Wireless : refreshing network list [Feisty]

Maxwell Rain · 06-16-2007, 04:23 PM

Hello,

I've been searching on google, the ubuntu wiki-pages and several forums, but I can't seem to locate the answer to this one.

When I log in to Ubuntu the NetworkManager Applet (0.6.4) [Gnome applet] is showing all the wireless network connections, and I can connect fast and easy (with one click) to the desired network.
Only, when changing the environment (say : modem is turned off, and a new modem is turned on) it keeps showing me the old list, and not the new one. Also : when I turn off the wireless card on my laptop, and then turn it back on, it also does not refresh the network list and I cannot connect to a new network. So I have to reboot to get a new network list.

The rebooting reminds to much of ms windows, so I am looking for a cleaner way of refreshing my network list when I want to.

Does anyone here know how to do this ?

gkiagia · 06-17-2007, 04:34 AM

That's a bug in networkmanager. You may use an alternative like wlassistant.

offbyte · 06-17-2007, 02:25 PM

my preferred way to refresh available wireless networks is using the watch command

Code:

watch -n 1 "iwlist eth1 scanning"

-n 1 is the time you want the command to be refreshed in this case every second
and eth1 is your wireless device

PS: sometimes the network manager applet work's just fine when it's doesn't I just use

Code:

killall nm-applet

and I do thing by myself

Maxwell Rain · 06-17-2007, 06:09 PM

Thank you both for the reply.

The command line option is the one I was looking for, since wlassistant is a KDE frontend.
But how do I scroll down in the list ?
I receive the following list, now I just need to be able to also what comes next on the screen, and I can't seem to scroll down to it.

This is an example. It ends halfway the information for the third available network. How do I reach the rest of the information ?

Code:

Cell 03 - Address: 00:11:50:57:B3:53
ESSID:"belkin54g"
Protocol:IEEE 802.11bg
Mode:Master
Channel:11
Encryption key:on
Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 6 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s
11 Mb/s; 12 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s; 24 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s
48 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s
Quality=35/100  Signal level=-88 dBm  Noise level=-88 dBm
IE: WPA Version 1
Group Cipher : TKIP

If I just run the "iwlist eth1 scanning" command (so not the watch command) I get the full information, but of course this does not automatically refresh every "n" seconds.

The full information being of course these lines (and a possible fourth network)

Code:

     Pairwise Ciphers (1) : TKIP 
                        Authentication Suites (1) : PSK  
                    Extra: Last beacon: 13344ms ago

grahamatlq · 06-18-2007, 04:14 AM

watch -n1 -d 'iwlist eth1 scanning | grep ESSID'

Will give you a list of the networks in a short list

The -d highlights the differences in watch.

offbyte · 06-18-2007, 08:44 AM

you can maximize the terminal window and chose a smaller font in profiles so all "cell's" are visible.

see "man grep" or "grep --help" and try tweaking the grep command for yourself. Here's an example:

Quote:

Quote:

wiki: "...grep searches for lines of text that match one or many regular expressions, and outputs only the matching lines."