Interactive password

[Nicolas Will]

Jouni Malinen wrote:

>On Mon, Dec 05, 2005 at 05:31:02PM -0600, Nicolas Will wrote:
>
>  
>
>>Even with /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf with 600 perms, I'm having a hard
>>time living with my password hard-coded on my hard-disk...
>>
>>Is there any way to invoke an interactive password query like an
>>ssh-askpass?
>>    
>>
>
>wpa_supplicant has a control interface that could be used to implement
>this.
>  
>

Sure, I read that.

Being crap at coding... I'm just asking if anyone already scratched that
itch, or if it was on the way.

>  
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>>I know that wpa_cli can be used somehow, but it is not very flexible.
>>    
>>
>
>What do you mean with this? What kind of flexibility would you like to
>see?
>

Well, I meant that to use wpa_cli, you need to start a terminal, get in
the cli, then issue commands, with knowledge of a few things...

Flexible is probably not the right word. Usable is probably better.


> wpa_supplicant will ask user for password when one is needed and
>the configuration did not include it. This request is sent to all
>"monitor programs" using the control interface. One example of these is
>wpa_cli, which will interactively ask for the password; another one is
>wpa_gui, which will do the same by popping up a dialog box asking for
>the password.
>  
>

I understand that, and that is what Network Manager is also planning on
using ultimately.

>  
>
>>wpa_gui sound promising, but I compiled it, and I think that it still
>>needs work.
>>    
>>
>
>Could you please be more specific on what you would like to see in
>wpa_gui?
>

I'm sorry, my message did not go through properly when put into words,
and can appear reude when there was no intention.

I just wanted to say that wpa_gui looked promising, but did not look
finished/complete feature-wise yet. Not a problem. A clear confirmation
of that status is that my distribution (Ubuntu) does not give it yet. I
downloaded the upstream tarball and compiled it myself. It didn't give
me all the options I wanted (or did not understand my conf file)
regarding EAP and such. I am sure tha it will come, it is just not ready
yet, I guess.

Here is the scenario that I would find convenient *for me*:

Machine starts up, I logon, desktop starts up, I get a wpa_gui to start
automatically somehow (session fil, panel applet, freedesktop
notification area,etc...).
I can create a wireless network profile without stored password, but
offering me all the field correcponding to a complete conf file. When I
ask the app to connect to the network, it pops up a password request dialog.

wpa_gui is not there yet. Again, this is not a criticism, especially
coming from someone with the coding abilities of a dead squirrel.

Nico