A new release of Wi-Fi Demon iwd 3.0 (Inet Wireless Daemon) is now available. Developed by Intel, iwd is an alternative to WPA_SUPPLICANT tools for connecting Linux systems to wireless networks. It can function independently or as a backend for Network Manager and Connman network configurators. IWD is optimized for minimal memory consumption and disk space, making it suitable for use on embedded devices. The project does not rely on external libraries and leverages only the capabilities provided by the Linux standard kernel. It includes its own implementation of the DHCP client and cryptographic functions.
The project code is written in C and comes under the lgplv2.1 license. In the latest release, in addition to bug fixes, support for external authentication on systems with BA architecture Fullmac chips has been introduced. This feature allows the implementation of a wireless stack on the chip firmware side, rather than the system driver. The external authentication mode (CMD_EXTERNAL_AUTH) is designed for drivers that do not fully support the SAE protocol on the firmware and lack CMD_ASSOCIATE and CMD_AUTHENTICATE commands. With this mode, the firmware can utilize the CMD_EXTERNAL_AUTH command to use SAE from an external authenticator running in user space.