[talk] Choosing wifi networks on OpenBSD

[Thomas Levine]

I think it would be neat to have a repository of all these bespoke
wifi-chooser programs.

On Mon, Oct 3, 2016, at 03:15 PM, attila wrote:
> 
> George Rosamond <george at ceetonetechnology.com> writes:
> 
> > Thomas Levine:
> >> I wrote something to choose which wifi network to connect to.
> >> http://src.thomaslevine.com/nljo/artifact/1c512ccb16ffa2d2
> >> 
> >>     $ ./nljo -h
> >>     USAGE:   ./nljo [-h] <interface>
> >>     EXAMPLE: ./nljo iwn0
> >>     
> >>     You must create a file named /etc/hostname.<interface>.<identifier>
> >>     ./nljo will automatically scan for nwids and check which files
> >>     reference
> >>     an appropriate nwid, and then it will symlink one of these files to
> >>     /etc/hostname.<interface>. If multiple files match (perhaps because
> >>     multiple nwids are available), the one with the lowest identifier
> >>     will
> >>     be chosen. Consider the following file names.
> >>     
> >>       /etc/hostname.iwn0.!home
> >>       /etc/hostname.iwn0.REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
> >>       /etc/hostname.iwn0.hackerspace
> >>       /etc/hostname.iwn0.zzz.airport
> >>       /etc/hostname.iwn0.zzz.GreyhoundTerminal FreeWIFI
> >>       /etc/hostname.iwn0.zzz.MacDonalds
> >>     
> >>     If /etc/hostname.iwn0.!home and /etc/hostname.iwn0.airport both
> >>     reference the available nwids (possibly the same nwid), !home will
> >>     probably win because it is lower in alphabetical order, though this
> >>     depends on your locale.
> >> 
> >> (I chose the name by banging on my keyboard, in case you were
> >> wondering.)    
> >> 
> >> Surely someone has already written a better version of this program.
> >> Can you point me to a more stable program with a similar interface?
> >> Or does the base system perhaps already include a better approach
> >> for choosing wifi networks?
> >
> > Nice.
> >
> > I need to dig it up, but there is some "wireless" port floating around
> > on github that Brian Conway (of Resflash) submitted to OpenBSD ports@
> > that was written in shell.
> >
> > I looked into this recently... need to find the other related stuff.
> 
> This has come up several times in recent memory on the OpenBSD lists.
> Here's the first thread I could find easily, from June 2016 about
> a script Rai Lai wrote called wifind:
> 
>     http://marc.info/?t=146488521800002&r=1&w=2
> 
> Many people keep reinventing this wheel; nobody seems to like anyone
> else's.  Funny, that.  I myself have a script I have used for so long
> it's kind of embarassing, but it's specific to my use case...
> 
> ... and anyway, I avoid wifi.  It seems... unhygenic somehow...
> 
> Pax, -A
> 
> >
> > g
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > talk at lists.nycbug.org
> > http://lists.nycbug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk
> 
> Pax, -A
> --
> http://haqistan.net/~attila | attila at stalphonsos.com | 0x62A729CF