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seanr7

Member

Registered: 2013-09-19

Posts: 10

NetworkManager connecting to multiple acces points with same SSID

I go to a University that has APs set up all over with the SSID schoolAP. However, whenever I go to the campus, I have to connect manually. Today I looked at /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections and I saw that NetworkManager is keeping a profile for each different AP by UUID and MAC. I want to create a universal profile that will connect to any AP with the name schoolAP. I tried modifying one the existing profiles by removing the UUID field and the mac-address field, but that didn't work. Does anyone know how to do this or where a template can be found for these with options to set something like this up?
Thanks.

Here's an example of a current profile that is on my system:

[ipv6]
method=auto

[connection]
id=schoolAP
uuid=aaaaaaaa-bbbb-cccc-eeee-fffffffffff
type=802-11-wireless

[802-11-wireless]
ssid=schoolAP
mode=infustructure
mac-address=00:11:22:33:44:55
security=802-11-wireless-security

[802-1x]
eap=peap;
identity=example
anonymous-identity=example
phase2-auth=mschapv2
password-flags=1
system-ca-certs=true

[ipv4]
method=auto

[802-11-wireless-security]
key-mgmt=wpa-eap
auth-alg=open

mcloaked

Member

From: Yorkshire, UK

Registered: 2012-02-02

Posts: 1,279

Re: NetworkManager connecting to multiple acces points with same SSID

I would love to see a solution to this issue. Some years ago when Fedora developers were working on NetworkManager I was looking to the same problem and had exchanges with the developers on this issue, not only in the situation where there is an institution with dozens (or more) APs with the same ssid, but also even at home where you might easily have a need for wireless range extenders even in a small home.  What would be nice is to have the laptop switch to whichever AP has the strongest signal for the same ssid, but I never managed to find a solution. So I am also keen to know the answer as to whether this is possible.

Since mobile phones roam from one cell to another on the basis of signal strength one would have thought it should be possible to roam across APs for wifi on the analogous basis.

Last edited by mcloaked (2014-02-04 16:30:49)

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Mike C

seanr7

Member

Registered: 2013-09-19

Posts: 10

Re: NetworkManager connecting to multiple acces points with same SSID

It really has been driving me nuts the last few weeks. I'd really like to find a solution using NetworkManager because I actually like it, but I think for now I'll be looking into alternate methods of WiFi connection. Is anyone familiar with one that can do similarly what NetworkManager can? Obviously I'd need it to be capable of dealing with WPA-EAP for school.

WonderWoofy

Member

From: Los Gatos, CA

Registered: 2012-05-19

Posts: 8,414

Re: NetworkManager connecting to multiple acces points with same SSID

Network management options are fairly limited.  Not to say there aren't good solutions, but there are only a few.  So you pretty much have a choice of NetworkManager which you've tried, wicd, netctl (via netctl-auto), or connman.  So I would say try them all.  I have no idea about WPA-EAP capabilities, but I would venture to guess that since they all rely on wpa_supplicant, they should all be able to handle this in one way or another.