need some help with a wireless connection. what's the best way to have 2 configs for wlan0? i have an unsecured ap at work and secured ap at home. to connect to work, i have a minimal ifcfg-wlan0 config file i use for ifup. if i want to use the one at home, i need to have a wpa-psk password. can i just create a wlan1 file and make an alias in the module conf file? or am i making it more complex than it needs to be?

There's probably different tricks that you could use depending on the distro you use. I'll admit I haven't much experience with wireless other than using it with Arch. That being said, I used NetworkManager to connect for a while which worked pretty good for connecting to different networks, and should be available for different distros as well.

iwl3945 is buggy in itself. with network manager, i heard it's even flakier. i use fc8 with fluxbox and would rather just run a ifup/script than start network manager, connect to a network, then close network manager. i can also use iwlist scan to verify available networks i already use if i need to. i've never used network manager as i've never needed it. i just need to find out if i'm able to add multiple networks in my ifcfg file or if i need to create multiple configs/edit more files. i guess i have some research/experimentation to do.

Hello szandor

I use fedora 8 with a 3945abg wireless card and for me it works really well.

If you installed fedora from the DVD then you should be all set to go, if you installed from the live cd then you will probably have to run:

system-config-services

as root and enable the NetworkManager service. Don't forget to save any changes you make there.

Don't try manually setting up the card from system-config-network as the two methods of running the card are mutually exclusive.

If you are running KDE as your desktop you will then need to invoke KNetworkManager from the Main Menu - System. That sometime requires you at least restart KDE before it appears in your system tray.

Hope it turns out as reliable for you as for me.

I see that you say you don't use NetworkManager. It does make connecting the card very easy, but you will have great difficulty if you try to make the card work with static ip's.

Probably a script using ifrename would allow you to change the interface name and then bring it up with the desired configuration?

http://linux.die.net/man/8/ifrename

once i set ONBOOT=no in ifcfg-wlan0 everything is normal. i only had problems after a couple of reboots. i thought i had updated the file along with ifcfg-eth0, but had not.

i see i can just modify the config files for wpa_supplicant without having to do anything else to connect to secured and unsecured networks. no need to use networkmanager. actually i would try using the autowifi scripts before networkmanager.

the files have already been edited manually. but i will be going with wpa_supplicant soon.

i'm using fluxbox and eterm. lots of eterms.

well, the way i look at it, i mostly use linux for the shell. fluxbox and transparent, borderless eterms look really nice and i would prefer to execute a command via the shell than point and click until i get where i need to. i know i can start nm from the shell but as i use 2 wireless networks and 1 wired network, it's easier to just do ifup wlan0 or eth0 after booting up. also, both wireless networks are set up for dhcp but if i ever wanted to set up my home network with static ip's alone and forgo dhcp, i could always incorporate arping.