How do you handle both network connections, lan and wlan ?

[AndreasMeier]

Hi together,

normally I'm working with my lan connection on eth0 as normal with my Kubuntu Hoary system.
Today I tried to configure wireless lan, which ends up in a small disaster, because he messed up both connections.
eth0 is configured by ifplugd, so if no cable is available.

My question is, how you handle both connections ?
What tools do you use in KDE ?
I am interesseted in a "on demand" dial-up wlan connection, where I can choose the settings via profile for different wireless networks.
I saw this, when I had Suse 9.3 on my T42.
There you have kppp in the systray and you can use it for building the connection via wlan.

I tried this solution also, but found nothing in modems, which looks like a wlan adapter.

So, perhaps you have good ideas for a better handling, and I'm sure you have

Thanks in advance,
kind regards,
Andreas

[runixd]

You can either bridge the connection or setup a router etc etc. Unless an interface given to app as a parameter it will use the first configured, unless it is a specific application.

[AndreasMeier]

No, no, so far so good.
I'm looking for a good and practicable way of switching a connection when system is running, or, if this is not possible, other ways of doing this during startup.
For example, a good way switching the connection from cable to wireless without reboot.
Or an automatic switching during startup.
I have already ifplugd configured for eth0 (cable). This is already working.
It would be excellent, when system would be automatically configured to wireless connection, if no cable on eth0 was found.
You can go the way further:
Furthermore when no defined Access Point on your wireless connection was found on a given IP (for example your router at home),
the system should look for any other wireless connection with DHCP.

Furthermore, if nothing on eth1 (wireless), no given router nor any other access point was found, the system should disable all connection and shoul also disable all connection-devices (eth0 and eth1) for powersaving reasons.

Any idea would be appreciated to realize such a way, perhaps a script or something like that.

But I personally, unfortunately, have no idea, how to do or even where to start.
So I'm asking here for help.

Thanks in advance (and sorry for the long description).

Regards,
Andreas

[revolutionary_one]

This is one of those instances where bash plays a critical role in getting your problem solved...

it would essentially be a script where it /searchstring's the out put of ifconfig
{ bring up the other connection}

else

{bring up other connection}

shouldnt be to hard. Just takes some time learning bash. If you dont have the time, you could always ask REALLY nicely in #bash on irc.freenode.net to see if they can whip up a script for you real quick. They are usually very good about it.

In anycase, make sure to report back here.

[runixd]

you should understand that searching for network cable and searching for wireless router take very different time, cable is either plugged in or not, searching for one router, then if not for the other etc etc would take you good two minutes, do you want to wait this much on boot? There was an app in debian rep. which allows you to choose connection at boot, forgot whats it called, but as revolutionary_one said its not hard to write a similar script.

[Volker]

Contrary to what the name implies, ifplugd can also manage wireless connections. Association to a wireless network is treated like a "cable plug in" event.