autoswitching

[Bill Moss <bmoss clemson edu>]

My campus is covered by a set of Cisco AP's that use the same hidden 
essid, cuairnet, and the same 128 bit WEP key. Using the cvs20041208 
Fedora development release of NetworkManager and the 0.17 version of 
ipw2200, I did the following experiment. I clicked on 'Other Wireless 
Networks' and filled in the essid cuairnet and the WEP key. In about 15 
seconds, I was connected. I plugged in an Ethernet cable and in about 2 
seconds I was connected to the wired network. I unplugged the Ethernet 
cable and in about 15 seconds the connection to cuairnet was 
re-established. This success surprised me because if I reboot, 
NetworkManager does not offer the hidden network cuairnet as a choice, 
instead I have to click on 'Other Wireless Networks' and filled in the 
essid cuairnet and the WEP key again, even though all the relevant 
information is already stored in gconf. I am conjecturing cuairnet is 
not being offered by NetworkManager because the ipw2200 driver does not 
yet report 'scan quality.' Am I right?

Here is another observation. When connected to cuairnet, the four 
vertical bar, NetworkManagerInfo signal strength applet flashes off, 
then back on every 6 seconds.

--
Bill Moss
Professor, Mathematical Sciences
Clemson University