Looking for Recommendations on Wireless Management

shep · 2013-06-21 19:09:11

I am back to running Arch linux on an budget laptop. The Laptop's OpenChrome video driver was broken upstream for about 6 months.

In the interim, netcfg has been replaced by netctl and systemd. The laptop's ath0 wireless works well and is presently configured by systemd to associate with my home access point via wpa2

I'm going on a trip and would like to add the option to scan and connect to an available access point. Prior to OpenChrome breaking, I utilized dialog with a wifi menu select option during boot.

I read the wireless wiki and look to have a number of options:
1) netctl via netctl-auto
2) wicd
3) Network manager
4) wlassistant.
5) multiple wpa_supplicant.conf entries

Being a budget laptop running openbox I would like to avoid pulling in otherwise unneeded dependencies with Network manager.
I recall that a wireless menu option was available in netctl but when I initially setup wireless there was a note that it was not currently supported and it is not mentioned in the current netctl wiki. I would rather select the ssid than have it automated.

I am leaning toward wicd-curses, which I have run in Debian and have no experience with wlassistant.

Any recommendations, with rationale appreciated.

Last edited by shep (2013-06-21 19:11:14)

HalosGhost · 2013-06-21 20:03:34

wifi-menu is fully-functioning in netctl (afaik). However, the real answer to your question is "ᴛɪᴀꜱ." (Try it and see). Check out all the ones you think might be good and pick the best one for your use-case.

All the best,

-HG

Last edited by HalosGhost (2013-06-21 20:03:46)

shep · 2013-06-21 20:40:27

I recall that I previously set

NETWORKS=(menu)

in

/etc/rc.conf

My laptop is now using systemd

Note: The NETWORKS=(menu) setting cannot be used anymore when switching to systemd. See FS#31377 for details.

from netctl-ArchWiki.

I have narrowed my options to
1) Wicd-curses started via autostart in openbox
2) manually associating via netctl <wireless_profile>
3) I need to read up on the wlassistant option edit (It is KDE front end will toss this one out)

edit correct mislabeled netcfg-ArchWiki -> netctl-ArchWiki

Last edited by shep (2013-06-21 21:09:39)

Trilby · 2013-06-21 20:55:22

wicd: 9MB, swifer-git: 13KB. ;-)

While it is a bit of self promotion, it may be fitting as swifer sounds like a good fit for what you are looking for (see sig below).

Swifer has a menu, but can also be used as a systemd service to connect to the best available open network upon starting up.

The main limitation (for now) is that the menu interface assumes all secure networks are wpa (does anyone really still use wep?). But once manually configured for a wep network, it will reconnect to that network seemlessly.

Oh, and the documentation sucks - but I'm not hard to find.

Last edited by Trilby (2013-06-21 20:56:16)

HalosGhost · 2013-06-21 21:02:09

Netcfg is deprecated. Netctl offers a `wifi-menu` command. It doesn't run on-boot, I don't think, but netctl-auto is a piece of cake to setup. If you need something even more light-weight than netctl, I imagine Trilby's option isn't half bad.

All the best,

-HG

shep · 2013-06-21 21:07:02

@Trilby

Thanks for the contribution!!!

Couple of quick questions
1) I am assuming swifer is not Arch specific and therefore does not use networking profiles
2) If a network is added, is the key encrypted or stored with 0640 permisssions?

Trilby · 2013-06-21 21:58:09

Great questions - swifer was made by me for me to use with arch. But its dependencies are light and very common (you almost certainly have them already), so it should run on other distros well. It does use something comparable to profiles for secure networks but much simpler - they are just wpa_supplicant.conf segments, but swifer writes them itself for simple cases (and most cases are simple cases; wep is a current exception) so generally you would have to pay no attention to them.

As for permissions on the files, I've been meaning to get around to that - they've been 0644, but I just changed it to 0600 in the last revision which is now on github.

EDIT: also keep in mind this is a development version. I use it myself as my only networking tool on a netbook that I bring everywhere - and I have no issues. But I also know how to connect manually in a bind: and I advocate for every user knowing the manual steps (ip, iwlist (if needed), iw / wpa_supplicant, dhcpcd/dhclient).

Last edited by Trilby (2013-06-21 22:13:24)

Arch Linux

#1 2013-06-21 19:09:11

Looking for Recommendations on Wireless Management

#2 2013-06-21 20:03:34

Re: Looking for Recommendations on Wireless Management

#3 2013-06-21 20:40:27

Re: Looking for Recommendations on Wireless Management

#4 2013-06-21 20:55:22

Re: Looking for Recommendations on Wireless Management

#5 2013-06-21 21:02:09

Re: Looking for Recommendations on Wireless Management

#6 2013-06-21 21:07:02

Re: Looking for Recommendations on Wireless Management

#7 2013-06-21 21:58:09

Re: Looking for Recommendations on Wireless Management

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