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<title>bcnm: the wpactrl library interface</title
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<p>
<a href="../index.html">bcnm</a><br />
<a href="//skarnet.org/software/">Software</a><br />
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</p>
<h1> The <tt>wpactrl</tt> library interface </h1>
<p>
<tt>wpactrl</tt> is a library designed to interface a client
with the <a href="https://w1.fi/wpa_supplicant/">wpa_supplicant</a>
program, in a smaller, cleaner, more user-friendly and more
packager-friendly way than the <tt>wpa_ctrl</tt> interface that
comes with the <a href="https://w1.fi/wpa_supplicant/">wpa_supplicant</a>
distribution.
</p>
<h2> Compiling </h2>
<ul>
<li> Use <tt>#include <bcnm/wpactrl.h></tt> </li>
</ul>
<h2> Linking </h2>
<ul>
<li> Make sure the bcnm libraries, as well as the skalibs
libraries, are visible in your library search path. </li>
<li> Link against <tt>-lwpactrl</tt> and <tt>-lskarnet</tt>.
Also add <tt>`cat $sysdeps/socket.lib $sysdeps/tainnow.lib`</tt>
to the end of your command line invoking the linker, in order
to be portable to libcs that put socket or time functions into
separate libraries.
(<tt>$sysdeps</tt> stands for your skalibs sysdeps directory.) </li>
</ul>
<h2> Programming </h2>
<p>
The <tt>bcnm/wpactrl.h</tt> header is the reference for the exact
function prototypes.
</p>
<h3> General usage </h3>
<p>
<tt>libwpactrl</tt> stores its information in a <tt>wpactrl_t</tt> structure.
Such a structure must be allocated (can be declared in the stack) and
initialized to WPACTRL_ZERO before use. The address of that <tt>wpactrl_t</tt>
structure is then used as a handle and given as an argument to all the
<tt>wpactrl_*</tt> function calls.
</p>
<h3> Connections </h3>
<p>
A <tt>wpactrl_t</tt> instance represents two connections to a <tt>wpa_supplicant</tt>
program: an <em>attached</em> one and a <em>detached</em> one. For proper operation,
it is important to regularly read the data from the <em>attached</em> connection. This is
achieved by calling the <tt>wpactrl_update()</tt> function whenever data is available
on the <em>attached</em> connection; this is notified by the connection's fd becoming
readable. The attached connection's fd can be obtained via the <tt>wpactrl_fd()</tt>
function. So, proper usage of a <tt>wpactrl_t</tt> instance involves an asynchronous
event loop.
</p>
<h3> Synchronous functions </h3>
<p>
The bulk of <tt>libwpactrl</tt> functions take two extra arguments at the end, named
<em>deadline</em> and <em>stamp</em>, of type
<a href="//skarnet.org/software/skalibs/libstddjb/tai.html">tain_t</a>. This means
they are synchronous function calls, and the extra arguments are there to ensure
those calls do not block forever.
</p>
<p>
<em>deadline</em> is an absolute date: if the function has not returned when this
date is reached, it will immediately return with a code meaning "failure" and
<tt>errno</tt> set to ETIMEDOUT. <em>stamp</em> must be first initialized to an
accurate enough approximation of the current time, for instance via skalibs'
<tt>tain_now()</tt> function; it will then be automatically updated by the
libwpactrl function calls to always contain (an accurate enough approximation
of) the current time.
</p>
<p>
<a href="//skarnet.org/software/skalibs/">skalibs</a> can keep track of the
timestamp for you, in the global <tt>STAMP</tt> variable. All <tt>libwpactrl</tt>
functions taking <em>deadline</em> and <em>stamp</em> arguments also have a
version with a name ending in <tt>_g</tt>, that only takes a <tt>deadline</tt>
argument, and assumes the <tt>STAMP</tt> variable always contains (an accurate
enough approximation of) the current time.
<p>
<p>
Those synchronous function calls normally return almost instantly: there should
be no blocking code path between the function call and its return. Nevertheless,
since they involve communication with a complex <tt>wpa_supplicant</tt> process,
it's impossible to guarantee that they will never block, so the deadline pattern
is there to set a cap on the amount of time they block. A deadline set a few
seconds into the future should be enough.
</p>
<h3> Starting and stopping a session </h3>
<p>
<code> int wpactrl_start (wpactrl_t *a, char const *path, tain_t const *deadline, tain_t *stamp) </code> <br />
Starts a session with a <tt>wpa_supplicant</tt> instance listening on a Unix socket
at <em>path</em>.
The function returns 1 if it succeeds, or 0 (and sets errno) if
it fails.
</p>
<p>
<code> int wpactrl_end (wpactrl_t *a) </code> <br />
Ends the session, freeing all used resources.
</p>
<h3> Low-level command sending </h3>
<p>
<code> ssize_t wpactrl_query (wpactrl_t *a, char const *q, size_t qlen, char *ans, size_t anslen, tain_t const *deadline, tain_t *stamp) </code> <br />
Sends the query <em>q</em> of size <em>qlen</em> to the connected instance
of wpa_supplicant, and reads its answer into the buffer pointed to by
<em>ans</em>. Returns -1 in case of failure, or the number of bytes of
the answer in case of success. Returns -1 with errno set to EMSGSIZE if
the answer is bigger than <em>anslen</em> bytes.
</p>
<p>
<code> ssize_t wpactrl_querysa (wpactrl_t *a, char const *q, size_t qlen, stralloc *sa, tain_t const *deadline, tain_t *stamp) </code> <br />
Sends the query <em>q</em> of size <em>qlen</em> to the connected instance
of wpa_supplicant, and reads its answer into the
<a href="//skarnet.org/software/skalibs/libstddjb/stralloc.html">stralloc</a>
pointed to by <em>sa</em>. Returns 1 if it succeeds and 0 if it fails.
</p>
<p>
<code> wparesponse_t wpactrl_command (wpactrl_t *a, char const *q, size_t qlen, tain_t const *deadline, tain_t *stamp) </code> <br />
Sends the command <em>q</em> of size <em>qlen</em> to the connected instance
of wpa_supplicant, and returns its answer under the form of a
<tt>wparesponse_t</tt>, which is an enumeration defined in the
<tt>bcnm/wpactrl.h</tt> header. This function is meant to be used
with commands returning a well-known value, such as <tt>RECONFIGURE</tt>
(returning <tt>OK</tt> or <tt>FAIL</tt>) or <tt>PING</tt>
(returning <tt>PONG</tt>).
</p>
<h3> Reading from the attached connection </h3>
<p>
<code> int wpactrl_update (wpactrl_t *a) </code> <br />
Reads unsolicited messages from wpa_supplicant. If the messages
are whitelisted, it keeps them, otherwise it discards them.
The function returns the number of messages that have been read,
or -1 in case of failure. A positive number does not mean that
all pending messages have been read: there is a cap on the
number of messages that can be consecutively read, to prevent
a spamming wpa_supplicant from monopolizing your program.
</p>
<p>
<code> char *wpactrl_msg (wpactrl_t *a) </code> <br />
Returns a pointer to the first unsolicited message from
wpa_supplicant that has been read by <tt>wpactrl_update()</tt> but
has not been acknowledged yet. If there's no such message,
returns NULL.
</p>
<p>
<code> void wpactrl_nextmsg (wpactrl_t *a) </code> <br />
Acknowledges reading of one unsolicited message from wpa_supplicant.
The next invocation of <tt>wpactrl_msg()</tt> will point to the next
one.
</p>
<p>
<code> int wpactrl_filter_add (wpactrl_t *a, char const *prefix) </code> <br />
Adds <em>prefix</em> to the whitelist. Unsolicited messages from
wpa_supplicant will be stored and made available to the application
if they start with <tt><</tt><em>priority</em><tt>></tt><em>prefix</em>,
<em>priority</em> being a single nonzero digit. If the filter is
activated (which is the default), then only messages matching prefixes
registered via <tt>wpactrl_filter_add()</tt> will be stored, and all
other messages will be discarded. The function returns
1 if it succeeds and 0 if it fails.
</p>
<p>
<code> void wpactrl_filter_remove (wpactrl_t *a, char const *prefix) </code> <br />
Removes <em>prefix</em> from the whitelist.
</p>
<p>
<code> void wpactrl_filter_activate (wpactrl_t *a) </code>
Activates the message filter. Unsolicited messages from
wpa_supplicant will be discarded unless they are explicitly
whitelisted by a call to <tt>wpactrl_filter_add()</tt>. This
is the default.
</p>
<p>
<code> void wpactrl_filter_deactivate (wpactrl_t *a) </code>
Dectivates the message filter. All the unsolicited messages from
wpa_supplicant will be stored and made available to the
application.
</p>
<h3> Higher-level commands </h3>
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