Wireless Situation - clear info needed

Question

I know there are several people working on a wireless setup for Arch, and I don't mean this to be in any way a criticism of the work being done on it to date, but I am very frustrated.
I have spent the evening researching how to get my wireless interface up and running, and have hacked a solution that got it working but just won't do for ongoing use, but it does work.  My problem is this: there is tons of info on the wiki and in the forums that is a half-started attempt at some kind of scripting system, and much of it is no longer valid.  Can somebody go in and clean some of this up so that stuff that doesn't work or is a half-completed early attempt doesn't confuse people.  I spent much of the night trying to decipher stuff that isn't even valid anymore.
I know the current setup is a work in progress, but does anybody have the time to spend a little time documenting rc.conf a little better so that it is more clear how to set up a wireless interface.  /etc/conf.d/wireless seems clear enough, but there is no instruction (that I could find aftrer extensive searching) on what to put in rc.conf to make it work.  I would like to make it work, but I would also like to test the system being put in place to help make it better, instead of just hacking my own solution that just works for me.  Even better, a page on the wiki to replace all the half-started ones that explains the design of the system currently being implemented, so even though it isn't done, it is clearly explained where it is going.
Can I also make a plea to anyone that posts a solution that they hack together, to please include a clear, concise instruction on how to use it.  There are several posts of scripts by users that proclaim it works for them with no instructions whatsoever on what to put in rc.conf or network-profile or conf.d, just a script with a declaration that it works.  I know how hard it to explain things that seem so self-evident, but pllease try to be a little more explicit about how you are doing things.
Before I get any newbie flames, I'll tell you that I am relatively new to Arch but I have been using Linux for over 5 years and am not a total dummy about networking and my wireless setup.  I know how to use iwconfig and ifconfig, but I'd like to understand the current state of affairs and help to test it, if I can only figure out how  :?

Answer 1

I'm not sure if this is the right place for this but I don't know of a better place.
I was looking at these scripts again and I like them better then phrak's scripts (mostly I like the profiles for wired networks too).  The new scripts don't seem to have any support for wpa_supplicant though.  I guess that isn't a surprise since there isn't an official package for it.  Any how I've decided to switch over to the new scripts and I wrote a little patch to put wpa support into it .  I lifted the part that detects wether wpa_supplicant was able to connect right out of phrak's script, I hope he doesn't mind, this was a quick job and I didn't want to reinvent the wheel.  Anyway the diff is against the new /usr/bin/netcfg script, the string WPAOPTS needs to be added to the profile with any extra arguments for starting wpa_supplicant.  It will use /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf for the wpa configuration.  That file is supposed to support multiple network definitions but I haven't tested that.  I've only given this a quick test at home with my wired and wireless profile and it seems to work fine for both.  I'd like to see the final version of the wireless script have some form of wpa support if some one could mention this to the higher powers I'd appreciate it.
andy
--- netcfg 2005-07-01 02:22:32.000000000 +0000
+++ /usr/bin/netcfg 2005-08-31 19:13:45.000000000 +0000
@@ -41,13 +41,16 @@
. $STATE_DIR/$INTERFACE
stat_busy "Shutting down interface: $INTERFACE"
+
# bring down the default route (gateway)
[ "$GATEWAY" ] && route del default gw $GATEWAY
# bring down the interface
ifconfig $INTERFACE down
+ # shutdown wpa_supplicant, if its running
+ [ "$WPAOPTS" ] && wpa_cli terminate >/dev/null 2>&1
+
rm -f $STATE_DIR/$INTERFACE
stat_done
@@ -93,7 +96,31 @@
iwconfig $WIFI_INTERFACE $IWOPTS
[ $? -ne 0 ] && stat_fail && return
fi
+
+ # Start wpa_supplicant, in necessary
+ if [ "$WPAOPTS" ]; then
+ ifconfig $WIFI_INTERFACE up
+ wpa_supplicant -wB -i $WIFI_INTERFACE -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf $WPAOPTS
+ # I lifted most of this next block from phracture's wireless script on
+ # the wiki http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Wireless_Bootup_Script
+
+ #####
+ #I don´t know how we could determine if wpa_supplicant is ready...
+ sleep 2
+ let i=0
+ while ! /usr/bin/wpa_cli status | grep "wpa_state=COMPLETED" >/dev/null 2>&1; do
+ if [ $i -gt 10 ]; then
+ wpa_cli terminate >/dev/null 2>&1
+ #ifconfig $WIFI_INTERFACE down
+ stat_fail && return
+ fi
+ sleep 2
+ let i++
+ done
+ ######
+
+ fi
+
if [ "$IFOPTS" = "dhcp" -o "$IFOPTS" = "DHCP" ]; then
dhcpcd $DHCPCD_ARGS $INTERFACE
[ $? -ne 0 ] && stat_fail && return