Prevent wlan0 from auto-connecting to any open access point

[ngxw]

(reposting from freebsd-wireless@:
https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-wireless/2017-March/007543.html)

Hi, I have a pretty basic question, but was unable to find any useful
answer in the Handbook or man pages.

I would like to prevent a USB Wifi card from automatically connecting
to an unencrypted network nearby. It happens whenever the card is
plugged to the USB port and the wlan0 interface is brought up. After
a few seconds it's connected to the first unencrypted net it can find.
How could it be stopped?

Thanks for help!

Stefan


freebsd-version:
11.0-RELEASE-p8

rc.conf:

wlans_urtw0="wlan0"
ifconfig_wlan0="NOAUTO"
ifconfig_urtw0="NOAUTO"

dmesg:

ugen0.2: <vendor 0x0bda> at usbus0
urtw0: <vendor 0x0bda product 0x8187, class 0/0, rev 2.00/1.00, addr 4> on usbus0
urtw0: unknown RTL8187L type: 0x8000000
urtw0: rtl8187l rf rtl8225u hwrev none
wlan0: Ethernet address: xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
wlan0: link state changed to UP

 

[Phishfry]

Instead of "NOAUTO" what if you used this instead:

ifconfig_wlan0="WPA"
or more commonly used:
ifconfig_wlan0="WPA DHCP"

In fact I have no idea where you came up with "NOAUTO" as a setting. I am not seeing it in the manual.
https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?ifconfig(8)

edit-
Well looks like I was wrong. There is a post with the command:
https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/44956/#post-250815
Looking at the last thread it might not work now.

 

[Kiiski]

Hi

According to rc.conf(8) and network_interfaces section
"NOAUTO" should work, but if I understood correctly it is not what you are after.

 

[G4]

Reviving this old thread, hoping that someone knows about a modern, working solution to the OP's question.

Any ideas?
Thanks!

 

[Cath O'Deray]

… rc.conf(8) …

… should be rc.conf(5)

Here, with FreeBSD 14.0-CURRENT:

create_args_wlan0="country GB regdomain etsi"
wlans_iwn0="wlan0"
ifconfig_wlan0="NOAUTO WPA SYNCDHCP"

• I added NOAUTO today
• to the best of my recollection, I never found this notebook unexpectedly connected to a non-encrypted wireless network.

(There's a wifi guest service at my place of work, which is secure … rewind a couple of years or so, I vaguely recall people being unexpectedly joined to the service. Don't recall it happening to me, with FreeBSD.)

I'll try to find a non-encrypted network, for a proper test.

 

[aragats]

As far as I remember the installer adds to /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf a section with:

network={
....
key_mgmt=NONE
}

That's why even if you configure WiFi with "WPA", it still will try to connect to open networks. Just remove/comment out this section as I do.

 

[Cath O'Deray]

Thanks! I found this section in my file:

network={
        ssid="go-brighton"
        bssid=04:f0:21:1a:63:8e
        key_mgmt=NONE
}

– not from installation, but from choosing to use Wi-Fi on Brighton & Hove Buses. So long ago that I can't remember how I made the connection. I wouldn't have written the file manually, I probably used the net-mgmt/networkmgr GUI.

 

[Cath O'Deray]

… "NOAUTO" should work, but if I understood correctly it is not what you are after.

FreeBSD bug 256957 – Wi-Fi: rc.conf(5) NOAUTO, ifconfig(8) up and unwanted WLAN connections to open networks