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Wireless settings a breeze with wifi radar


diehl
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(I posted this in "software" but perhaps this is the more appropriate location)

 

For managing wireless profiles in Mandriva, I highly recommend not using "network profiles" which in my experience are very cumbersome to use (see below), but rather use wifi-radar which allows very simple connection/changing/editing of wireless profiles without needing the root password.

 

Here is how to set wifi-radar up.

 

1. Install wifi-radar rpm (I'm using wifi-radar-1.9.4-1mdv2007.0).

 

2. Give ordinary user "sudo" access to run wifi-radar. Edit (as

root) /etc/sudoers -- you must use visudo:

$ visudo -f sudoers

Hit "i" to go into "insert mode"

Add this line to end of the file:

<username> localhost = NOPASSWD: /usr/sbin/wifi-radar

where <username> is the user who needs the wifi access.

Hit <ESC> :wq to save file and exit.

 

3. Now user <username> can run wifi-radar without root access as follows: $sudo /usr/sbin/wifi-radar

 

4. Of course, a panel icon can be created. In KDE right click the screen and select Create New -> Link to application. This opens up a Properties dialog box. In the dialog box, change icon and name in the "general" panel. Then select the "Application" panel and enter "sudo /usr/sbin/wifi-radar" in the "Command" box. Then hit OK to close the Properties dialog box. Finally, drag this icon to the KDE launch panel. Now you can start wifi-radar by clicking this icon.

 

5. Wifi radar lists any wireless networks it finds and has buttons to connect/disconnect/edit setting, etc. Very simple to use, and with sudo access you can do all of this as an ordinary user.

 

With wifi radar using wireless connections is a breeze, which not the case when you use the Mandriva "network profiles". I have just a "default" profile which is ethernet DHCP. Then, if I unplug the ethernet cable and plug in my wireless card, I use wifi-radar to connect to wireless networks. I never change my network profile.

 

I have to say, that the Mandriva "network profiles" concept is ill-concieved and buggy. First, as far as I can tell there is no easy way to give ordinary users the ability to change networks/modify settings, etc. The only thing an ordinary user can do is bring a certain network interface up/down which is of rather limited usefulness. To use network profiles you must enter the root password one or more times every time you change anything (I say several times, because if you use the Mandriva KDE network applet, you have to enter root password for every separate operation). Then you must go through many dialog panels of the network wizard to enter new

settings. Of course, you can only edit the "current" profile, so you must be careful to create new profiles and switch to them, otherwise you overwrite your current settings. Then, after entering settings, I typically found for wireless settings, the wizard does not actually start the connection (despite claiming that it has), and I still must start the "wireless connection" wizard and select and connect to the wireless network I've just configured for. So really I wonder what Mandriva engineers were thinking when they designed this tool. For fixed network connections it is fine, but for wireless it is a PITA.

 

Also, on Mandriva 2007, for some reason, my X-windows session is killed when I try to change profiles. Specifically, if I run /sbin/set-netprofile directly as root (this is the script to change network profiles) I see that it first turns off a whole bunch of services, resets the profile settings (which can be many different settings beside network), and then restarts everything. However, in my case, it only shuts everything down and never starts it up again for unknown reasons.

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