On Monday 26 Sep 2011 23:08:04 Mark Knecht wrote: > My experience so far: > > 1) As discussed earlier, needing to mess with routes when changing > which network I'm using. Sad when both options actually point to the > same address.
If you use ifplugd the eth0 will be activated auto-magically once a link is detected on wired NIC. You can even further configure it to run commands of your choice once it detects that a link is up (i.e. is my wlan0 up then configure a route otherwise not, type of thing). > 2) If I start with wlan0 turned off and switch to root to disable eth0 > and enable wlan0, I get a message that wlan0 is up but 'not active'. > Indeed, as a user if I start a browser it doesn't work. However, if as > root I ping the router I immediately get a response and then my > browser works fine. This is odd. Something is amiss with your configuration ... > 3) If I disable wlan0 and then reenable it it doesn't work until I > restart wpa_supplicant This is definitely *not* how it works here. If by disabling it you mean running /etc/init.d/net.wlan0 then your /etc/init.d/net.wlan0 script should call wpa_supplicant. You should not have to run wpa_supplicant by hand. Are you sure you are calling the correct NIC driver for wpa_supplicant in your /etc/init.d/net.wlan0 file? (e.g. you may need to use broadcom instead of wext if you are running an old broadcom card). > 4) So far wpa_gui cannot find any networks, or at least doesn't > display anything when I attempt a scan. Assuming your init.d script and wpa_supplicant is correct then iwlist wlan0 scanning (or scan) should be able to scan and list devices. So should wpa_cli -i wlan0 (run it and then enter 'scan_results' on the prompt) and of course so should wpa_gui. > I don't understand at this point how to make this work for normal > users. Anyone in my family of three might want to pick this laptop up > and go to a different part of the house, or even go out of the house > and use the laptop with some public network. I haven't a clue yet how > anyone is supposed to change networks when they aren't root. I > understand that flies in the face of typical Linux security, but it > seems to me that a well thought out wireless environment could figure > out how to do that, and possibly has already but I haven't found the > info. You can set which group is allowed to mess about with wpa_supplicant (this of course applies also to the wpa_cli/gui) in the /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf. You can for example set: ctrl_interface_group=wheel or ctrl_interface_group=users or ctrl_interface_group=my_wlan0_users_group (this is I think commented comprehensively in your .example file and in the man page) > Anyway, I am THRILLED to have wireless working at all and appreciate > all the help I got getting there. Without question I couldn't have > gotten here without it. I think something is amiss with your configuration which causes the problems you describe above. You can contact me off list if you want to keep the noise down and I'll take a closer look at your settings in case I spot something. -- Regards, Mick
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