wpa_passphrase

Generate WPA pre-shared key from passphrase

TLDR

Compute WPA-PSK key reading passphrase from stdin

$ wpa_passphrase [SSID]

Compute WPA-PSK key with passphrase as argument

$ wpa_passphrase [SSID] [passphrase]

Generate and append to wpa_supplicant configuration

$ wpa_passphrase [SSID] [passphrase] >> /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

SYNOPSIS

wpa_passphrase ssid [passphrase]

wpa_passphrase generates a WPA-PSK (Pre-Shared Key) configuration from an ASCII passphrase for a given network SSID. The output is in wpa_supplicant.conf format and can be appended to the configuration file.The tool pre-computes the PSK using PBKDF2, which is faster than having wpa_supplicant compute it each time. The output includes both the plain text passphrase (commented) and the computed PSK.

PARAMETERS

ssid

The network name (SSID) to generate the key for

passphrase

The WiFi password, must be 8 to 63 printable ASCII characters (read from stdin if omitted)

INSTALL

sudo apt install wpasupplicant

sudo dnf install wpa_supplicant

sudo pacman -S wpa_supplicant

sudo apk add wpa_supplicant

sudo zypper install wpa_supplicant

nix profile install nixpkgs#wpa_supplicant

CAVEATS

Providing the passphrase on the command line exposes it in process listings and shell history. For security, prefer reading from stdin. The passphrase must be between 8 and 63 characters. The SSID is case-sensitive and must match exactly. Part of the wpa_supplicant package.