Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2014 08:12:55 +0200 From: Eduardo Morras <emorrasg@yahoo.es> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: wpa_supplicant questions Message-ID: <20140825081255.8c782f1f7d9ee332b7f5b0aa@yahoo.es> In-Reply-To: <20140824215944.GE42644@home.parts-unknown.org> References: <20140824215944.GE42644@home.parts-unknown.org>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Sun, 24 Aug 2014 14:59:44 -0700
David Benfell <benfell@parts-unknown.org> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> With my notebook system, I wander various places and have to alter the
> wpa supplicant configuration for some of these places. (Fortunately,
> this proved easier than I expected and the initial installation
> provided example entries that, gee, I know work.)
>
> I then need to restart the network, sometimes overriding an
> association wpa_supplicant may already have made.
>
> 'service netif restart' seems inadequate and I have been having to
> reboot--an elaborate process because the notebook is UEFI and won't
> boot legacy-style off the hard disk.
>
> What is the correct incantation to do this?
As root shell:
#wpa_cli
help /* Shows a list of commands a few description */
list /* List the networks defined in /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf */
select n /* selects the network number n from upper list */
You can add new to wpa_supplicant.conf or use wpa_cli commands for it.
> Also, how does one escape an apostrophe in an SSID, as in "Nature's
> Express" (the SSID at a vegan restaurant in North Berkeley), in the
> wpa supplicant configuration?
Don't know, it should work because your wpa_supplicant.conf entry should look similar this one:
network={
ssid="Nature's Express"
scan_ssid=1
key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
psk="secretpassword"
}
where ssid is quoted with "", if don't work, you can try a double ' or \'.
> Finally, does 'ifconfig scan' output indicate signal strength? At a
> conference I attended yesterday, they had several similarly named
> access points to choose from (the ability to use a wildcard would have
> been helpful as they all take the same password), but I did not know
> which I should choose. As you can imagine, this compounded the above
> difficulties--I wound up abandoning my attempt to use my FreeBSD
> notebook in this situation.
Don't know, it's the first time I use ifconfig wlan0 scan. It shows the column S:N and looks like a Signal to Noise. Signal, the close to 0, the better. Noise, the close to -100 the better.
SSID/MESH ID BSSID CHAN RATE S:N INT CAPS
AP1 00:1a:5b:be 11 54M -91:-96 100 EP
AP2 72:c0:3b:ec 3 54M -94:-96 100 EP HTCAP WPA WME WPS
AP3 bc:14:13:88 4 54M -92:-96 100 EP HTCAP WPA RSN WME
AP4 00:26:db:d8 9 54M -93:-96 100 EP HTCAP WPA RSN WME
I use wpa_cli for this too:
#wpa_cli
scan
OK
scan_results
bssid / frequency / signal level / flags / ssid
9c:6d:eb:e6 2472 -88 [WPA-PSK-TKIP+CCMP][WPA2-PSK-TKIP+CCMP][ESS] AP19
bc:01:00:e8 2462 -90 [WPA-PSK-TKIP+CCMP][WPA2-PSK-TKIP+CCMP][ESS] AP31
f8:85:de:96 2412 -91 [WPA-PSK-TKIP+CCMP][ESS] AP13
HTH
> Thanks!
> --
> David Benfell <benfell@parts-unknown.org>
--- ---
Eduardo Morras <emorrasg@yahoo.es>
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?20140825081255.8c782f1f7d9ee332b7f5b0aa>