Setting up linux to find multiple access points

[Yohhan]

I use Fedora with my home wireless AP. That particular IP is setup with encryption. However, I also want to be able to connect to other open AP's such as at school, without having to change any of my configuration settings with iwconfig. I'd like to get it to behave similar to windows, where it will connect to any available AP. How can I do this?

 

[drag]

You could try setting up a extra network profile.

That way you can have multiple settings for everything. If you go to start-menu --> system settings --> network ---> profile --> new profile. I think that's the way your suppose to do it.

But to be truthfull I never bother much with the gui configuration tools for networking in Fedora. It just doesn't work well with my ethernet setup.

What I do instead is just figure out how to do with iwconfig and ifconfig. Then I put the commands in a script and use the script when I move around.

If you want a nice button to push I use the gnome panel and add commands to that by right clicking on the panel ---> add to panel --> launcher. Then select the script name and that's that.

If you have a bunch of connections settings you add a "drawer" to the panel and put your various connections scripts in there.

A script that I use called "wireup":

#!/bin/bash

ifdown eth0
ifconfig eth0 down
ifconfig eth1 down # just to make sure that the connections are down
sleep 2 #pauses for 2 seconds just to be sure.
iwconfig eth1 mode Managed
iwconfig eth1 essid any
iwconfig eth1 key 0123456789
ifconfig eth1 192.168.1.12 up
route add default gw 192.168.1.254

Then i just put my dns servers in the /etc/resolv.conf file. If your dns stuff conflicts each other then you can add something like:
echo "nameserver 192.168.1.254" > /etc/resolv.conf
(> carrot will overwrite the file, >> 2 carrots will append to the end of a file, btw)

For fedora the command to get dhcp configured would be "dhclient" such as "dhclient eth0"

I have sudo setup so that I don't have to use a password to run the command as root so my "launcher" command in the gnome panel would be:
sudo /home/drag/bin/wireup

(bin in my own home directory is were I stick my scripts.)

But you do whatever you want. My troubles with the gui stuff from fedora may or may not be a issue with you.

Personally I find all gui config tools annoying... so I am biased.

If I was using Debian on my laptop then I'd just use a package called laptop-net...

Check out the fedora forums website at http://fedoraforum.org/forum/ for people that would know more about fedora specifics then me.

 

[eigen]

^^ He is right or check out Kwifimanager. It is an app that does what you want.

http://kwifimanager.sourceforge.net/