Arch Linux

hauntergeist

Member

From: Vienna

Registered: 2008-10-11

Posts: 56

[solved] Auto-choose certain network profile on boot

Hello everyone.

I configured my /etc/rc.conf to scan the wireless environment and choose the appropiate network profile automatically. The problem is, at my university there is a unsecure and a secure wireless connection. I wrote a profile for both connections. Now, ArchLinux scans the environment and automatically chooses the *unsecure* connection. Is there a possibility to tell Arch to choose the secure one or ignore the unsecure profile, while sustaining the flexibility of the auto-wireless feature?

Greetings,
haunted

Last edited by hauntergeist (2009-04-23 12:51:39)

Runiq

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2008-10-29

Posts: 1,053

Re: [solved] Auto-choose certain network profile on boot

You cannot assign priorities to networks in netcfg afaik, but you can do so in wpa_supplicant. This way you'll end up with one netcfg config file and one for wpa_supplicant. Take a look at the netcfg manpage and the example configurations in /etc/network.d/examples (IIRC) to see how to set this up.

I did it like this: Changed the netcfg profiles just to represent places where I might encounter different networks (like home, university, internet café etc.), and create a corresponding wpa_supplicant.conf file with the list of network I have access to in each place. Don't know why I made it so complicated, seemed like a good idea at the time.

---

Dotfiles

hauntergeist

Member

From: Vienna

Registered: 2008-10-11

Posts: 56

Re: [solved] Auto-choose certain network profile on boot

Why do I need to configure a unsecure network in wpa_supplicant? Just for the priority thingy? Ok, I changed the settings in /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf accordingly and look if it works the next time.
Thanks.

hauntergeist

Member

From: Vienna

Registered: 2008-10-11

Posts: 56

Re: [solved] Auto-choose certain network profile on boot

Ok, it doesn't work. Netcfg2 always chooses the network which requires less 'effort', i.e. the unsecure profile. Afterwards, when the profile is chosen then it goes on to look at wpa-supplicant. I don't know how you succeeded in placing different ESSIDs in one profile (that is what I require so that the priorities in wpa_supplicant.conf could take effect).

zenlord

Member

From: Belgium

Registered: 2006-05-24

Posts: 1,221

Website

Re: [solved] Auto-choose certain network profile on boot

And if you delete the profile for the unsecure network?Then netcfg will not be able to connect to it...

Zl.

hauntergeist

Member

From: Vienna

Registered: 2008-10-11

Posts: 56

Re: [solved] Auto-choose certain network profile on boot

Yea, that would be the easiest solution .... but why make it easy when it can be made more complicated but I'll have to stick to this solution when nothing else helps.

haunted

Last edited by hauntergeist (2009-04-23 12:33:23)