[arch-dev-public] [networking] autowifi

[Aaron Griffin]

On 6/1/07, James Rayner <iphitus at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 01, 2007 at 12:12:24PM +0200, Thomas Bächler wrote:
> > With my new laptop and working wireless, I am now able to announce the
> > "autowifi" scripts I wrote a few weeks ago.
> >
> > Requirements:
> > - wpa_supplicant
> > - wifi driver that is supported by wpa_supplicant
> > - dhclient
> >
> > Features:
> > - Automatically select the best network (done by wpa_supplicant) and
> > configure it according to configuration files (done by autowifi)
> > - wifi configuration via wpa_supplicant.conf
> > - dhcp,static or "custom" network configuration via /etc/autowifi/networks/
> > - default configuration for unknown networks (if a network is not
> > configured, the default behaviour is using dhcp)
> > - same configuration for networks whose essid matches a regex
> > - once configured, it works completely without user interaction, but it
> > _can_ be controlled by wpa_gui (or any other wpa_supplicant client), so
> > that you can access networks without changing wpa_supplicant.conf.
> >
> > I am still unsure whether and how this can be integrated into James'
> > netcfg, that's a question that I'd rather let him answer.
> >
> > That said, autowifi is VERY simple. It doesn't reinvent the wheel by
> > using wpa_supplicant for selecting networks - parsing iwlist outputs
> > doesn't work very well, does it? As all wifi drivers will be moved to
> > mac80211 in the near future, wpa_supplicant-support will not be a
> > restriction anymore.
> >
> > I tested it on iwl3945 and rt2x00-git. The latter has problems scanning
> > and shows very few networks, therefore didn't work very well. I couldn't
> > test it with iwl3945 in an environment with many wireless networks yet,
> > but I trust it works better.
> >
> > HOWTO:
> > - Install the package from
> > http://www.archlinux.org/~thomas/autowifi-svn/ or from svn at
> > http://projects.archlinux.org/svn/autowifi/
> > - Create /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf and configure all your networks (you
> > can configure anything here, open, WEP, WPA-PSK, WPA-EAP and so on).
> > - Read /etc/autowifi/regex and map ESSIDs to profile names if necessary.
> > - Read /etc/autowifi/networks/example and configure
> > /etc/autowifi/networks/default and /etc/autowifi/networks/profilename if
> > necessary. If you only use dhcp on all networks, no configuration is
> > necessary here.
> > - Adjust the interface and config file name in /etc/conf.d/autowifi
> > properly.
> > - /etc/rc.d/autowifi start (can of course be done via rc.conf)
> >
> > Possible bugs: In my first test, dhcp wouldn't work when I changed
> > networks, maybe I need to delete the dhclient lease file.
> >
> > Any feedback is welcome
> > Thomas
>
> could tie in very nicely to mine if it used the same network profile
> configuration, otherwise it's a bit icky, having wireless networks
> defined in multiple locations. Part of the point of my scripts was to
> eliminate that.

I agree that a unified configuration would be a good thing.  I'd try
autowifi but, I only use my home network anymore... I guess I'd be a
decent testcase though, as there's like 12 networks in my building and
mine should usually be the strongest.