On Tue, Oct 17, 2006 at 02:20:37PM -0700, Michael Hunter wrote: > > I'm not sure prompting to connect to a new essid everytime the bssid > changes would be very useful. The bssid isn't a very memorable token > for most people and the same essid over multiple base stations is how > link level "roaming" is done. I suspect that the common reaction would > be to just type 'y' as I think most people do with ssh host > authentication.
I think there a couple different situations here, and we might not want to do the same thing in all cases. When the hardware is automatically letting us roam from one base station to another, we definitely don't want to query the user each time we change APs. But in the case where we're unconnected and wanting to connect, I think it would be useful to query the user if we have matching ESSIDs but different BSSIDs. That could seem annoying and useless if we just happen to turn on our laptop on the third floor of the building when we usually use it on the second; but I don't think we can differentiate that situation from the accidental one, where it just happens that there's a visible ESSID that matches the one at our local library. If the new ESSID/BSSID pair has different security requirements from the known pair, I think it should be treated as a completely new network. Perhaps if it has the same security requirements as the known pair, we should attempt to connect, and assume that successful connection means this is another AP on the same known network. But if they're both open, I think we should get confir- mation before connecting. I agree about the BSSID not being very memorable, though; the question should probably be less technical. Something like "It looks like the hardware attachment point for network 'foo' is not the same as the one you've connected to before. Do you want to connect anyway?" And then maybe a "details" button in that window could pop up the detailed explanation. -renee
