Fedora Core 2 Network Profiles

Bill Moss
November 12, 2004

Introduction

The purpose of this note is to outline the steps for setting up logical network devices associated with a single physical device and for setting up network profiles that can be invoked from the grub menu. We use the network configuration tool which can be launched at the commandline with the command neat or from the Main Menu.

  Main Menu -> System Settings -> Network

The "Network Profiles" section of network configuration tool Help covers everything except for grub configuration. The help document

  http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/enterprise/RHEL-3-Manual/
         sysadmin-guide/s1-network-profiles.html

covers it all.

My wired interface was set up during the installation of FC2 as device eth0. Following installation of FC2, I installed the open source wireless driver ipw2200 as device eth1. These interfaces were configured with the network configuration tool as follows.

  Devices tab -> Select device eth0 -> Edit -> General tab  
      Nickname:  eth0
      Activate device when computer starts
      Allow all users to activate the device
      Automatically obtain IP settings with dhcp
      Automatically obtain DNS information from provider
  File -> Save

  Devices tab -> Select device eth1 -> Edit -> General tab
      Nickname:  eth1
      Activate device when computer starts
      Allow all users to activate the device
      Automatically obtain IP settings with dhcp
      Automatically obtain DNS information from provider
  Wireless Settings tab
      Mode:  Managed
      Specified:  cuairnet
      Key:  0xzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
  File -> Save

Next, we create logical devices and profiles so that we can select a network configuration at boot.

Logical Devices

A single physical device can be operated with a variety of different settings by using logical devices. Continuing with the network configuration tool, we create logical devices with nicknames CUWired, CUWireless, and HomeWireless.

  Devices tab -> Select device eth0 -> Copy
  Select Device eth0 Nickname eth0Copy0
  Edit -> General tab
      Nickname:  CUWired
  File -> Save

  Devices tab -> Select device eth1 -> Copy
  Select Device eth1 Nickname eth1Copy0
  Edit -> General tab
      Nickname:  CUWireless
  File -> Save

  Devices tab -> Select device eth1 -> Copy
  Select Device eth1 Nickname eth1Copy0
  Edit -> General tab
      Nickname:  HomeWireless
  Wireless Settings tab
      Mode:  Managed
      Specified:  home_essid
      Key:  0xzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
  File -> Save

Network Profiles

We create the network profiles ClemsonWired, ClemsonWireless, and HomeWireless. The default profile is called common.

  Profile menu -> common
  Uncheck all devices
  File -> Save

  Profile menu -> New -> ClemsonWired
  Check the (logical) Device eth0 Nickname CUWired only
  File -> Save

  Profile menu -> New -> ClemsonWireless
  Check the (logical) Device eth1 Nickname CUWireless only
  File -> Save

  Profile menu -> New -> HomeWireless
  Check the (logical) Device eth1 Nickname HomeWireless only
  File -> Save

Grub

We edit /boot/grub/grub.conf so that we can choose the network profile on boot.

  default=3
  timeout=10
  splashimage=(hd0,2)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
  title Fedora Core (2.6.8-1.521) ClemsonWired
      root (hd0,2)
      kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.8-1.521 ro root=LABEL=/ 
          hda=5168,240,63 rhgb quiet netprofile=ClemsonWired
      initrd /initrd-2.6.8-1.521.img
  title Fedora Core (2.6.8-1.521) ClemsonWireless
      root (hd0,2)
      kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.8-1.521 ro root=LABEL=/ 
          hda=5168,240,63 rhgb quiet netprofile=ClemsonWireless
      initrd /initrd-2.6.8-1.521.img
  title Fedora Core (2.6.8-1.521) HomeWireless
      root (hd0,2)
      kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.8-1.521 ro root=LABEL=/ 
          hda=5168,240,63 rhgb quiet netprofile=HomeWireless
      initrd /initrd-2.6.8-1.521.img
  title Windows XP
        rootnoverify (hd0,0)
        chainloader +1

Roaming

The gold standard for managing network connections is IBM's Access Connections tool, which only runs under Windows XP. This tool manages all types of connections, including wired, wireless, modem, and dsl. Once profiles are setup, profile switching can be done manually or automatically. For example, if a connection is lost, this tool will scan for active connections and connect according to a prioritized list. It will ask the user if he wants to set up a profile for the new connection.

Some of this functionality is available by using waproamd, which can be downloaded from

  http://dag.wieers.com/packages/waproamd/

waproamd is a roaming daemon for wireless IEEE 802.11 NICs supporting the Linux wireless extensions. It is intended to configure WEP keys according to the networks found. At this time, waproamd cannot be used with the ipw2200 driver because this driver does not yet return correct statistics via iwlist scans and /proc/net/wireless.

On November 8, 2004, Fedora Core 3 was released. This release contained a new utility called NetworkManager. This utility was released on October 19, 2004 and was featured in the first (November) issue of Red Hat Magazine. The design of NetworkManager follows the general outline of IBM's Access Connections utility. Currently, NetworkManager only works with wired and wireless interfaces which dynamically receive IP address and DNS information from a DHCP server. NetworkManager will connect to an available wired network first and only look for wireless networks if no wired network is available. At this time, NetworkManager cannot be used with the ipw2200 driver because this driver does not yet return correct statistics via iwlist scans. The source can be obtained from