BBB WiFi command line options from mono C#

[Peter Gregory]

I'm adding WiFi support for an application I'm writing in mono C#.
I'm using command line applications to interface with the wicd daemon for network detection and configuration.
My goal is to get basic functionality to configure the wifi interfaces to

detect wifi connection points
select the active wifi connection and persist it so it will connect automatically on reboot
save several wifi connections and automatically connect when detected in different locations.

I've solved a lot of the issues for command line wifi interactions:

iwconfig - shows the current wifi connection
iwlist scanning - shows all detected wifi connections & encryption information
wicd-cli - Python script for configuring / adding new connections (also can scan & configure)

I shell out to the programs and redirect the stdout to my program to get the current wifi status, list possible connections.
The configuration part needs to persist and save to the wicd configuration file for re-connect on reboot.

Here is my problem, wicd-cli is a Python script and requires a command shell to run.
I can get around that by running python and the executable and pass the script as an argument.
However, it still fails. I think wicd-cli shells out to other scripts and will only work from the command line, not started as a process from mono C#.

So, I need to use iwconfig to add new connections and persist to the configuration file to re-connect on boot.
Is there a way to do this with iwconfig from the command line?

[Robert Nelson]

HI Peter,

Sorry to bust your bubble, i wouldn't really rely on wicd-cli, as it's
pretty much abandoned. You should try to use connman's interface
instead..

Regards,

--
Robert Nelson
https://rcn-ee.com/

[Peter Gregory]

Thanks! That's the kind of information I need. :)
Is that what BBB uses for its wifi management 3.8 lxde out of the box?

[Robert Nelson]

On Fri, Jul 24, 2015 at 1:44 PM, Peter Gregory <talk...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks! That's the kind of information I need. :)
> Is that what BBB uses for its wifi management 3.8 lxde out of the box?

It's what we are using on Jessie/lxqt going forward..

3.8/3.14/4.1 kernels..

[Peter Gregory]

I installed network manager (it is not pre-installed) with apt-get install network-manager
I removed the interface information in /etc/network/interfaces
NetworkManager is now managing the network interfaces.

The command line tool for interacting with Network Manager appears to be at 0.9.4.0

nmcli --version
nmcli tool, version 0.9.4.0

A newer version 0.9.6.0 allows creating new wifi access points from the command line.
Are there any plans to add that version to the distribution?

[Peter Gregory]

Moving on...
I upgraded to Debian jessie - bone-debian-8.1-lxqt-4gb-armhf-2015-07-19-4gb
That gives me:

nmcli version 0.9.10.0

get a list of access points:

#nmcli device wifi list

connect to an access point

#nmcli dev wifi connect <SSID> password <PassPhrase>

It works fine.

However, connecting to a PA2 802.1X connection does not work.
I need to supply a user and password.
It looks like nmcli can't do that, or I don't understand the documentation on how to make it do it.
Googling about (Yes, I actually do a google search before posting here. :) ) I see other people asking the same question, but I don't see a solution.
I've seen hints to using a file that contains the login credentials, but I can't find info on that method.
I've also seen comments that you have to use wpa_supplicant to connect to 802.1X secure networks.

Anyone have experience connecting to these networks from the command line?

[john...@gmail.com]

I have been trying our your progress here, and I've gotten to the 802.1X error, which seems to be happening randomly. If I try enough times, it eventually connects.

Have you furthered your progress in this problem? I'm greatly interested.