wpasupplicant/xsupplicant

[Nils Kassube]

Robert Holtzman wrote:
> What is the difference between wpasupplicant and xsupplicant? 

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wpa_supplicant>
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xsupplicant>

The difference is mainly that xsupplicant seems to be for authentication 
with RADIUS servers only while wpa_supplicant is for wireless 
authentication with various protocols including RADIUS servers. See also 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RADIUS>.

> Is either one required to run a wireless lan?

No. Unless you want a secure LAN with WPA/WPA2 encryption. Then you need 
wpa_supplicant for the client side and something like hostapd for the 
access point. If you want to use WEP, iwconfig is sufficient but WEP 
isn't secure anyway. If your WLAN uses a RADIUS server you will probably 
need wpa_supplicant as well, but I'm not familiar with RADIUS servers.

> Wired?

No. Unless you want authentication with a RADIUS server but again, I'm 
not familiar with RADIUS servers, so I can't tell you more than you can 
read in the Wikipedia articles.


Nils