[Linux-disciples] Re: Continuing name-resolution weirdness

[Adam Rosi-Kessel]

Stephen R Laniel wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 12, 2005 at 06:18:15PM -0500, Adam Rosi-Kessel wrote:
>> I really don't think the wireless has anything to do with your problem,
>> it probably would be the same problem if you moved from ethernet to
>> ethernet zone without rebooting.  Are you ifdown/ifup'ing each time you
>> switch?
> Yep. Though I'm not entirely sure what gets reset when I
> ifdown/ifup. E.g., one of my clients uses a non-broadcast
> ESSID, so I have to force a certain ESSID when there (with
> 'iwconfig eth0 essid [blah]', if you're not familiar with
> the tools). When I ifdown/ifup at my next location, is the
> ESSID reset?
> ifdown/ifup-ing doesn't always work for me. I did that when
> I left the aforementioned client and got on my home network;
> no dice: my card sent out a broadcast and nothing happened.
> I even manually released my DHCP license ('dhclient -r') and
> *then* ifup/ifdown'ed. That didn't work, so I ran a few
> daemons in /etc/init.d that seemed relevant (dns-clean and
> networking). Again, no dice. I rebooted and everything
> worked fine.

Sounds like maybe you have some confusion about what, exactly, the 
ifup/ifdown commands do.

ifconfig <interface> up/down turns an interface on or off without 
doing any configuration of the interface.  It will have whatever 
settings it had last time it was brought up, or the default settings.

ifup/ifdown follow the instructions in /etc/network/interfaces for the 
specified device.  If the device is down (as with ifconfig), ifup will 
also bring it up and then configure it.

You can set all the wireless settings in /etc/network/interfaces.

The essid will be reset on ifup if you include "wireless_essid any" in 
the stanza for your wireless interface in /etc/network/interfaces. 
Anything you can set with iwconfig can also be set in that file in a 
similar fashion.

There are a number of packages that autodetect your environment and 
bring up the proper interface based on that--for example, if you have 
a client you visit repeatedly with a nonbroadcast essid, you could put 
in some test with one of the packages that checked to see if it can 
ping the server with that essid and if so it will know that is where 
it is.
-- 
Adam Rosi-Kessel
http://adam.rosi-kessel.org
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