Wifi that does not roam, interfaces settings

[Nils Kassube]

Knapp wrote:
> I have a desktop system that is using wifi with wpa2. What would the
> settings be in interfaces? 

This is the relevant part of the /etc/network/interfaces file of one of
my machines:

auto ath0
iface ath0 inet dhcp
# configuration for WPA2
    wpa-driver wext
    wpa-ssid SSID
    wpa-ap-scan 2
    wpa-proto WPA2
    wpa-pairwise CCMP
    wpa-key-mgmt WPA-PSK
    wpa-psk 28964ba6ea8b8f3a0db1c4414b327da253d0af5d4f4adccec0f8abf5b05b10f8
# psk from "wpa_passphrase SSID passphrase"

> Is this a good idea?

That depends on your requirements. :)

> I understand with it
> all preset that it will boot the system faster but what of dropped
> connections, will it auto reconnect?

I'm not sure it will boot faster. And yes, it does reconnect
automatically. But I have no idea if you can automatically connect to
one of several known networks - I suppose that is what you mean with
"roam" in the subject.

> Will this work with network
> manager?

No. Networkmanager ignores those interfaces which are defined in
/etc/network/interfaces.

> Maybe something else is better?

I prefer Wicd - but others have problems with that program. I know that
Wicd would automatically switch between networks.

> When the connection is
> dropped my desktop often freezes up. Is this normal?

Do you have NFS shares (or maybe Samba shares) mounted via wireless?
Then it might be the culprit if the system is waiting for file I/O on
that share. For NFS shares you could use the mount options
"soft,timeo=60" which prevents eternal waiting and instead uses a
timeout of 60s. It still blocks the system but "only" for 60s.


Nils