Tool for selecting location upon boot

[Phantom]

Maybe it's a silly question but I would be looking for tool that could let me create multiple boot profiles.

 

When I'm over at customers sites I always use ETH0 but at home I use WLAN0 and in other places I should need Wlan0 but with another wep key.

 

Now when I boot it takes forever as there is always one the interfaces down, and Linux takes +/- 3min to detect that.

 

Any suggestions ?

[Qchem]

I don't know of anyway to adjust/create profiles (I once looked and gave up), but it may be possible to reduce the bootup time, are you obtaining an IP address via dhcp?

[streeter]

I had the exact same 'problem' - Mandrake's stuff was not simple/quick enough - so I wrote a little front end to ifconfig/iwconfig etc using QT3 designer. I just need to run it and click the buttons as required...

 

Not the greatest bit of programming in the world - mostly comprises of system calls to bash commands, but it works well for me.

 

Obviously I have removed my (and my customers) WEP keys, SSIDs etc from it, but give it a try.

 

A few things are set up for my system, e.g. the yenta modules for PCMCIA, and promiscuous mode for a Cisco wireless PCMCIA card. Also font sizes..... the list goes on.

 

Perhaps I will tweak it one day if someone asks me nicely.

 

Brief instructions:

Put list of WEP keys in wifiup.wep

Put list of SSIDs in wifiup.ssid

Run wifiup as root

Click on buttons randomly and see what happens :)

or better still, you could start by setting the wireless device dropdown to whatever your card uses, set the IP address and gateway.

I find I need to take eth0 down (to get rid of the existing default gateway)

Click wifi up (this uses the entry from the wireless device dropdown, IP address and gateway)

Some cards need the managed or ad-hoc buttons pressing

Set the WEP and SSID dropdowns and click their buttons.

Click renew address if you need DHCP

Use your connection

 

Let me know how you get on - remember, I wrote this for my own use on my thinkpad, so it may not work for you... Also the usual caveats apply re melting computers, data loss, accidently starting nuclear wars etc.

 

The binary was compiled on Mandrake 10.1 official. Don't look too closely at the source all you programmers out there :) To compile, type make in the directory.

 

Download from http://www.iwpcs.co.uk/wifiup/qtwifiup.tar.gz

 

Chris

 

EDIT: My missus reckons (nags me) I should ask for a few quid to be sent to my paypal account if anyone uses this for business - is that allowed? :deal:

Edited May 20, 2005 by streeter

[ramfree17]

EDIT: My missus reckons (nags me) I should ask for a few quid to be sent to my paypal account if anyone uses this for business - is that allowed?  :deal:

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

yep. but you would have to pay the same amount to anybody who replies to your questions.

 

kidding aside, polish that idea and create a sourceforge hosting or whatever and put a donate to link/button. that should work. :)

 

ciao!

[coverup]

The easiest way to specify a net profile to boot into is using lilo's append command. On my laptop, I created several lilo sections (e.g., work, home, etc), and added references to netprofiles like this

image = /boot/vmlinuz-2.x.x
 label = office
 append = "PROFILE=Office"
image = /boot/vmlinuz-2.x.x
 label = home
 append = "PROFILE=Home"

Profiles were created using MCC or by copying and editing existing profiles. This way I can choose a profile on boot, or I can switch to another profile in a usual way.