[ltp] Re: Managing network connections

[Daniel Pittman]

Greg Kimberly <lists@gak.com> writes:

> This discusion of the "best distro" reminds me of my main issue in 
> running linux my T41 - managing network connections. I'm dual booting 
> into Suse and haven't found a good tool for managing network 
> connections - especially constantly changing WiFi ones.  (A Suse rep 
> at OSCon this month could only suggest using Yast to remove the wifi 
> adapter and then adding it in again with a new WEP key - not ideal.)
>
> What are folks using? In there any tool out there akin to the IBM 
> connections manager?

If you want a GUI tool, the *only* thing I am (distantly) aware of is
that recent KDE releases include a wireless configuration manager
similar to what you find in Windows, etc.


Personally, I use wpa_supplicant and manually bring up/down the network.

With that I can write a three line configuration entry for WEP or
WPA-PSK networks, and they simply work for me.  

I also have a generic "no protection, any SSID" entry as the lowest
priority, and DHCP, so that I can connect to open access points without
having to do anything.


wpa_supplicant manages the process of detecting and selecting networks
while running, and is good and competent.  It also supports any sort of
WPA style you could possible want, including the various "Enterprise" or
PKI based systems.

Regards,
        Daniel