Re: Why do I have wpasupplicant installed if I don't have a wifi interface?
On Mon, 14 Nov 2011, Rick Thomas wrote:
> Can anybody tell me why I have wpasupplicant installed, even though
> I don't have a wifi interface on this machine?
The "wpa" is an unfortunate naming of the tool. It is required to
connect to any 802.1X network, including wired ethernet when 802.1X is
active on the access switches. You'll be hard-pressed to find any such
networks outside of Wifi and wired corporate networks, though. Refer to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.1X for more information if you're
interested.
I am unsure if networkmanager would crash without it installed, or would
do the right thing and just disable 802.1X support. The hard dependency
of networkmanager on wpasupplicant really ought to mean just that (that
networkmanager cannot work without wpasupplicant), but unfortunately you
cannot take that at face value anymore[1].
> If I try to deinstall wpasuplicant, it then wants to also remove
> network-manager and network-manager-gnome. Should I just let it?
> What would be the consequences if I do?
If you use a static /etc/network/interfaces, you're likelly to be much
better off without that desktop fluff. IMHO, you should just get rid of
it, at most you will lose the dekstop applets that show ethernet state.
It is not like wpasupplicant is a heavy burden on a typical desktop
system, though. But yes, it is annoying to have it running when you
don't need it.
[1] but if you DO know it is false, file a bug because you really should
be able to remove wpasupplicant if it won't destroy networkmanager.
--
"One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring
them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond
where the shadows lie." -- The Silicon Valley Tarot
Henrique Holschuh
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