Re: wireless-tools are unavailable when interface is down


From: Jouni Malinen (jkmaline_at_cc.hut.fi)
Date: 2002-04-05 10:44:27 UTC



On Fri, Apr 05, 2002 at 02:27:09PM +0400, Nil Alexandrov wrote:

> What is the reason for making wireless-tools are unavailable when
> interface is down ? I would like to set up all parameters such as mode,
> essid, channel and other before interface is up like other drivers do.

They should work fine even if the interface is down.. Could you give an example of what cannot be done? The interface name has to be explicitly specified to get status info (e.g., 'iwconfig' does not show wlan0 unless it is up, but 'iwconfig wlan0' does). Some commands (e.g., 'iwlist wlan0 ap') require IP address in the interface for some reason, but this is a user space program "limitation".

> The second question is: How to change a nick name of my AP ?
> I have tried in this way: iwconfig wlan0 nick myap.

This is starting to become a FAQ.. I would still like to know, what is meant with "nick name". Do you mean some identification string a client station would see? IEEE 802.11 does not seem to specify such field in any message.. Some client drivers (like Lucent/Orinoco Windows drivers) seem to report AP as "Prism I", but I do not know where that string came from.. Anyway, it can be modified on the station side for statistics views, etc.

'iwconfig wlan0 nick' changes the RID FC0E (cnfOwnName), but as far as I know, it is not used for anything..

-- 
Jouni Malinen                                            PGP id EFC895FA


This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4.