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  • From: dave AT sourcemage.org
  • To: sm-discuss AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [SM-Discuss] wireless-bash scripts
  • Date: Sat, 13 May 2006 20:12:32 -0500

On Sat, May 13, 2006 at 06:02:36PM -0700, David Brown wrote:
> For those of you who don't know I've made this little package called
> wireless-bash [0] to manage the different wireless connections that I
> run across throughout my day. It doesn't use netconf or our
> networking scripts at all, other than you can tell wireless-bash to
> run ifup on an interface once it's connected.
>
> I've thought about integrating this into our networking scripts but
> I've been reluctant because people may scream bloody murder about how:
> 1) complicated it is (most-likely without even looking at it)
> 2) probably should be it's own separate package
> 3) certain functionality isn't supported yet
> 4) why does it need a daemon
> etc...
>
> Some of the features include:
> 1) maintaining a minimum connectivity quality
> wireless-bash when the quality of the connection drops below a
> particular percent (given by /proc/net/wireless) it will go searching
> for another essid to connect to.
> 2) precedence between multiple essids you may encounter
> wireless-bash will go through a user specified list in order looking
> for the first essid to connect to, so if the user perfers a connection
> to a particular essid put that essid ahead of everything else in the
> list.
> 3) each essid has it's own unique connection style currently supported are:
> a) wep
> b) open
> 4) post or pre connection script to connect to the essid given
> wireless-bash will run specified pre and post connection scripts (this
> is good for vpn clients and such)
> 5) both a running daemon and a command line utility
> you can choose not to run the daemon at all (negating features 1 and
> 2) and simply run the commandline utility to connect to the essid.
>
> Some of the things I have yet to do and want to:
> 1) figure out wpa and make it work with wireless-bash
>
> I really find this tool to be extremely helpful especially when
> suspending my machine and bringing up somewhere else. If anyone has
> any suggestions or recommendations let me know. There's also a spell I
> wrote for it here[1].

Good stuff thanks!

fyi I've found wpa_supplicant is a very good wifi roaming program. It's
intended purpose is as the suplicant end of various WPA implementations,
but it also supports run-of-the-mill WEP, and unencrypted connections.

The configuration syntax is easy as can be. Each network block has
an ESSID, and several optional configuration options that change how the
card works. So:

network={
ssid='screwOff'
scan_ssid=1
proto=WPA
key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
pairwise=TKIP
psk='notmyrealpassword'
}

is my office definition. With more than one network, the wpa_supplicant
daemon just scans around for an essid that matches one of the configured
netblocks, re-configures the card on the fly, and you're all set. So in
practice, I sleep my laptop at home, go to the office, wake it up, and
wpa_supplicant recognizes that the home network is gone, and the work
network is there, and reconfigures everything.

Anyway. Just thought I'd mention it.

--dave.

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