Anyway to do on-the-fly WiFi network/ESSID selection in Linux?

Not to bring up the dreaded "W" word, but under Windows
y'all know how you can have an ordered lists of preferred
networks (with connection details included), and the software
will try each in turn, if a network is available. And, also,
how it is continuously scanning for new ESSIDs, so that if you
roam, the preferred ESSID will be selected.

In Linux (I'm using Slackware 10), all I could tell from
rc.wireless.conf was that you can manually call rc.wireless [interface]
to connect to the given interface based on the conf settings, but
there's no constantly scanning behavior like under Windows.

Is this the case? Or is there software out there under Linux
to do such things?

- Tim

--

On Wed, 30 Jun 2004, Spammay Blockay <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:
> Not to bring up the dreaded "W" word, but under Windows
> y'all know how you can have an ordered lists of preferred
> networks (with connection details included), and the software
> will try each in turn, if a network is available. And, also,
> how it is continuously scanning for new ESSIDs, so that if you
> roam, the preferred ESSID will be selected.
>
> In Linux (I'm using Slackware 10), all I could tell from
> rc.wireless.conf was that you can manually call rc.wireless [interface]
> to connect to the given interface based on the conf settings, but
> there's no constantly scanning behavior like under Windows.
>
> Is this the case? Or is there software out there under Linux
> to do such things?

It depends what wireless module(s) you are using. For some you can change
settings on the fly with iwconfig (which could be done from a script).
Or some systems have different system profiles or pcmcia schemes.

But I am using wlan-ng (prism2_cs) which is configured with
/etc/pcmcia/wlan-ng.opts and does not have all the iwconfig hooks, so
iwconfig cannot configure things like WEP on the fly. Although, I suppose
a script could manipulate wlan-ng.opts and do something with cardctl to
reset or eject/insert it.

--
David Efflandt - All spam ignored http://www.de-srv.com/

On Wed, 30 Jun 2004 18:22:08 GMT, Spammay Blockay wrote:
> Is this the case? Or is there software out there under Linux
> to do such things?

Have a look at waproamd. Havent tried it myself, but according to the
description at freshmeat its just what you need.

--
Rolf Arne Schulze
Jobbsøkende innen IT.
Spesialfelt: Datasikkerhet, antivirus, unix/linux, nettverk/datakomm
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