Re: Multiple WLAN Routers with same SSID

[Dan Williams <dcbw redhat com>]

On Thu, 2012-09-20 at 18:13 +0200, Petric Frank wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> at my location i sometimes notice that different WLAN-routers broadcasts the 
> same SSID, but different frequencies and MAC-addresses. They also require 
> different (WPA1/2-) keys to access. But i have only the access key of one of 
> this access points.

So this is somewhat bad network planning, because it means you cannot
roam between access points.  That's somewhat worked around by the
locking to WPA1 vs. WPA2.  NM actually *does* have the functionality to
lock a connection to WPA1 or WPA2, but it's not exposed in the UI
because it's incredibly stupid planning on the part of network
engineers, and in 6 years this is only the second case we've heard of
that would require that.

However, we'll probably end up adding an option to expose the
WPA1/WPA2/Automatic option in the UI by setting a gsettings key to
expose it.  These dialogs already have enough toggles :(

> The autoconnect feature of nm-applet (and hence network manager) seems to 
> select the host to connect only by the SSID - which often fails.

Correct, because with WiFi the SSID *is* the network; wifi networks with
the same SSID are expected to be backed by the same core network, and
you're expected to be able to roam between these APs.

> Could i suggest to implement and use (/store) the MAC address of the WLAN 
> access point as additional selection key (maybe optionally) ?

This is already implemented as the "BSSID" option in the connection
editor; setting this to the BSSID of the access point you'd like to
connect to will limit that connection to only that AP.  This however
does break roaming quite spectacularly, because it disables roaming
completely.  If you don't need roaming at all, try this.

Dan

> Maybe it is already there, but i failed to find on how to configure it (using 
> nm-applet).
> 
> Yes, i know, the backend is wpa-supplicant - maybe there is the deficit. But 
> network manager is "configuring it" and so this should be possible.
> 
> Actually i use network manager v. 0.9.4.0.
> 
> regards
>   Petric
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