Wi-Fi (WLAN) - WPA

This article descibes the configuration for a Wi-Fi connection. You find an example in the next article.

Create the WPA config

The command to create the WPA configuration file is
wpa_passphrase MYNETSSID MYPASS > /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf

Replace MYNETSSID with the SSID of the network to connect.

Replace MYPASS with the passphrase/key for the network.

Connect to the Wi-Fi network

Disable the LAN network card 'ifconfig eth0 down'.

Enable the Wi-Fi network card 'ifconfig wlan0 up'.

Start wpa_supplicant 'wpa_supplicant -Dwext -i wlan0 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf'.

On another terminal setup the IP address. Example for DHCP: dhclient wlan0

When you get an error like 'Ioctl[SIOCSIWMODE]: Operation not supported' then see the fix below.

Auto start Wi-Fi connect

Edit the file '/etc/rc.local'.

Above the line "exit 0" insert

# Start Wi-Fi in background
{
    ifconfig eth0 down
    ifconfig wlan0 up

    wpa_supplicant -B -Dwext -i wlan0 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf

    dhclient wlan0
} &

# Give some time to connect
sleep 2

Error message: Ioctl[SIOCSIWMODE]: Operation not supported

When you get the error messages

Successfully initialized wpa_supplicant
Ioctl[SIOCSIWMODE]: Operation not supported
Ioctl[SIOCSIWRANGE]: Operation not supported
Ioctl[SIOCSIWMODE]: Operation not supported
Ioctl[SIOCSIWAP]: Operation not supported
Ioctl[SIOCSIWESSID]: Operation not supported
Ioctl[SIOCSIWENCODEEXT]: Operation not supported
Ioctl[SIOCSIWENCODE]: Operation not supported
Ioctl[SIOCSIWENCODEEXT]: Operation not supported
Ioctl[SIOCSIWENCODE]: Operation not supported
Ioctl[SIOCSIWSCAN]: Operation not supported

Then replace -Dwext with -Dnl80211.
The whole line became wpa_supplicant -B -Dnl80211 -i wlan0 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf