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5.357. wpa_supplicant

Updated wpa_supplicant packages that fix one bug and add an enhancement are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.
The wpa_supplicant packages contain an 802.1X Supplicant with support for WEP, WPA, WPA2 (IEEE 802.11i / RSN), and various EAP authentication methods. It implements key negotiation with a WPA Authenticator for client stations and controls the roaming and IEEE 802.11 authentication/association of the WLAN driver.

Bug Fix

BZ#855255
Previously, the supplicant would attempt to roam to slightly stronger access points, increasing the chance of a disconnection. This bug has been fixed and the supplicant now only attempts to roam to a stronger access point when the current signal is significantly degraded.

Enhancement

BZ#855273
Support for Opportunistic Key Caching (OKC), also known as Proactive Key Caching (PKC), has been added to WPA Supplicant to facilitate faster and less error-prone roaming between access points in the same network.
Users of wpa_supplicant are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which fix this bug and add this enhancement.
An updated wpa_supplicant package that fixes a bug is now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.
The wpa_supplicant package contains a WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access) Supplicant utility for Linux, BSD, and Windows with support for WPA and WPA2 (IEEE 802.11i/RSN). The supplicant is an IEEE 802.1X/WPA component that is used in client workstations. It implements key negotiation with a WPA Authenticator and it controls the roaming and IEEE 802.11 authentication and association of the WLAN driver.

Bug Fix

BZ#752032
Due to an error in the wpa_supplicant code, Wi-Fi signal levels for some wireless devices reported by the Linux kernel's nl80211 API were not handled correctly. Consequently, the NetworkManager applet did not indicate the signal strength for unconnected networks. With this update, the code has been corrected and the NetworkManager applet now indicates signal strength for drivers using the nl80211 API as expected.
All users of wpa_supplicant are advised to upgrade to this updated package, which fixes this bug.