Wireless works too well!

[Derek Broughton]

John DeCarlo wrote:

> On 11/8/05, Harry Wert <hwert at earthlink.net> wrote:
>>
>> First the problem: Even though I issue a "iwconfig wlan0 essid linksys
>> channel 6", my computer locks on to my neighbor across the street named
>> "bruce". To log onto my router "linksys" I need to run wlassistant and
>> select "linksys". This works fine EXCEPT, I drop my linksys connection
>> randomly and resync back onto "bruce" ( he is on channel 1). At the
>> moment neither "bruce" or "linksys" are using encryption until I get
>> this figured out. By the way, my wireless signal from my router
>> "linksys" is many time stronger than the signal I get from my neighbor
>> "bruce" - for whatever value that may have for this discussion. Has
>> anyone else experienced a problem such as this? I have struck out using
>> the various search engines and Ubunti wiki. Any suggestions are greatly
>> appreciated. Is there anyway to issue a "deny bruce" command anywhere?
>>
> I disagree with the other poster that this is a generic wireless problem.
> I believe this is a Ubuntu problem (maybe Debian, maybe not).

Well, I didn't say it wasn't an Ubuntu problem - but Harry's trying to
access his wireless using the wrong configuration.  If he sets it up
correctly he might still have a problem - but you can't blame Ubuntu until
he does.  Specifically, the use of channel to access an AP _shouldn't_
work, and results may be unpredictable (I certainly wouldn't have predicted
what Harry got!).

> One thing you can do is monitor /etc/network/interfaces - if you see essid
> bruce in there, you have one of the above packages changing things against
> your will. Or maybe another wireless program.

What?  You think something would actually rewrite /etc/network/interfaces? 
It seems pretty scary that something would change it (though I suppose
that's exactly how "intuitively" would work, it would still need you to put
"bruce" into the configuration yourself).
-- 
derek