Put it all together and whaddaya got!?

After faffing about a bit trying to get everything to boot up on startup, it all ended up being simpler than I expected.

First, create your configuration file for wpa_supplicant. Because I started off using the network-tool, this is /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_psk.conf for me.

gordon> more /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_psk.conf

network={
ssid="Sunnydale"
scan_ssid=1
key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
psk="xxxxxxxxxxxxx"
}

Simple and I think typical for a basic home network. Sunnydale is the domain defined on my router and xxxxxxxxxxxxx is my 13 character ascii passphrase as setup on the router. Replace these with your own values.

The next pleasant surprise, after contemplating writing an init.d script to start wpa_supplicant was that the network interface file supports wpa options! The file /etc/network/interface is read by the ifup command when the system boots, telling it which interfaces to bring up. It originally only had an entry for the loop back adapter.

gordon> more /etc/network/interfaces
# This file describes the network interfaces available on your system
# and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5).

# The Netgear wg121 USB Adapter loaded via ndiswrapper
auto wlan0
iface wlan0 inet static
address 192.168.11.12
netmask 255.255.255.0
gateway 192.168.11.1
# I don't know why the next line isn't ndiswrapper but
# wpa_supplicant reports that it doesn't support WPA.
wpa-driver wext
wpa-conf /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_psk.conf

# The loopback network interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

reboot and I'm posting this from the laptop wirelessly! Yay!