[vox-tech] Wireless Networking Confusion

[Sameer Verma]

Alex Mandel wrote:
> Ken Bloom wrote:
>   
>> On Sunday 11 June 2006 18:12, Richard Crawford wrote:
>>     
>>> On Sunday 11 June 2006 16:07, Richard Harke wrote:
>>>       
>>>> My laptop is configged to use a wired connection also. I have a
>>>> jack in the dining area in case I work on the dining room table.
>>>> But I found I had to do a ifdown eth0 (the wired connection) before
>>>> eth1 would work. eth0 is auto but eth1 is not. I also want to use
>>>> the wireless at hotspots and that turned out to be quite a hassle.
>>>> I have a mapping stanza in the interfaces file and that took a
>>>> while to get working. What works is
>>>> LOGICAL=HOME ifup eth1   The environment var LOGICAL is then
>>>> used in my script that is called from mapping stanza. There is
>>>> another name for a hotspot config. One issue remains.
>>>> If I go out to a hotspot, when I come home it does not work
>>>> cleanly. I have to manually modify resolvconf as it continues to
>>>> have the hotspot DNS enteries.
>>>> This is Kubuntu, Breezy Badger
>>>> Richard harke
>>>>         
>>> I ended up simply creating two separate stanzas in
>>> /etc/network/interfaces, and commenting out the undesired one
>>> depending on my location.  It's kind of a hassle, but I don't go many
>>> places with hotspots all that often.
>>>
>>> I'd like to see more details about how you did this.
>>>       
>> My laptop's configuration is approximately as follows:
>>
>> #eth0 is *not* auto, because I don't want it
>> #to slow ntpdate during boot when I'm not connected
>> iface eth0 inet dhcp
>>
>> #Bring up this configuration as #ifup wlan0
>> #this is for connecting to networks without WEP
>> iface wlan0 inet dhcp
>> 	wireless-essid any
>> 	wireless-key open
>> #those are essential to clear the settings from whatever network you may
>> #have previously been connected to.
>>
>> #bring this up as #ifup wlan0=ling
>> #take it down as #ifdown wlan0
>> iface ling inet dhcp
>> 	wireless-essid LingCogLab
>> 	wireless-key 0123456789
>>
>> #bring this up as #ifup wlan0=home
>> iface home inet dhcp
>> 	wireless-essid kenapt
>> 	wireless-key 0123456789
>>
>> (etc...)
>>
>> And I have sudo configured to allow ifup and ifdown without a password
>> And I have a menu in fluxbox for connecting/disconnecting from all of my 
>> various wireless networks. I'm very particular to use the menu to 
>> connect/disconnect because I don't want to accidentally shut down eth0 
>> on my desktop while I'm connected by ssh. I suppose it's also possible 
>> to use ifrename or udev to rename eth0 on your laptop to something else 
>> so that it doesn't match your desktops/servers, so you can't take down 
>> your desktop/server's eth0 by autopilot.
>>
>>   [submenu] (Internet)
>>     [exec] (Connect to Ethernet) {xterm -e sudo ifup eth0}
>>     [exec] (Disconnect from Ethernet) {xterm -e sudo ifdown eth0}
>>     [nop]
>>     [submenu] (Connect to Wireless)
>>       [exec] (Home) {xterm -e sudo ifup wlan0=home}
>>       [exec] (IIT) {xterm -e sudo ifup wlan0=iit}
>>       [exec] (LingCog) {xterm -e sudo ifup wlan0=ling}
>>       [exec] (Sunnyvale) {xterm -e sudo ifup wlan0=svl}
>>       [exec] (any) {xterm -e sudo ifup wlan0}
>>     [end]
>>     [exec] (Disconnect from Wireless) {xterm -e sudo ifdown wlan0}
>>   [end]
>>
>> I haven't figured out how to make wpasupplicant work for me in Debian 
>> yet.
>>
>> I have the resolvconf package installed to manage /etc/resolv.conf
>>
>> [bloom at cat-in-the-hat ~]$ apt-cache show resolvconf
>> Package: resolvconf
>> Priority: optional
>> [...]
>> Description: nameserver information handler
>>  Resolvconf is a framework for keeping track of the system's
>>  information about currently available nameservers. It sets
>>  itself up as the intermediary between programs that supply
>>  nameserver information and programs that use nameserver
>>  information. Examples of programs that supply nameserver
>>  information are: ifupdown, DHCP clients, the PPP daemon and
>>  local nameservers. Examples of programs that use this
>>  information are: DNS caches, resolver libraries and the
>>  programs that use them.
>>  .
>>  This package may require some manual configuration.  Please
>>  read the README file for detailed instructions.
>> (For me, it didn't require any manual configuration)
>>
>> --Ken Bloom
>>
>>     
>
> I've had similar experience, network-manager worked for me under Breezy
> but has since stopped working in Dapper, it doesn't detect any of my
> wireless cards. I occasionally have luck with wifi-radar but that's hit
> or miss and usually only works once I have the ssid in my interfaces file.
>
>   
There seems to be an issue with network-manager in Dapper, but I have it
working flawlessly, managing both wireless (encrypted and open) and
wired networks. See
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=134251for details. The gist
of it is that the /etc/network/interfaces should have no definitions in
there. network-manager manages all those by itself. That's what got it
to work on my laptop (Sony VAIO VGN-S380).

Sameer
> Manual ifup/down with a quick comment or uncomment seems to work the
> best when I move locations. On that note, I've actually had to start
> waiting until after boot before I put my card in, otherwise it just
> doesn't work at all even though Hal sees the card.
>
> On the bright side of things my Broadcom based card works in Dapper, I
> could never get it working before even with ndiswrapper. So it's not all
> a loss.
>
> Alex
>
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