into the kernel. I e-mailed most lists
mainly to get comments from others who have poked at wpa_supplicant
and/or are looking into adding WPA client support into their drivers.
I just wanted to make sure we were heading in the right direction since
I only see 2 drivers that are currently using wpa_supplicant.

> > Regardless, as Jouni points out, there is still a framework for WPA that needs
> > to be written for all linux wireless drivers, whether it's to assist
> > wpa_supplicant framework or to integrate wpa_supplicant into kernel space.
> 
> The first thing I would like to see is an addition to  Linux wireless
> extensions for WPA/WPA2 so that we can get rid of the private ioctls in
> the drivers. Even though these can often be similar, it would be nice to
> just write one driver interface code in wpa_supplicant and have it
> working with all Linu drivers.. I hope to find some time to write a
> proposal for this.

I agree :). Jean? *poke*

	Luis

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