Configure wireless settings on boot

Hi All,

Wireless is pretty new to me, so maybe a stupid question. I have googled and searched, but did not find a satisfying, or working answer...

I have an IBM A31 with a wireless card (PRISM2chip) as eth1 (and a disconnected lanport as eth0)

When I type in:

ifconfig eth1 down
iwconfig eth1 essid MYESSID
iwconfig eth1 key [3] s:my13chars....
ifconfig eth1 up
dhclient eth1

Then I am connected to my network and everything is working fine.
However, this must be possible to configure at boottime (and not through a script in rc.local or so)

As you might have understaood from these settings:
I am using an accesspoint with WEP Encryption on key 3, Authorization is open. (Well, mac filtered)
The card is an 801.11b card with no WPA support i guess.



I am using Kubuntu 6.10 this time....

Some background info would help alot, and an answer would be great!

Tia

Satriani

You don't tell which distribution you are using, but with Debian and it's derivates (Ubuntu for example) you can specify wireless network settings by editing /etc/network/interfaces. This might be true on other distros also.

Just edit the file and add your wireless interface to the line "auto", for example:

auto lo eth0

The create / modify your wireless interface's entry like this:

iface eth0 inet dhcp
wireless-essid Home
wireless-mode ad-hoc

This way your interface should be activated at boot, and you can also bring it up and down with "ifup eth0" and "ifdown eth0".

basileus, thanks a million for your reply. This solved it!
(I did mention the distro, though, Kubuntu 6.10 )

Also, if you (or anyone) might give me a hint on my next step, it would be great:

I work at two locations, both with wireless. Is there an easy way to automatically use the correct setting for each location? (Kinda like two profiles: for each location a different profile)

Currently I have kwifimanager installed, this will probably do the trick, but you never know if anyone has better ideas to automate this?

Ubuntu/Kubuntu 6.10 should come with a program called "network-manager". It should at least be installable via Synaptic. It's a GUI program which should handle different profiles quite nicely. I have not used it myself, but I've heard it praised a lot. Try google Linux at http://www.google.com/linux with keywords "ubuntu network-manager" if you run into trouble.

I myself use wpa_supplicant, which is a great piece of software. Actually "network-manager" uses it too, but in more user-friendly way. Plain wpa_supplicant is not too easy to configure "the Debian way", which is the way I did it. The basic configuration file is in /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf, and you can define different profiles for different networks. It will automatically switch between these networks whenever necessary.

ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant update_config=0 network={ ssid="myssid" id_str="home" psk="mypsk" proto=WPA key_mgmt=WPA-PSK pairwise=CCMP group=CCMP priority=100 } network={ ssid="open" key_mgmt=NONE priority=99 } network={ ssid="" key_mgmt=NONE priority=0 }

In addition, you need to modify the /etc/network/interfaces as shown below:

iface ath0 inet manual wpa-driver wext wpa-roam /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf iface home inet dhcp

The "iface home" refers to the network profile in wpa_supplicant.conf. This configuration method should also apply to Ubuntu/Kubuntu.