Answer
OpenSSL is required for Laird supplicant to work. The supplicant is the program that handles the various encryption protocols for Wi-Fi. Laird recommends OpenSSL version 1.0.1h or above. Earlier versions have known security bugs. Even with this version, still need to have a minor patch as below. diff -purN openssl-1.0.1h.orig/ssl/s3_clnt.c openssl-1.0.1h/ssl/s3_clnt.c --- openssl-1.0.1h.orig/ssl/s3_clnt.c 2014-06-05 02:44:33.000000000 -0700 +++ openssl-1.0.1h/ssl/s3_clnt.c 2014-06-08 10:19:21.643271429 -0700 @@ -901,6 +901,7 @@ int ssl3_get_server_hello(SSL s) { s->session->cipher = pref_cipher ? pref_cipher : ssl_get_cipher_by_char(s, p+j); s->s3->flags |= SSL3_FLAGS_CCS_OK; } } #endif / OPENSSL_NO_TLSEXT */ The proper flags for configuring OpenSSL are the following: ./Configure linux-armv4 --prefix=/usr --openssldir=/etc/ssl --libdir=/lib threads shared no-idea no-rc5 enable-camellia enable-mdc2 enable-tlsext zlib-dynamic fips