NetworkManager: how to select wireless interface

Matthew Saltzman mjs at clemson.edu
Mon Jun 9 23:27:29 UTC 2008


On Mon, 2008-06-09 at 20:43 +0000, Beartooth Sciurivore wrote:
> On Mon, 09 Jun 2008 20:49:32 +0100, Timothy Murphy wrote:
> 	[....]
> > I agree that the documentation is more or less non-existent, and what
> > little there is verges on parody, eg the man entry which tells you NM
> > "Just Works".
> 	[...]
> > I think the OP's complaint is somewhat bizarre. Basically, he/she is
> > saying NM works too well.
> 
> 	I beg to differ. My newest laptop detects three wireless 
> addresses to connect to as soon as it's booted, and goes on detecting 
> them; fortunately, one is mine and the other two are (at least nominally) 
> secured. This is in a neighborhood with only single-family houses (in a 
> town that has a big engineering school). In an apartment building, it 
> would probably be a lot more.
> 
> 	Either I've completely misunderstood (as is of course quite 
> possible) -- or it's easy to  imagine circumstances where you might care 
> intensely which connection you used.

Sure, NM detects everything in the air with a public ESSID.  What it
shows is based on the results of making your wireless card scan.  Try
"sudo /sbin/iwlist <device> scan" and see what it shows.  (It detects
hidden ESSIDs, but it doesn't know what the ESSID is, so it doesn't
display it.  You can enter it if you know it with left-click and
"connect to other wireless network".)

Then you select the one you want and it will try to connect.  If you've
connected to one before (based on BSSID, IIRC), it will try to connect
you to that one automatically.  Otherwise, you get to choose.

In a major urban hotel, seeing a dozen or more is common.  But it
doesn't just connect you to one at random.  (At least it's not supposed
to.)

If you did try to connect to one and you don't want to connect to it
again, delete the interface (right-click the applet and "edit
connections").  Next time you see it, it will be treated as new.

-- 
                Matthew Saltzman

Clemson University Math Sciences
mjs AT clemson DOT edu
http://www.math.clemson.edu/~mjs




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