I am interested in writing my own tool in bash to act in place of my current network controller (wpa_supplicant) if possible. For example if I want to issue commands in order to begin a wps authentication session with a router’s external registrar, is it possible, without using any pre-built tools, to communicate with the kernel to directly access the hardware? I have been told that I can achieve what I desire with a bash plugin called ctypes.sh but I am not too certain.
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Answer
Generally speaking, the Linux kernel can interact with user-space through the following mechanisms:
- Syscalls
- Devices in
/dev - Entries in
/sys - Entries in
/proc
Syscalls cannot be directly used from Bash but you need at least a binding through a C program.
You can create a Linux kernel driver or module which reads/writes data in an entry under /proc or /sys and then use a bash program to interact with it. Even if technically feasible, my personal opinion is that it is an overkill, and the usual C/C++ user-level programming with proper entries in /dev is much better.