Wpa_supplicant mystery

[Timothy Murphy]

Dennis Gilmore wrote:

>> I was looking through /var/log/ on my laptop,
>> and saw that there were a number of wpa_supplicant.log* files.
>> I found this slightly puzzling, as I am not using WPA.
>> I ran "chkconfig --list | grep wpa" and found that
>> wpa_supplicant was indeed off.
>>
>> But when I ran "ps aux | grep wpa" I saw that
>> wpa_supplicant was nevertheless running.
>> So I ran "sudo service wpa_supplicant stop".
>> This had the immediate effect of breaking my WiFi connection,
>> which only started again when I ran "sudo service NetworkManager
>> restart".
>>
>> If in fact wpa_supplicant is a necessary part of NetworkManager
>> even if one is not using WPA,
>> would it not make more sense to change its name?
>>
>> Everything to do with WiFi in Fedora seems bizarre and confusing ...
> 
> NetworkManager uses wpa_supplicant to do network security this way it
> doesnt
> need to reinvent the wheel.  it is the same on all distros.

What is the same on all distros?
Wpa_supplicant? NetworkManager?
NetworkManager using wpa_supplicant?

If in fact a program called wpa_supplicant is run
in order to establish WiFi security
even if WPA is not being used,
it would surely be better to call it something like WiFi-security.

Would you wait at a bus-stop to catch a taxi?