I'm reading several threads to get an idea on how to configure the wifi0 or ath0 or wireless g lan so that it connects at bootup. I too have a problem getting the DHCP to work so I'm using a static address for now to get that out of the way.

But in all the threads I see people creating their own script to run the iwconfig commands to set the essid, ap, channel, managed mode, etc.

Is this how it is supposed to be done or theres currently no automated way to enter this information in the startup scripts when it plumbs up wifi0/ath0? if theres a place for these settings and it looks like ifup-wireless has variables for them, where is it seeded?

Found out why my wifi did not automatically start. I have a DLINK DWL-G650 wifi g pc card with my Dell Inspiron 5160 running Fedora Core 6.

I found that the /etc/sysconfig/network-script/ifcfg-wifi0 is the wrong NIC to bind to. The madwifi drivers for Fedora Core 6 obtained from freshrpm.com automatically aliases the wifi connection as an ethernet connection, therefore it actually creates "ath0".

So what I did was change the device in the ifcfg-wifi0 file to atho (it was wifi0) and changed all the filenames to ifcfg-ath0 from ifcfg-wifi0.

Make sure all the file and filenames under network-scripts, networking, devices, profile match.

After I made the change and rebooted, everything binded to ath0 and was working. I also had my iwconfig items automatically show up after the ath0 nic was enabled at bootup. I'm currently using a static address. I'll test DHCP later but this is one big hurdle that I got over. Hope it helps you.