waproamd(8)

NAME

waproamd - Wireless Access Point Roaming Daemon for WLAN

IEEE 802.11

SYNOPSIS

waproamd [options]

DESCRIPTION

waproamd is a roaming daemon for wireless NICs supporting

the Linux wireless extensions. It is intended to configure the

WEP keys according to the networks found.

As long as the local NIC is not associated to any wireless

network waproamd scans iteratively for them. If one is detected,

a script in /etc/waproamd/scripts/ named after the MAC address of

the access point is called. (First lowercase, than uppercase is

checked) If a script like this is not found a script named es

sid:<ESSID> in the same directory is used. Special characters are

escape in an HTTP URL like fashion. If this script is not exis

tent, /etc/waproamd/scripts/default is called instead. The first

argument to this script is "start". If the association is lost,

the same script is run with the argument "stop". While the NIC is

associated no scans are issued.

waproamd is intended to be used together with ifplugd.

Whenever an association succeeds, ifplugd detects it and runs

further configuration commands for it.

If multiple WLANs are detected at the same time, the net

work which is detected by the hardware first is selected. Howev

er, networks where a matching script exists take precedence.

waproamd requires a network driver supporting the Linux

wireless extensions v15 or newer. The driver needs to support

scanning for wireless networks, which may be tested by running

"iwlist scan". If the driver supports the wireless event subsys

tem, waproamd may use it to improve latency behaviour. It is not

required, however.

waproamd supports the host_roaming ioctl() defined by the

hostap driver.

OPTIONS

-n | --no-daemon

Do not daemonize (for debugging) (default: off)

-s | --no-syslog

Do not use syslog, use stdout instead (for debug

ging) (default: off).

-i | --iface=IFACE

Specify the wireless network interface (default:

wlan0)

-w | --wait-on-fork

When daemonizing, wait until the background process

finished with the initial association detection.

-W | --wait-on-kill

When killing a running daemon (with -k) wait until

the daemon died.

-M | --monitor

Don't fail when the network interface is not avail

able, instead use NETLINK to monitor device avaibility. The is

useful for PCMCIA devices and similar.

-e | --no-event

Don't use the wireless event API (as used by

iwevent(8)), instead poll for association information. Some net

work drivers do not support this relatively new feature of the

Linux wireless extension. Sadly the support of this feature can

not be detected automatically.

-t | --scan-interval=SECS

Specify the time between scans for wireless net

works.

-p | --poll-intervall=SECS

When using -e, specify the time between association

status polls.

-h | --help

Show help

-k | --kill

Kill a running daemon (Specify -i to select the

daemon instance to kill)

-c | --check-running

Check if a daemon is running for a given network

interface. Sets the return value to 0 if a daemon is already run

ning or to 255 if not.

-S | --supend

Suspend a running daemon. The daemon will no longer

check the link status until it is resumed (-R) again. (Specify -i

to select the daemon instance to suspend.)

-R | --resume

Resume a suspended daemon. (Specify -i to select

the daemon instance to resume.)

-v | --version

Show version

-r | --issue-scan

Tell a running daemon to issue an immediate scan

for new networks

-U | --no-userspace-roaming

Don't enable userspace roaming as supported by cer

tain drivers (e.g. hostap). Normaly, waproamd tries to enable

this special feature, doing effectively the same as "iwpriv wlan0

host_roaming 2". If the driver supports this private ioctl the

robustness of waproamd's operation is increased. However, it is

not required for successful use. See your driver documentation

for mor information on this topic.

FILES

/etc/waproamd/waproamd.conf: this file is sourced by the

init script /etc/init.d/waproamd and contains the interface to be

monitored and the options to be used.

/etc/waproamd/scripts/<AP MAC address>: this is called

whenever a wireless network controlled by an AP with a matching

address is detected. The file is first tried with the MAC address

formatted lowercase. If no script with that name exists waproamd

looks for a file with the MAC address formatted uppercase. Only

scripts marked executable are considered. Networks with non-exe

cutable scripts are always ignored. You may use this to "disable"

specific networks from being selected. Takes the same arguments

as the following script:

/etc/waproamd/scripts/essid:<ESSID>: This is called when

ever a wireless AP is detected but no script named after the AP

MAC exists (See above). If the ESSID contains special chracters

(ASCII code < 32, >= 127, '/', '%') they are replaced by a char

acter % and the hexadecimal ASCII number of the character in up

percase. This is similar to the HTTP URL encoding. Only scripts

marked executable are considered. Takes the same arguments as the

following script:

/etc/waproamd/scripts/default: this is the script which is

called when neither a script named after the AP MAC address, nor

a script named after the ESSID is found. It takes a single argu

ment: either "start" or "stop". An environment variable AP is set

to the MAC address of the access point found. An environment

variable IFACE is set to the network interface name. An environ

ment variable ESSID contains the ESSID of the WLAN network. ES

SID_ESCAPED contains the ESSID with all special chracters escaped

the same way as described above. The default implementation of

this script looks for a file /etc/waproamd/keys/<AP MAC

address>.wep (or named after the ESSID, following the same scheme

as the script selection described above). If it exists its con

tents is used to set the WEP key of the NIC. Otherwise the script

looks for a file /etc/waproamd/keys/<AP MAC address>.aes. If it

exists the AES WEP rekeying daemon aeswepd(8) is called. Other

wise WEP encryption is disabled.

/var/run/waproamd.<iface>.pid: the pid file for waproamd.

SIGNALS

SIGINT, SIGTERM, SIGQUIT waproamd will quit. This is is

sued by passing -k to waproamd.

SIGHUP waproamd will rescan for available networks immedi

ately.

AUTHOR

waproamd was written by Lennart Poettering <mzjncebnzq

(at) 0pointer (dot) de>. waproamd is available at

http://0pointer.de/lennart/projects/waproamd/

SEE ALSO

ifplugd(8), aeswepd(8), iwconfig(8), iwlist(8)

COMMENTS

This man page was written using xmltoman(1) by Oliver

Kurth.

Manuals User

waproamd(8)