using wpa_supplicant without a configuration file

[Jouni Malinen]

On Tue, Sep 20, 2005 at 06:27:48PM +0300, Bar, Eitan wrote:

> I would like to start wpa_supplicant without an existing configuration
> file (commands for connection will follow later using wpa_cli).
> 
> Is that possible? 

It's almost possible and could be made to work with minor change.

> It seems as if this requires some modifications to the source-code,
> since the "wpa_supplicant_init" routine checks if no SSID was
> configured, and if so, it exits with an error.

I dropped this requirement in 0.4.4.

> Is it possible to set it to "junk" ssid and therefore nothing will
> happen on startup?

You should be able to start the current development release (0.4.4 and
newer) with an empty configuration file. The file itself is still
needed, but it does not need to include any network blocks. If no
network blocks are included, wpa_supplicant starts without trying to
associate with any networks.

> What I basically need is just to get the wpa_supplicant running and then
> use wpa_cli to control it (set encryption/authentication/ssid etc)...

You can do this by just enabling control interface in the configuration
file which at minimum require the ctrl_interface parameter. wpa_cli can
then be used to add new network blocks and set the parameters for them.
If you want to get completely rid of the configuration file, that should
only require a change to hardcode (or use a command line parameter) to
specify ctrl_interface parameter.

-- 
Jouni Malinen                                            PGP id EFC895FA