Is it possible to define settings for multiple wireless networks in rc.inet1.conf?
 

Hi all,

The situation I'm in is that there are three wireless networks that I regularly connect to (two of which use WEP and the third doesn't use encryption) and what I would like to do is have the settings for all three in my rc.inet1.conf, so that the interface can connect automatically. What I'm having to do now, is just uncomment the settings for the particular network I'm using at that time and comment the settings for the other two. Obviously, this is less than ideal!

Again, I would just like a way to specify settings for multiple networks in my rc.inet1.conf (or another way of achieving what I want to do).

I'd assume this is a common thing that people would want to do!

Thanks.

You might be better off using wicd for this purpose. It is available for download in the extra directory from your favorite Slackware mirror. To use wicd, you should return /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf to it's pristine, unedited, state. See this from the README file for wicd:

I'll take a look at wicd. Thanks, tommcd! :)

Hi again,

Could I get some help with wicd please? I returned my /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf to its original state, created a /etc/wicd/wireless-settings.conf, set execute perms on /etc/rc.d/rc.wicd and rebooted and found that I had no connection to my wireless network. I've attached my wicd log and my wireless-settings.conf, as well as the manager-settings.conf file (the only thing I've changed in that is setting wireless_interface to "ath0" rather than "None" as it was).

Any ideas?

Thanks.

try "wicd-client" GUI

Really? Why? What's wrong with editing the files myself?

Yea I think that's possible. Check out Alien's Wiki here:
http://alien.slackbook.org/dokuwiki/..._rc.inet1.conf
Keep note of the array index values ([0],[1],[2], ...).

As for your wicd logs, I have no clue--sorry :-\

As with most packages, there are README and INSTALL files. Perhaps you should should read them. WICD works very well if you bother to do so and set things up as recommended.

Alien Bob's page suggests (to me, anyway) that the array index values are used for different network interfaces (e.g. eth0, ath0, etc). What I have is just one wireless interface and want to allow that to connect to multiple networks.

A bit harsh, but I'll have a look. Thanks. Edit: wicd's README file doesn't tell me anything useful. It does say, though, "Since the user interface just queries for connection and configuration info
from the daemon, it is possible to run wicd without the GUI at all".

It seems silly to me to have to use a GUI to edit configuration files, but if that's how it works, ok.. :/.

Can I get any help with the wicd configuration files please?

WICD configuration files
 

Hi Nylex,

Attaching my WICD config files that were assembled with the wicd-client on Slack-current. Have two interface cards; eth0=wired eth1=wireless. The WAP I connect to(first entry in -settings) is WPA encrypted. I also added an unencrypted Linksys WAP that is in the neighborhood. For some reason wicd-client adds two entries for it.

Hope this helps you set yours up without the gui.

A little off-topic, but if you upgrade to wicd 1.6.0, it now has an ncurses interface called wicd-curses that runs very nicely from a console. I just altered the Slackware 12.2 slackbuild and it built without a problem.

Thanks! I'll take a look at those and see how they work and then I should be able to create my entries properly.

I'll try looking at EYo's config files first and then I'll take a look at the new version of wicd, if I still have problems. Thanks!

Thanks again, EYo and Hangdog42.

I can confirm that wicd is indeed the only way I am able to establish connection with my wireless router at home. wicd uses the ifconfig and other tools like route and ip in the backend to work, but it provides you with a GUI to scan and find out your wireless APs. Of course you can always do this using iwconfig and ifconfig manually....

If you don't like the gtk client for wicd or need to access it in a terminal, use wicd-curses

Wireless generally is very unstable, and I don't get the access point to show up as with Windows which almost always connects instantaneously, on Linux 4 out of 5 times the connection hangs up over a long long time trying to authenticate without any activity. And a lot of times I just cannot seem to authenticate with WEP or WPA.

So doing these steps manually and reconfiguring your settings for every connection you use will be a huge waste of time.

wicd is the best of the tools I've used so far. network-manager is crappy in my experience.

All these front ends invoke wpa_supplicant automatically if you use WPA or WEP encryption.

Thanks for your post, harishankar! I also sometimes have problems with wireless.. though I think it's more of a driver problem for me (e.g. sometimes, I boot my machine and the wireless interface isn't created, so I have to reboot to get it to work).

I do have one question about your post, though. You said:

Does this mean that I need to set up a wpa_supplicant.conf, even if I'm using WEP?

Thanks again.