Normally when I run wpa_supplicant I'll get some output like this: Successfully initialized wpa_supplicant ioctl[SIOCSIWAP]: Operation not permitted ioctl[SIOCSIWENCODEEXT]: Invalid argument ioctl[SIOCSIWENCODEEXT]: Invalid argument wlan3: Trying to associate with 9c:3d:cf:fb:95:96 (SSID='Bell420' freq=2462 MHz) wlan3: Association request to the driver failed wlan3: Associated with 9c:3d:cf:fb:95:96 wlan3: Authentication with 9c:3d:cf:fb:95:96 timed out. ioctl[SIOCSIWAP]: Operation not permitted wlan3: CTRL-EVENT-DISCONNECTED bssid=9c:3d:cf:fb:95:96 reason=3 locally_generated=1 wlan3: WPA: 4-Way Handshake failed - pre-shared key may be incorrect The problem is it just keeps trying over and over. Is there a way I can tell wpa_supplicant to quit as soon as it gets an obvious error like wrong key? *I'm on an older embedded device with wpa_supplicant v2.1.* ---------- I wrote a workaround for monitoring wpa_supplicant for incorrect keys. Using grep on wpa_supplicant (with stdbuf based on Stéphane Chazelas' comment here ): # Create conf file with ssid and password wpa_passphrase "$ssid" "$password" > /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf # If wifi key is wrong kill subshell subshell=$BASHPID (sudo stdbuf -o0 wpa_supplicant -Dwext -iwlan1 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf 2>&1 \ | grep -m 1 "pre-shared key may be incorrect" \ && kill -s PIPE "$subshell") & *Note: the above block is inside a subshell in a script.* It seemed to work initially but over time I found sometimes it would cause the whole script to fail when the password was fine. Other times it would work as expected. There must be a better way to do this. ---------- *Edit: Maybe I should be using wpa_cli here instead?*

I’m trying to manage my wireless LAN interface using wpa_supplicant on my i.MX8 running Yocto Scarthgap. I can scan for available networks and connect successfully using the wpa_cli utility. However, when I try to save the current network configuration to the .conf file to persist it, wpa_supplicant fails to start on reboot due to an incorrect file format. Steps I followed before reboot to connect to an AP

> add_network
0
CTRL-EVENT-NETWORK-ADDED 0

> > set_network 0 ssid "MyNetwork"
OK
> set_network 0 psk "MyPassPhrase"
OK
> enable_network 0
OK
CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-STARTED 
CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-RESULTS 
Trying to associate with SSID 'MyNetwork'
.....
CTRL-EVENT-CONNECTED - Connection to xxxxxx completed [id=0 id_str=]

> > save_config
OK
> quit

This is what my .conf file in /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant-wlan0.conf looks like after I run save_config .

ctrl_interface=/run/wpa_supplicant
ctrl_interface_group=wheel
update_config=1
filter_ssids=1
ignore_old_scan_res=1

network={
	ssid="MyNetwork"
	psk=*
}

On reboot systemd failed to start wpa_supplicant service

root@imx8qxp:~# journalctl -xe -u wpa_supplicant@wlan0.service 
Jul 09 16:03:46 imx8qxp systemd: Started WPA supplicant daemon (interface-specific version). 
-- Subject: A start job for unit wpa_supplicant@wlan0.service has finished successfully 
-- Defined-By: systemd 
-- Support: https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/systemd-devel  
--  
-- A start job for unit wpa_supplicant@wlan0.service has finished successfully. 
--  
-- The job identifier is 100. 
Jul 09 16:03:46 imx8qxp systemd: wpa_supplicant@wlan0.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=255/EXCEPTION 
-- Subject: Unit process exited 
-- Defined-By: systemd 
-- Support: https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/systemd-devel  
--  
-- An ExecStart= process belonging to unit wpa_supplicant@wlan0.service has exited. --  -- The process' exit code is 'exited' and its exit status is 255. 
Jul 09 16:03:46 imx8qxp systemd: wpa_supplicant@wlan0.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'. -- Subject: Unit failed 
-- Defined-By: systemd 
-- Support: https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/systemd-devel  
--  
-- The unit wpa_supplicant@wlan0.service has entered the 'failed' state with result 'exit-code'.

On further investigation by trying to start wpa_supplicant manually

root@imx8qxp:~# wpa_supplicant -B -dd -i wlan0 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant-wlan0.conf
Line 9: Invalid PSK '*'.
Line 9: failed to parse psk '*'.
Line 10: failed to parse network block.
Failed to read or parse configuration '/etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant-wlan0.conf'.

I did try to manually generate the passphrase using the command wpa_passphrase SSID PASSWORD > /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant-wlan0.conf and there were no issues with it after reboot. I get this error only when trying to save network config from wpa_cli. I also tried recreating it on an ubuntu 24 machine but could not successfully reproduce the issue. While the obvious solution is to use wpa_passphrase directly, I'm interested in understanding why this issue occurs in the first place. Despite searching online, I haven’t come across anyone experiencing this exact problem. Could it be that I’m missing a step when saving the network configuration using wpa_cli? What causes this behaviour, and is there a correct way to persist network settings without manually trying to write to the file? I don't prefer using the wpa_passphrase command because I ultimately want to use wpa_ctrl C APIs and would not prefer messing with the .conf files in the application layer.

Not sure how wpa_supplicant is using the "dbus_connection_read_write_dispatch" API while it communicate with NetworkManager? Should I use "dbus_connection_read_write_dispatch" API driven from timer or the thread for my RPI system which would be better option in terms of overall performance point of view? Please guide. Thanks, Vikas

For some weeks now, I have a Dell XPS 13 2022 with the following network card : Intel Alder Lake-P PCH CNVi WiFi

$ lshw -C network
 *-network
       description: Interface réseau sans fil
       produit: Alder Lake-P PCH CNVi WiFi
       fabriquant: Intel Corporation
       identifiant matériel: 14.3
       information bus: pci@0000:00:14.3
       nom logique: wlp0s20f3
       version: 01
       numéro de série: a0:02:a5:9e:9d:41
       bits: 64 bits
       horloge: 33MHz
       fonctionnalités: pm msi pciexpress msix bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
       configuration: broadcast=yes driver=iwlwifi driverversion=6.6.59_1 firmware=83.e8f84e98.0 so-a0-gf-a0-83.uc ip=192.168.1.47 latency=0 link=yes
multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11
       ressources: mémoireE/S:600-5ff irq:16 mémoire:607a294000-607a297fff

And since the beginning, I have a very unstable connectivity. I use the same SSID/router/software to connect to WI-FI (actually wpa_cli) than my previous laptop, on the same GNU/Linux distrib (void linux) and in the previous one I had no issues like this. It disconnects randomly, and take a long time of trials and errors before catching a connection again. Here is a sample of the wpa_cli output :

CTRL-EVENT-NETWORK-NOT-FOUND
CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-STARTED
CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-RESULTS
WPS-AP-AVAILABLE
CTRL-EVENT-NETWORK-NOT-FOUND
CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-STARTED
CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-RESULTS
WPS-AP-AVAILABLE
CTRL-EVENT-NETWORK-NOT-FOUND
CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-RESULTS
WPS-AP-AVAILABLE
CTRL-EVENT-NETWORK-NOT-FOUND
CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-RESULTS
WPS-AP-AVAILABLE
CTRL-EVENT-SSID-REENABLED id=2 ssid="Pretty Fly for A WI-FI"
Added BSSID f4:ca:e5:e6:01:a0 into ignore list, ignoring for 10 seconds
SME: Trying to authenticate with f4:ca:e5:e6:01:a0 (SSID='Pretty Fly for A WI-FI' freq=2462 MHz)
Trying to associate with f4:ca:e5:e6:01:a0 (SSID='Pretty Fly for A WI-FI' freq=2462 MHz)
Associated with f4:ca:e5:e6:01:a0
CTRL-EVENT-SUBNET-STATUS-UPDATE status=0
CTRL-EVENT-DISCONNECTED bssid=f4:ca:e5:e6:01:a0 reason=7
BSSID f4:ca:e5:e6:01:a0 ignore list count incremented to 2, ignoring for 10 seconds
CTRL-EVENT-SSID-TEMP-DISABLED id=2 ssid="Pretty Fly for A WI-FI" auth_failures=3 duration=49 reason=CONN_FAILED
CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-STARTED
CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-RESULTS
WPS-AP-AVAILABLE
Removed BSSID f4:ca:e5:e6:01:a0 from ignore list (clear)
CTRL-EVENT-NETWORK-NOT-FOUND
CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-STARTED
CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-RESULTS
WPS-AP-AVAILABLE
CTRL-EVENT-NETWORK-NOT-FOUND
CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-STARTED
CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-RESULTS
WPS-AP-AVAILABLE
CTRL-EVENT-NETWORK-NOT-FOUND
CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-RESULTS
WPS-AP-AVAILABLE
CTRL-EVENT-NETWORK-NOT-FOUND
CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-RESULTS
WPS-AP-AVAILABLE
CTRL-EVENT-NETWORK-NOT-FOUND
CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-RESULTS
WPS-AP-AVAILABLE
CTRL-EVENT-SSID-REENABLED id=2 ssid="Pretty Fly for A WI-FI"
Added BSSID f4:ca:e5:e6:01:a0 into ignore list, ignoring for 10 seconds
SME: Trying to authenticate with f4:ca:e5:e6:01:a0 (SSID='Pretty Fly for A WI-FI' freq=2462 MHz)
Trying to associate with f4:ca:e5:e6:01:a0 (SSID='Pretty Fly for A WI-FI' freq=2462 MHz)
Associated with f4:ca:e5:e6:01:a0
CTRL-EVENT-SUBNET-STATUS-UPDATE status=0
WPA: Key negotiation completed with f4:ca:e5:e6:01:a0 [PTK=CCMP GTK=CCMP]
Removed BSSID f4:ca:e5:e6:01:a0 from ignore list
CTRL-EVENT-CONNECTED - Connection to f4:ca:e5:e6:01:a0 completed [id=2 id_str=]

It's a short one, because it sometimes takes more than 30 minutes to reconnect... Does anyone have an idea ?

I'm trying to get Wifi P2P (also known as "Wifi Direct") working on some devices. My goal is for them to be a "Group Owner" (i.e., acting like an access point). However, I'm getting very different results on different systems. Note that I'm talking about different hardware devices, but I *think* my issue is Linux-based. I have gotten success with Raspberry Pi OS on a Pi 4B. However, when I try the same commands on a Banana Pi running Arabian I get very different results. However, I think the ultimate issue is system-level, which is why I'm asking here. So, here's what works on the RPi OS (device_name is set in /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf): wpa_cli p2p_group_add ifconfig p2p-wlan0-0 192.168.0.34 metmask 255.255.0.0 dnsmasq -i p2p-wlan0-0 -F192.168.0.40,192.168.0.250 -p0 -z wpa_cli set p2p_go_intent 15 ifconfig wlan0 down wpa_cli wps_pbc From here, if I connect from my Android device, it works, and receives a DHCP response. Unfortunately, there's not much logging, so I can't compare well with other things. Additionally, from trial-and-error, I have determined that this DOESN'T work if my netmask is 255.255.255.0!?!? Weird, but whatever. If I try the same sequence of commands on my Banana Pi (with a variety of operating systems - Raspbian, Ubuntu, and Armbian), there are several differences. First, if I take down wlan0, nothing after that works. So, leaving it in, it doesn't start advertising unless I issue a "wpa_cli p2p_find". or "wpa_cli p2p_listen". I found that strange, but whatever. However, here, the Android device finds the network, initiates, but the negotiation is never completed and a DHCP lease is never given. The log (which is better on Armbian than on RPiOS) gives the sequence: "P2P-DEVICE-FOUND, P2P-PROV-DISC-PBC-REQ", and "P2P-GO-NEG-REQUEST", but nothing after that. In any case, I've tried lots of variations, different kernels, different versions of operating systems, etc. It's *possibly* a hardware issue with my Banana Pi, but I'm not sure why that would be - it's doing Wifi generally just fine, and P2P I think is just a new frame type, which the driver says it supports (uses brcmfmac). It's possible it's a weird interaction with NetworkManager as well, but I have been unable to turn NetworkManager off and still have wpa_cli still work. Earlier in the syslog, when I enable the P2P group, I get some messages in my syslog which state: wpa_supplicant: p2p-wlan0-0: interface state UNINITIALIZED->ENABLED wpa_supplicant: p2p-wlan0-0: AP-ENABLED wpa_supplicant: p2p-wlan0-0: CTRL-EVENT_CONNECTED wpa_supplicant: P2P-GROUP-STARTED p2p-wlan0-0 GO ..... wpa_supplicant: bus: Register group object.... NetworkManager: device (p2p-dev-wlan0): P2P: WPA supplicant notified a group start but we are not trying to connect! Ignoring the event wpa_supplicant: p2p-wlan0-0: interface state ENABLED->DISABLED wpa_supplicant: p2p-wlan0-0: AP-DISABLED wpa_supplicant: p2p-wlan0-0: CTRL-EVENT-DISCONNECTED I don't know if these are normal (since the RPi 4 isn't logging at this level), but it seems that after enabled AP mode, it then disables it. However, I thought that it should probably stay in AP mode since it is a group owner. I didn't know if NetworkManager ignoring the event was causing anything weird. I'm really unsure how these interactions are supposed to go. I've also tried a lot of variations on these, like setting the default route, but to no avail. If anyone has suggestions on where to go, I would greatly appreciate it. Sadly, right now my only Linux machines are my Pis, so I can't try this out on a regular PC either. I also didn't know if there was something I could try at a lower level (using iw or something), because I'm really not familiar with how all of the layers work together, and there isn't great documentation on it either, especially regarding Wifi P2P. Any advice is appreciated. Also, I've tried turning off NetworkManager, but, anytime I do that, wpa_cli seems to fail entirely.

**Is it theorically possible to connect to a hidden wifi without giving the ESSID?** The way I connect to a hidden wifi requires to give an SSID (nmcli refuses to have a blank 802-11-wireless.ssid field). nmcli con add type wifi con-name ifname wlan0 ssid nmcli con modify wifi-sec.key-mgmt wpa-psk nmcli con modify wifi-sec.psk

I have a raspberrypi ZeroW that I am trying to connect to a network with a hidden ssid. I know that I could add this line "scan_ssid=1" to my wpa_supplicant.conf file for setup that way, however I would like to do all of the network configuration through wpa_cli. The man page does not seem to have anything on hidden ssid's and when I run the set command it does not provide the output of all the variable options as stated in the man page I just get: "Invalid SET command - at least 2 arguments are required." tldr: connect to hidden ssid through wpa_cli only

Is there a command supported by wpa_cli to make wpa_supplicant scan and yield the results of my desired network using the SSID instead of making supplicant scan all the nearby networks?

I'd like to know if it's possible -- I hope and guess it is -- to switch between different networks in wpa_cli without using select_network, as this disables all other networks. Thing is, say I have n networks to connect to and stored in my wpa_supplicant.conf. For whatever reason, I want to switch from network 1 to 2. Right now I'm using select_network, which disables all the other networks 1, 3, ..., n. This means that if network 2 crashes for some reason, wpa_supplicant won't automatically connect to a different available network. I'd like to avoid that by finding a method to switch between networks without using select_network. Any idea how to do that?

At boot of my Raspbian (Debian 10) I have this:

$ sudo wpa_cli
wpa_cli v2.8-devel
Copyright (c) 2004-2019, Jouni Malinen  and contributors

This software may be distributed under the terms of the BSD license.
See README for more details.


Selected interface 'p2p-dev-wlan0'

Interactive mode

> status
wpa_state=INTERFACE_DISABLED
p2p_device_address=de:a6:32:32:e9:32
address=de:a6:32:32:e9:32
uuid=622a44c0-abb5-576f-93be-bd05478ea3b2
> scan
FAIL

I can activate the wifi only with the desktop interface / mouse. Everytime I reboot I have to activate it manually. Any hint about how to activate it on boot? Thx

Is it possible to deactivate wpa_cli notifications/messages like WPS_AP_AVAILABLE? Because it spams it, and in a VT where you have to slowly type MACs@ and bssIDs, it's really hard with those bothering messages

I am failing to connect to open wifi networks using wpa_cli. I am trying to connect to the open wifi networks in the following way:

$ sudo wpa_cli -i wlp3s0
> add_network
0
> set_network 0 ssid "Guest"
> enable_network 0

When I try to enable the network sometimes it just replies OK and then nothing. Few times, I have seen it to reply following:

CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-STARTED
CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-RESULTS
WPS-AP-AVAILABLE
CTRL-EVENT-NETWORK-NOT-FOUND

wpa_cli is working without any issue for password protected networks.

I'm trying to connect to wifi using the wpa_cli. I've run $ wpa_cli add_network, got 0 back, ran $ wpa_cli set_network 0 ssid "my ssid". But this failed. Then I tried the interactive shell, ran set_network 0 ssid "my ssid" and got an OK? Shouldn't both either fail or run just fine? Why is only one failing?

krishna@krishna-PC:~/Downloads/wificonnect1$ sudo wpa_cli scan [sudo] password for krishna: Selected interface 'wlan0' OK krishna@krishna-PC:~/Downloads/wificonnect1$ sudo wpa_cli scan_results Selected interface 'wlan0' bssid / frequency / signal level / flags / ssid fc:0a:81:1d:6d:80 2412 -43 [WPA2-PSK-CCMP][ESS] econsys 00:24:01:ba:b4:65 2437 -72 [WPA-PSK-TKIP][WPA2-PSK-TKIP][WPS][ESS] Test 6c:72:20:f2:1a:6b 2412 -60 [WPA-PSK-CCMP][WPA2-PSK-CCMP][ESS] Hari c0:ee:fb:31:ec:4a 2447 -76 [WPA2-PSK-CCMP][ESS] Vishal's hotspot fc:0a:81:1c:6d:f0 2412 -61 [WPA2-PSK-CCMP][ESS] econsys c4:12:f5:08:10:70 2427 -63 [WPA-PSK-CCMP][WPA2-PSK-CCMP][ESS] GoGreen f4:f2:6d:6d:23:44 2462 -62 [WPS][ESS] joyglobal krishna@krishna-PC:~/Downloads/wificonnect1$ sudo wpa_cli add_network Selected interface 'wlan0' 1 krishna@krishna-PC:~/Downloads/wificonnect1$ sudo wpa_cli set_network 1 ssid "econsys" Selected interface 'wlan0' FAIL How should I connect?

I have been googling since morning about any wpa_cli actionscript example and the commands but can't any decent one. can someone help me with some info or link please? Thanks

I first came across this when I was trying to make a python program that used programs to scan for wireless networks. I've used the following tools: iwlist, iw, wpa_cli, nmcli, and iwconfig I run into the same behavior on all of them. Suppose you're sitting by your computer and wireless access point/router. Type out one of the following commands, assuming your wifi adapter is named wlan0, turn of the router, then press enter in the terminal window. iw wlan0 scan | grep SSID iwlist wlan0 scan | grep SSID wpa_cli -i wlan0 scan && wpa_cli -i wlan0 scan_results nmcli device wifi rescan && nmcli device wifi list All of the commands still show the SSID for quite some time. I imagine longer than it would take for the E&M standing wave to disappear. Does anyone have any fix for this problem?

Using wpa_passphrase I can get a config with the password stored as a hash but when saving a new network with wpa_cli it gets saved as plain text. Is there a way to save passwords as a hash from wpa_cli or would I actually need to manually change it each time?

I'm running Arch Linux with i3wm. $ uname -a Linux lappie 5.3.1-arch1-1-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Sat Sep 21 11:33:49 UTC 2019 x86_64 GNU/Linux $ i3 --version i3 version 4.17.1 (2019-08-30) © 2009 Michael Stapelberg and contributors I have this scriptfile function.sh that scans the wifi with wpa_cli. It checks the return of > scan and returns the results if the scan was successful. #!/bin/bash logfile=/$HOME/.logfile echo "function" >> $logfile echo "" >> $logfile interface="wlp2s0" function scan_wifi { scan=$(sudo wpa_cli -i $interface scan) echo "scan: $scan" >> $logfile case "$scan" in "OK") echo "Scanning wifi" >> $logfile scan_res=$(sudo wpa_cli -i $interface scan_results | awk 'NR>1 {OFS="\n>>"; print $NF}') echo "results: $scan_res" >> $logfile echo $scan_res ;; "FAIL") echo "FAILED TO SCAN" >> $logfile echo "FAILED TO SCAN" ;; *) echo "ERROR: empty or undefined event for $interface" >> $logfile exit 1 ;; esac } echo "return: $(scan_wifi)" >> $logfile echo "" >> $logfile echo "" >> $logfile function.sh locates in my $HOME directory. I also have a file /usr/local/bin/networkmenu containing the following: #!/bin/sh bash /home/speklap/function.sh Until now everything is ok. I've added the /user/local/bin/networkmenu to the sudoers file to execute without password. speklap ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: /usr/local/bin/networkmenu In the terminal as user: $ networkmenu .logfile: function scan: OK Scanning wifi results: thuis return: thuis But when executing with a shortcut through i3, it doesn't work. .config/i3/config: bindsym $mod+n exec networkmenu Results in a .logfile: function scan: ERROR: empty or undefined event for wlp2s0 return: Why is that, why can't i3 invoke the script like I can in the terminal? What am I doing wrong? EDIT: if someone can come up with a better title, feel free to change. I had no clue on how to google this and my results were poorly and a lot of false positives EDIT: outputting to /tmp/nm.log as per comment of @cas + logfile=//home/speklap/.logfile + echo functions + echo '' + interface=wlp2s0 ++ scan_wifi +++ sudo wpa_cli -i wlp2s0 scan sudo: no tty present and no askpass program specified ++ scan= ++ echo 'scan: ' ++ case "$scan" in ++ echo 'ERROR: empty or undefined event for wlp2s0' ++ exit 1 + echo 'return: ' + echo '' + echo '' So now we know what the problem is, sudo: no tty present and no askpass program specified I can fix this by adding wpa_cli to the sudoers file? Or is there a better solution. As in changing networkmenu to sudo bash /$HOME/function.sh?

How would you suggest to align all SSID in one single column in the wpa_cli scan_result command? To be clear, I want to transform this output # wpa_cli scan_results d8:fb:5e:a5:38:20 [WPA2-PSK-CCMP][WPS][ESS] zdn-11878 08:96:d7:7e:d8:12 [WPA-PSK-TKIP][WPA2-PSK-CCMP][WPS][ESS] Ubeda 5 6c:3b:e5:4b:ea:00 [WPA2-PSK-CCMP][ESS] HP-Print- Into this one # wpa_cli scan_results d8:fb:5e:a5:38:20 [WPA2-PSK-CCMP][WPS][ESS] zdn-11878 08:96:d7:7e:d8:12 [WPA-PSK-TKIP][WPA2-PSK-CCMP][WPS][ESS] Ubeda 5 6c:3b:e5:4b:ea:00 [WPA2-PSK-CCMP][ESS] HP-Print-00-Photosmart 5520

Currently it seems like the Buildroot package for wpa_supplicant does not include the Roaming Mode functionality that is available in the Debian package. How would I manually include this in my Buildroot OS?