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.Dd March 16, 2022
.Dt WPA_SUPPLICANT.CONF 5
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm wpa_supplicant.conf
.Nd configuration file for
.Xr wpa_supplicant 8
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The
.Xr wpa_supplicant 8
utility is an implementation of the WPA Supplicant component,
i.e., the part that runs in the client stations.
It implements WPA key negotiation with a WPA Authenticator
and EAP authentication with Authentication Server using
configuration information stored in a text file.
.Pp
The configuration file consists of optional global parameter
settings and one or more network blocks, e.g.\&
one for each used SSID.
The
.Xr wpa_supplicant 8
utility
will automatically select the best network based on the order of
the network blocks in the configuration file, network security level
(WPA/WPA2 is preferred), and signal strength.
Comments are indicated with the
.Ql #
character; all text to the
end of the line will be ignored.
.Sh GLOBAL PARAMETERS
Default parameters used by
.Xr wpa_supplicant 8
may be overridden by specifying
.Pp
.Dl parameter=value
.Pp
in the configuration file (note no spaces are allowed).
Values with embedded spaces must be enclosed in quote marks.
.Pp
The following parameters are recognized:
.Bl -tag -width indent
.It Va ctrl_interface
The pathname of the directory in which
.Xr wpa_supplicant 8
creates
.Ux
domain socket files for communication
with frontend programs such as
.Xr wpa_cli 8 .
.It Va ctrl_interface_group
A group name or group ID to use in setting protection on the
control interface file.
This can be set to allow non-root users to access the
control interface files.
If no group is specified, the group ID of the control interface
is not modified and will, typically, be the
group ID of the directory in which the socket is created.
.It Va eapol_version
The IEEE 802.1x/EAPOL protocol version to use; either 1 (default) or 2.
The
.Xr wpa_supplicant 8
utility
is implemented according to IEEE 802-1X-REV-d8 which defines
EAPOL version to be 2.
However, some access points do not work when presented with
this version so by default
.Xr wpa_supplicant 8
will announce that it is using EAPOL version 1.
If version 2 must be announced for correct operation with an
access point, this value may be set to 2.
.It Va ap_scan
Access point scanning and selection control; one of 0, 1 (default), or 2.
Only setting 1 should be used with the
.Xr wlan 4
module; the other settings are for use on other operating systems.
.It Va fast_reauth
EAP fast re-authentication; either 1 (default) or 0.
Control fast re-authentication support in EAP methods that support it.
.El
.Sh NETWORK BLOCKS
Each potential network/access point should have a
.Dq "network block"
that describes how to identify it and how to set up security.
When multiple network blocks are listed in a configuration file,
the highest priority one is selected for use or, if multiple networks
with the same priority are identified, the first one listed in the
configuration file is used.
.Pp
A network block description is of the form:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
network={
parameter=value
...
}
.Ed
.Pp
(note the leading
.Qq Li "network={"
may have no spaces).
The block specification contains one or more parameters
from the following list:
.Bl -tag -width indent
.It Va ssid No (required)
Network name (as announced by the access point).
An
.Tn ASCII
or hex string enclosed in quotation marks.
.It Va scan_ssid
SSID scan technique; 0 (default) or 1.
Technique 0 scans for the SSID using a broadcast Probe Request frame.
Technique 1 uses directed Probe Request frames, sent to each configured SSID.
Access points that cloak themselves by not broadcasting their SSID require
technique 1.
Beware that this technique can cause scanning to take longer to complete,
and exposes the list of configured network SSIDs to eavesdroppers.
.It Va bssid
Network BSSID (typically the MAC address of the access point).
.It Va priority
The priority of a network when selecting among multiple networks;
a higher value means a network is more desirable.
By default networks have priority 0.
When multiple networks with the same priority are considered
for selection, other information such as security policy and
signal strength are used to select one.
.It Va mode
IEEE 802.11 operation mode; either 0 (infrastructure, default) or 1 (IBSS).
Note that IBSS (adhoc) mode can only be used with
.Va key_mgmt
set to
.Li NONE
(plaintext and static WEP), or
.Va key_mgmt
set to
.Li WPA-NONE
(fixed group key TKIP/CCMP).
In addition,
.Va ap_scan
has to be set to 2 for IBSS.
.Li WPA-NONE
requires
.Va proto
set to WPA,
.Va key_mgmt
set to WPA-NONE,
.Va pairwise
set to NONE,
.Va group
set to either
CCMP or TKIP (but not both), and
.Va psk
must also be set.
.It Va proto
List of acceptable protocols; one or more of:
.Li WPA
(IEEE 802.11i/D3.0)
and
.Li RSN
(IEEE 802.11i).
.Li WPA2
is another name for
.Li RSN .
If not set this defaults to
.Qq Li "WPA RSN" .
.It Va key_mgmt
List of acceptable key management protocols; one or more of:
.Li WPA-PSK
(WPA pre-shared key),
.Li WPA-EAP
(WPA using EAP authentication),
.Li IEEE8021X
(IEEE 802.1x using EAP authentication and,
optionally, dynamically generated WEP keys),
.Li NONE
(plaintext or static WEP keys).
If not set this defaults to
.Qq Li "WPA-PSK WPA-EAP" .
.It Va auth_alg
List of allowed IEEE 802.11 authentication algorithms; one or more of:
.Li OPEN
(Open System authentication, required for WPA/WPA2),
.Li SHARED
(Shared Key authentication),
.Li LEAP
(LEAP/Network EAP).
If not set automatic selection is used (Open System with LEAP
enabled if LEAP is allowed as one of the EAP methods).
.It Va pairwise
List of acceptable pairwise (unicast) ciphers for WPA; one or more of:
.Li CCMP
(AES in Counter mode with CBC-MAC, RFC 3610, IEEE 802.11i/D7.0),
.Li TKIP
(Temporal Key Integrity Protocol, IEEE 802.11i/D7.0),
.Li NONE
(deprecated).
If not set this defaults to
.Qq Li "CCMP TKIP" .
.It Va group
List of acceptable group (multicast) ciphers for WPA; one or more of:
.Li CCMP
(AES in Counter mode with CBC-MAC, RFC 3610, IEEE 802.11i/D7.0),
.Li TKIP
(Temporal Key Integrity Protocol, IEEE 802.11i/D7.0),
.Li WEP104
(WEP with 104-bit key),
.Li WEP40
(WEP with 40-bit key).
If not set this defaults to
.Qq Li "CCMP TKIP WEP104 WEP40" .
.It Va psk
WPA preshared key used in WPA-PSK mode.
The key is specified as 64 hex digits or as
an 8-63 character
.Tn ASCII
passphrase.
.Tn ASCII
passphrases are dynamically converted to a 256-bit key at runtime
using the network SSID, or they can be statically converted at
configuration time using
the
.Xr wpa_passphrase 8
utility.
.It Va eapol_flags
Dynamic WEP key usage for non-WPA mode, specified as a bit field.
Bit 0 (1) forces dynamically generated unicast WEP keys to be used.
Bit 1 (2) forces dynamically generated broadcast WEP keys to be used.
By default this is set to 3 (use both).
.It Va eap
List of acceptable EAP methods; one or more of:
.Li MD5
(EAP-MD5, cannot be used with WPA,
used only as a Phase 2 method with EAP-PEAP or EAP-TTLS),
.Li MSCHAPV2
(EAP-MSCHAPV2, cannot be used with WPA;
used only as a Phase 2 method with EAP-PEAP or EAP-TTLS),
.Li OTP
(EAP-OTP, cannot be used with WPA;
used only as a Phase 2 metod with EAP-PEAP or EAP-TTLS),
.Li GTC
(EAP-GTC, cannot be used with WPA;
used only as a Phase 2 metod with EAP-PEAP or EAP-TTLS),
.Li TLS
(EAP-TLS, client and server certificate),
.Li PEAP
(EAP-PEAP, with tunneled EAP authentication),
.Li TTLS
(EAP-TTLS, with tunneled EAP or PAP/CHAP/MSCHAP/MSCHAPV2 authentication).
If not set this defaults to all available methods compiled in to
.Xr wpa_supplicant 8 .
Note that by default
.Xr wpa_supplicant 8
is compiled with EAP support; see
.Xr make.conf 5
for the
.Va NO_WPA_SUPPLICANT_EAPOL
configuration variable that can be used to disable EAP support.
.It Va identity
Identity string for EAP.
.It Va anonymous_identity
Anonymous identity string for EAP (to be used as the unencrypted identity
with EAP types that support different tunneled identities; e.g.\& EAP-TTLS).
.It Va mixed_cell
Configure whether networks that allow both plaintext and encryption
are allowed when selecting a BSS from the scan results.
By default this is set to 0 (disabled).
.It Va password
Password string for EAP.
.It Va ca_cert
Pathname to CA certificate file.
This file can have one or more trusted CA certificates.
If
.Va ca_cert
is not included, server certificates will not be verified (not recommended).
.It Va client_cert
Pathname to client certificate file (PEM/DER).
.It Va private_key
Pathname to a client private key file (PEM/DER/PFX).
When a PKCS#12/PFX file is used, then
.Va client_cert
should not be specified as both the private key and certificate will be
read from PKCS#12 file.
.It Va private_key_passwd
Password for any private key file.
.It Va dh_file
Pathname to a file holding DH/DSA parameters (in PEM format).
This file holds parameters for an ephemeral DH key exchange.
In most cases, the default RSA authentication does not use this configuration.
However, it is possible to set up RSA to use an ephemeral DH key exchange.
In addition, ciphers with
DSA keys always use ephemeral DH keys.
This can be used to achieve forward secrecy.
If the
.Va dh_file
is in DSA parameters format, it will be automatically converted
into DH parameters.
.It Va subject_match
Substring to be matched against the subject of the
authentication server certificate.
If this string is set, the server
certificate is only accepted if it contains this string in the subject.
The subject string is in following format:
.Pp
.Dl "/C=US/ST=CA/L=San Francisco/CN=Test AS/emailAddress=as@example.com"
.It Va phase1
Phase1 (outer authentication, i.e., TLS tunnel) parameters
(string with field-value pairs, e.g.,
.Qq Li peapver=0
or
.Qq Li "peapver=1 peaplabel=1" ) .
.Bl -inset
.It Li peapver
can be used to force which PEAP version (0 or 1) is used.
.It Li peaplabel=1
can be used to force new label,
.Dq "client PEAP encryption" ,
to be used during key derivation when PEAPv1 or newer.
Most existing PEAPv1 implementations seem to be using the old label,
.Dq Li "client EAP encryption" ,
and
.Xr wpa_supplicant 8
is now using that as the
default value.
Some servers, e.g.,
.Tn Radiator ,
may require
.Li peaplabel=1
configuration to interoperate with PEAPv1; see
.Pa eap_testing.txt
for more details.
.It Li peap_outer_success=0
can be used to terminate PEAP authentication on
tunneled EAP-Success.
This is required with some RADIUS servers that
implement
.Pa draft-josefsson-pppext-eap-tls-eap-05.txt
(e.g.,
.Tn Lucent NavisRadius v4.4.0
with PEAP in
.Dq "IETF Draft 5"
mode).
.It Li include_tls_length=1
can be used to force
.Xr wpa_supplicant 8
to include
TLS Message Length field in all TLS messages even if they are not
fragmented.
.It Li sim_min_num_chal=3
can be used to configure EAP-SIM to require three
challenges (by default, it accepts 2 or 3).
.It Li fast_provisioning=1
option enables in-line provisioning of EAP-FAST
credentials (PAC).
.El
.It Va phase2
phase2: Phase2 (inner authentication with TLS tunnel) parameters
(string with field-value pairs, e.g.,
.Qq Li "auth=MSCHAPV2"
for EAP-PEAP or
.Qq Li "autheap=MSCHAPV2 autheap=MD5"
for EAP-TTLS).
.It Va ca_cert2
Like
.Va ca_cert
but for EAP inner Phase 2.
.It Va client_cert2
Like
.Va client_cert
but for EAP inner Phase 2.
.It Va private_key2
Like
.Va private_key
but for EAP inner Phase 2.
.It Va private_key2_passwd
Like
.Va private_key_passwd
but for EAP inner Phase 2.
.It Va dh_file2
Like
.Va dh_file
but for EAP inner Phase 2.
.It Va subject_match2
Like
.Va subject_match
but for EAP inner Phase 2.
.It Va eappsk
16-byte pre-shared key in hex format for use with EAP-PSK.
.It Va nai
User NAI for use with EAP-PSK.
.It Va server_nai
Authentication Server NAI for use with EAP-PSK.
.It Va pac_file
Pathname to the file to use for PAC entries with EAP-FAST.
The
.Xr wpa_supplicant 8
utility
must be able to create this file and write updates to it when
PAC is being provisioned or refreshed.
.It Va eap_workaround
Enable/disable EAP workarounds for various interoperability issues
with misbehaving authentication servers.
By default these workarounds are enabled.
Strict EAP conformance can be configured by setting this to 0.
.It Va wep_tx_keyidx
which key to use for transmission of packets.
.It Va wep_keyN key
An
.Tn ASCII
string enclosed in quotation marks to encode the WEP key.
Without quotes this is a hex string of the actual key.
WEP is considered insecure and should be avoided.
The exact translation from an ASCII key to a hex key varies.
Use hex keys where possible.
.El
.Sh CERTIFICATES
Some EAP authentication methods require use of certificates.
EAP-TLS uses both server- and client-side certificates,
whereas EAP-PEAP and EAP-TTLS only require a server-side certificate.
When a client certificate is used, a matching private key file must
also be included in configuration.
If the private key uses a passphrase, this
has to be configured in the
.Nm
file as
.Va private_key_passwd .
.Pp
The
.Xr wpa_supplicant 8
utility
supports X.509 certificates in PEM and DER formats.
User certificate and private key can be included in the same file.
.Pp
If the user certificate and private key is received in PKCS#12/PFX
format, they need to be converted to a suitable PEM/DER format for
use by
.Xr wpa_supplicant 8 .
This can be done using the
.Xr openssl 1
program, e.g.\& with the following commands:
.Bd -literal
# convert client certificate and private key to PEM format
openssl pkcs12 -in example.pfx -out user.pem -clcerts
# convert CA certificate (if included in PFX file) to PEM format
openssl pkcs12 -in example.pfx -out ca.pem -cacerts -nokeys
.Ed
.Sh FILES
.Bl -tag -width ".Pa /usr/share/examples/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf" -compact
.It Pa /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
.It Pa /usr/share/examples/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
.El
.Sh EXAMPLES
WPA-Personal (PSK) as a home network and WPA-Enterprise with EAP-TLS
as a work network:
.Bd -literal
# allow frontend (e.g., wpa_cli) to be used by all users in 'wheel' group
ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant
ctrl_interface_group=wheel
#
# home network; allow all valid ciphers
network={
ssid="home"
scan_ssid=1
key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
psk="very secret passphrase"
}
#
# work network; use EAP-TLS with WPA; allow only CCMP and TKIP ciphers
network={
ssid="work"
scan_ssid=1
key_mgmt=WPA-EAP
pairwise=CCMP TKIP
group=CCMP TKIP
eap=TLS
identity="user@example.com"
ca_cert="/etc/cert/ca.pem"
client_cert="/etc/cert/user.pem"
private_key="/etc/cert/user.prv"
private_key_passwd="password"
}
.Ed
.Pp
WPA-RADIUS/EAP-PEAP/MSCHAPv2 with RADIUS servers that use old peaplabel
(e.g., Funk Odyssey and SBR, Meetinghouse Aegis, Interlink RAD-Series):
.Bd -literal
ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant
ctrl_interface_group=wheel
network={
ssid="example"
scan_ssid=1
key_mgmt=WPA-EAP
eap=PEAP
identity="user@example.com"
password="foobar"
ca_cert="/etc/cert/ca.pem"
phase1="peaplabel=0"
phase2="auth=MSCHAPV2"
}
.Ed
.Pp
EAP-TTLS/EAP-MD5-Challenge configuration with anonymous identity for the
unencrypted use.
Real identity is sent only within an encrypted TLS tunnel.
.Bd -literal
ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant
ctrl_interface_group=wheel
network={
ssid="example"
scan_ssid=1
key_mgmt=WPA-EAP
eap=TTLS
identity="user@example.com"
anonymous_identity="anonymous@example.com"
password="foobar"
ca_cert="/etc/cert/ca.pem"
phase2="auth=MD5"
}
.Ed
.Pp
Traditional WEP configuration with 104 bit key specified in hexadecimal.
Note the WEP key is not quoted.
.Bd -literal
ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant
ctrl_interface_group=wheel
network={
ssid="example"
scan_ssid=1
key_mgmt=NONE
wep_tx_keyidx=0
# hex keys denoted without quotes
wep_key0=42FEEDDEAFBABEDEAFBEEFAA55
# ASCII keys denoted with quotes.
wep_key1="FreeBSDr0cks!"
}
.Ed
.Pp
Minimal eduroam configuration.
.Bd -literal
ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant
ctrl_interface_group=wheel
network={
ssid="eduroam"
scan_ssid=1
key_mgmt=WPA-EAP
eap=TTLS
identity="user@example.org"
password="foobar"
phase2="auth=MSCHAPV2"
}
.Ed
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr wpa_cli 8 ,
.Xr wpa_passphrase 8 ,
.Xr wpa_supplicant 8
.Sh HISTORY
The
.Nm
manual page and
.Xr wpa_supplicant 8
functionality first appeared in
.Fx 6.0 .
.Sh AUTHORS
This manual page is derived from the
.Pa README
and
.Pa wpa_supplicant.conf
files in the
.Nm wpa_supplicant
distribution provided by
.An Jouni Malinen Aq Mt j@w1.fi .
plain