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550 lines
35 KiB
550 lines
35 KiB
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
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<!DOCTYPE book PUBLIC "-//KDE//DTD DocBook XML V4.2-Based Variant V1.1//EN" "dtd/kdex.dtd" [
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<!ENTITY kwifimanager "<application>KWiFiManager</application>">
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<!ENTITY LAN "<acronym>LAN</acronym>">
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<!ENTITY kappname "&kwifimanager;">
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<!ENTITY package "tdenetwork">
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<!ENTITY % English "INCLUDE"> <!-- change language only here -->
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<!ENTITY % addindex "IGNORE">
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]>
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<book lang="&language;">
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<bookinfo>
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<title>The &kwifimanager; Handbook</title>
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<authorgroup>
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<author>
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<firstname>Stefan</firstname>
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<surname>Winter</surname>
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<affiliation>
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<address>
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<email>swinter@kde.org</email>
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</address>
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</affiliation>
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</author>
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<!-- TRANS:ROLES_OF_TRANSLATORS -->
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</authorgroup>
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<legalnotice>&FDLNotice;</legalnotice>
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<copyright>
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<year>2002-05</year>
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<holder>Stefan Winter</holder>
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</copyright>
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<date>2005--05-11</date>
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<releaseinfo>3.5.0</releaseinfo>
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<abstract>
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<para>The &kwifimanager; suite can be used to configure and monitor wireless &LAN;
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cards. It consists of a stand-alone application and a module for the &kde; Control
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Center.</para>
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</abstract>
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<keywordset>
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<keyword>KDE</keyword>
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<keyword>wireless</keyword>
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<keyword>Wi-Fi</keyword>
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<keyword>wlan</keyword>
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<keyword>WEP</keyword>
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<keyword>wlan-ng</keyword>
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</keywordset>
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</bookinfo>
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<chapter id="introduction">
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<title>Introduction</title>
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<para> The &kwifimanager; suite is a set of tools which allows you to manage your wireless
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&LAN; Network Interface card (PC-Card, PCI or miniPCI) under the Trinity Desktop Environment. It
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provides information about your current connection and lets you set up up to ten independent
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configurations and use up to four configrations that are pre-configured by distribution-specific
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scripts. If you are in a place where none of your preconfigured networks is available,
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you can also dynamically switch to an available network with almost no configuration effort.
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&kwifimanager; supports every wireless &LAN; card that uses the wireless extensions
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interface. This includes virtually all wireless &LAN; cards that are operational at all
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under the &Linux; operating system.</para>
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</chapter>
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<chapter id="using">
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<title>Using the &kwifimanager; suite</title>
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<sect1 id="kwifimanager-application">
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<title>The &kwifimanager; application</title>
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<para> Purpose of the main &kwifimanager; application is to show the currently active
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network configuration and to display connection quality and access points.</para>
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<para>The main application is launched by either typing<userinput>kwifimanager</userinput> at
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the command prompt of a console window or via the TDE Menu, where it is located by default in
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the<guisubmenu>Applications</guisubmenu> group. If &kwifimanager; is already running
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but minimised to the system tray then it can be restored by clicking once on the <link
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linkend="systrayicon">system tray icon</link>. If there is more than one wireless &LAN;
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card in your system, just open more than one instance of &kwifimanager;: every instance
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will show information about a different card automatically.
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The &GUI; elements of the application
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are explained in the following subsections.</para>
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<sect2 id="kwifimanager-main">
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<title>Main window</title>
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<para> The &kwifimanager; main window consists of five parts:</para>
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<sect3 id="signalquality">
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<title>Signal quality display</title>
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<para> Here you can see the quality and type of the active connection. The uppermost icon
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displays the general state of the wireless network via a set of pictograms:<itemizedlist>
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<listitem>
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<para> a wireless &LAN; card with a question tag means that no card was detected
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or its state could not be determined</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para> a single laptop means that a wireless &LAN; card is inserted and in
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Infrastructure mode, but there is no radio signal from access-points. The card is
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out of range and can not communicate to the infrastructure network.</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para> a laptop that is connected to an access point means that a connection to an
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access point is established.</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para> two laptops mean that your system is in Ad-Hoc mode without access points. It
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may or may not have established a Peer-to-Peer connection.</para>
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</listitem>
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</itemizedlist>
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</para>
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<para> Below these pictograms is a small quality meter. It displays, in a cellular-like
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manner, the quality level of the current connection. This information is only available
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in Infrastructure mode. In Ad-Hoc mode, the level is always 0.</para>
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<para> This graphical information is supplemented by an integer value below the icon. It
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shows the signal quality, and is computed in one of two ways: <itemizedlist>
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<listitem>
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<para>a directly reported value from the card if the card supports
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<quote>Quality</quote> reporting</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>
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<literal>(signal strength in dBm) - (noise level in dBm)</literal> for cards that
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do not support that.</para>
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</listitem>
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</itemizedlist> You can manually change the method used by turning
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<guimenu>File</guimenu>, <guimenuitem>Use alternate strength calculation</guimenuitem>
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on or off. Turning the option on means to use the second method. If your card is out of
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range, the value is 0; if no card is inserted or your card is in Ad-Hoc mode it will
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show N/A.</para>
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</sect3>
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<sect3 id="speed">
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<title>Connection speed</title>
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<para> An indicator for the current connection speed is shown at the right-hand side of
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the main window above the configuration info. If the speed settings are set to AUTO, the
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value will change once in a while as the card adjusts the connection speed according to
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the signal quality. The scale of the bar graph will automatically adjust to up to 108
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MBit/s when the current connection speed exceeds 11 MBit/s.</para>
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</sect3>
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<sect3 id="current-config">
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<title>Current configuration</title>
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<para>Here you can find information about your card configuration. It displays the
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following information:</para>
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<itemizedlist>
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<listitem>
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<para> the network with which the card is connected to / tries to connect to
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(<guilabel>Searching for network:</guilabel> or <guilabel>Connected to
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network:</guilabel>)</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para> the <acronym>MAC</acronym> address of the access point to which the card is
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connected.</para>
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<para> If the card is in Infrastructure mode but out of range, an appropriate warning
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(<computeroutput>- no access point -</computeroutput>) is displayed to indicate
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that no connection is established.</para>
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<para> In Ad-Hoc mode, the field shows an address that is associated with one of the
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cards in the Ad-Hoc network. It displays a MAC address that has a non-global scope:
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its second bit is set to 1, which often results in a prefix of <quote>02:</quote>
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instead of <quote>00:</quote>. Many people think this is an error, but in fact it is
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done on purpose to show that the cell you are connected to is not an actual physical
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device, but rather an imaginary access point without a real physical address.</para>
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<informalexample>
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<para> Your card is the first card that enters Ad-Hoc mode with a given SSID. Then all other cards
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entering Ad-Hoc mode with the same SSID will see your MAC-address, slightly modified: instead
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of<computeroutput>00:xx:yy:zz:aa:bb</computeroutput> it will
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show<computeroutput>02:xx:yy:zz:aa:bb</computeroutput>. This behavior is
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intentional.</para>
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</informalexample>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para> on most cards (those that have the capability to report it), the frequency on
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which the card is transmitting data and the corresponding channel number is
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displayed.</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para> your local IP (version 4) address, if available. If no address could be
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retrieved from the networking subsystem, the word <guilabel>unavailable</guilabel>
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is displayed.</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para> encryption status (only if you have started &kwifimanager; as<systemitem
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class="username">root</systemitem>). The display will only show
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<guilabel>off</guilabel> or <guilabel>active</guilabel>, but never the real key.
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This is intentional in order to not reveal the <acronym>WEP</acronym> key to people
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passing by the users screen.</para>
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</listitem>
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</itemizedlist>
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</sect3>
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<sect3 id="ap-info">
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<title>Access Point information (bottom area)</title>
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<para> The last line of the main window shows information about your AccessPoint. This
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requires that your system administrator provided a list of MAC addresses with a
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corresponding information. An example for such a list can be found
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in<filename>$<envar>TDEDIR</envar>/share/apps/kwifimanager/locations/DE_BW_Karlsruhe_University.loc</filename>
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</para>
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<para>If you want to set up a new list, simply create a file in the same format and copy
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it into the folder <filename class="directory"
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>$<envar>TDEDIR</envar>/share/apps/kwifimanager/locations/</filename>
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</para>
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<para>It will be automatically parsed at the next start of &kwifimanager;. If you have
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a list and want to have it included in future releases of &kwifimanager;, simply
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send it to the author or current maintainer.</para>
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</sect3>
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<sect3 id="scanning">
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<title>Information about available networks</title>
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<para> The lower-left area of the main window contains a button named <guibutton>Scan for
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networks...</guibutton>. If you click on this button, &kwifimanager; will attempt
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to retrieve a list of all networks that are in range of your card. The outcome of this
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scan depends on two factors: <itemizedlist>
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<listitem>
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<para>the overall ability of your card and driver to perform network scans</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>if you have root permissions or not</para>
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</listitem>
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</itemizedlist> If your card or driver arent able to scan the network, your scanning
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results will always be empty. If you are not the root user, the list may be incomplete
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or outdated. </para>
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<para> In order to receive a reliable, current list of access points you will need to
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start the scan with root privileges, for example by using the &tdesu; utility to
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start &kwifimanager;</para>
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<para> If at least one network was found, you are presented with a table showing details
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of the network. It has four columns that inform you about <itemizedlist>
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<listitem>
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<para>the network name (or the string <guilabel>(hidden cell)</guilabel> if the name
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is not disclosed by the access point during the scan)</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>the type (whether is a <guilabel>Managed</guilabel> or an
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<guilabel>Ad-Hoc</guilabel> network)</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>the signal strength of the network</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>and whether or not <acronym>WEP</acronym> encryption is used</para>
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</listitem>
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</itemizedlist> In case of an active <acronym>WEP</acronym> encryption, you can click on
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that column and enter the network key. &kwifimanager; will automatically try to
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guess if the key is a hexadecimal number or a string. </para>
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<para> If the network information for the highlighted network is complete (&ie; all
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columns contain meaningful information), you can use the button <guibutton>Switch to
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network</guibutton> to enter the selected network. If &kwifimanager; has no root
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privileges, you will be prompted with a password prompt to enter the root password in
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order to change the network. </para>
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<para> Clicking on <guibutton>Close</guibutton> dismisses the network information screen
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without changes to the existing settings. </para>
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</sect3>
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</sect2>
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<sect2 id="statistics">
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<title>Statistics Viewer</title>
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<para> Optionally, by selecting <guimenuitem>Connection statistics</guimenuitem> in the
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<guimenu>File</guimenu> menu, a separate window can be shown which displays the signal
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level and noise level graphs of the last 240 seconds. The signal level is displayed in
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blue and the noise level in red. The difference (SIGNAL minus NOISE) is the connection
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quality which is displayed in the main window.</para>
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<para>Some cards do not report meaningful noise information. If this is the case for your
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card and you get annoyed by the irrelevant red line, you can disable showing the noise
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level in the statistics window by unselecting <menuchoice>
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<guimenu> Config </guimenu>
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<guimenuitem> Show noise level in statistics </guimenuitem>
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</menuchoice> in the &kwifimanager; main window.</para>
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</sect2>
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<sect2 id="config-edit">
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<title>Configuration Editor</title>
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<para> By selecting<menuchoice>
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<guimenu>Config</guimenu>
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<guimenuitem>Configuration Editor</guimenuitem>
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</menuchoice> you are taken to the <link linkend="control-center">control center
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module</link> of &kwifimanager;. In case you are not the <systemitem class="username"
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>root</systemitem> user, a window will pop up requesting the <systemitem
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class="username">root</systemitem> password. This is because the configuration module
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allows you to change network connectivity und uses <userinput>ifconfig</userinput> to make
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changes, which requires root privileges.</para>
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</sect2>
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<sect2 id="misc">
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<title>Miscellaneous</title>
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<para>There are some minor additional features worth of being mentioned.</para>
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<sect3 id="acoustic-scanning">
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<title>Acoustic Scanning</title>
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<para>First, there is a feature named <guilabel>Acoustic Scanning</guilabel>. If this
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option is enabled, the connection quality is converted into an acoustic signal. A higher
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signal quality leads to a higher frequency of the <quote>beep</quote> output and to a
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more rapid beeping. If you've ever seen the Star Trek(tm) series you will see some
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parallels to their <quote>tricorders</quote>
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</para>
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</sect3>
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<sect3 id="logging">
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<title>Network logging</title>
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<para>A second feature is network logging. It just means that &kwifimanager; will log
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the name of the network you are connecting to every time your network changes.
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This option is most useful when searching for the special network name
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<quote>any</quote>. In this mode, the card will log into any network it finds. The
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logfile's position is <filename class="directory"
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>$<envar>HOME</envar>/.trinity/share/apps/kwifimanager/wireless-log</filename>
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</para>
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</sect3>
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<sect3>
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<title>Disabling the wireless network</title>
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<para>You can completely disable the card by selecting the option <guimenu>File</guimenu>
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<guimenuitem>Disable radio</guimenuitem>. Using this option will turn off the cards
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transmitter which effectively turns it off and saves a little bit of energy. This will
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only work for your card if it accepts changes to its
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<computeroutput>txpower</computeroutput> property.</para>
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</sect3>
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</sect2>
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</sect1>
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<sect1 id="systrayicon">
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<title>The system tray icon</title>
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<para>When &kwifimanager; is launched, it installs a small icon in the system tray. The icon contains
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parts of the information of the main window, namely the bar graph and optionally the signal strength
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number. If you hover over the icon with the mouse for a few seconds, a tooltip will appear that
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contains the currently connected network name. Whether or not the strength number shall be
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shown can be configured via <guimenu>Config</guimenu>,
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<guimenuitem>Show Strength Number in System Tray</guimenuitem>.</para>
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<para>If you have configured &kwifimanager; to stay in the system tray when clicking on the
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<guibutton>X</guibutton> button, the icon will stay in the tray persistently unless you really exit
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the application by clicking on <guimenu>File</guimenu>, <guimenuitem>Quit</guimenuitem>.</para>
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<para>You can always hide the main application to the system tray by clicking on the tray icon. Similarly,
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to restore the main application from the tray, just click on it once.</para>
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</sect1>
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<sect1 id="control-center">
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<title>The Control Center module</title>
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<para>The configuration module in the &kcontrolcenter; is perhaps the most useful part of
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the &kwifimanager; suite. Here you can actually change the basic settings of your
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wireless &LAN; card. The module can manage up to ten independent configurations for the
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card. If you dont need that many configurations, you can reduce the number of configs
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shown at any time by changing the <guilabel>Number of Configurations</guilabel> entry.
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If you have configured your wireless settings with a distribution-specific tool, chances are good
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that the &kcontrolcenter; module will automatically detect this and also read in and show that
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configuration. In any case these configurations will be read-only, because it is the distribution's
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job to handle updating these settings and the module should not interfere with their internal magic.
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Up to five additional preset configurations can be shown in addition to the ten
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that are self-definable. These configurations will have the name <guilabel>Vendor x</guilabel>
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to distinguish them from the others.
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The &kcontrolcenter; can even automatically set your card up whenever you start the module.
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Since establishing (or bringing down) a network connection is a security sensitive operation,
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any changes to the configuration can only be done by <systemitem class="username">root</systemitem>.</para>
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<sect2 id="configuration-tab">
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<title>The Configuration Tabs</title>
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<para>The configurations are split up in three parts: <itemizedlist>
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<listitem>
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<para>general configuration settings (like the network name)</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>encryption settings</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>power saving settings</para>
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</listitem>
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</itemizedlist>
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These parts are explained in the following sections.
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</para>
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<sect3 id="config_general">
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<title>General settings</title>
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<para>The upper part of the control center module consists of one to ten tabs labelled
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<guilabel>Config 1</guilabel> through <guilabel>Config 10</guilabel>. Each of these tabs
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can hold a configuration for your WLAN card. In addition (as explained above) up to five vendor-specific
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configurations may be visible, labelled <guilabel>Vendor 1</guilabel> through <guilabel>Vendor 5</guilabel>.</para>
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<para>The most important settings are always visible, the cryptography and power management
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options are only shown when activated. The perhaps most important element in each
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configuration tab is the field<guilabel>Network name</guilabel>. Here you can specify
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which network you would like to log into. You can either specify the name of your network
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directly, or you can try a scan on all available networks by setting the network name to
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<userinput>any</userinput>.</para>
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<para>In addition to the network name, you have to specify the type of network to log into.
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That's the purpose of the button group<guilabel>Operation mode</guilabel>. The
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option<guilabel>Managed</guilabel> means that the network consists of designated
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base stations, so-called <quote>access points</quote> or sometimes <quote>residential
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gateways</quote>. This is the most common operation mode for company networks. The second
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option,<guilabel>Ad-hoc</guilabel> means that your network is just a direct
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connection between computers, without access points. The three other options
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(<guilabel>Repeater</guilabel>, <guilabel>Master</guilabel> and <guilabel>Secondary</guilabel>)
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are only very seldomly used. If you want to use them, please be aware that these settings are simply
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passed to the iwconfig program and have not been tested extensively. In case something doesnt
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work as expected, you are welcome to send a bug report.</para>
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<para>You can optionally set the connection speed for your connection. The setting
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<guilabel>auto</guilabel> should do for most uses, since the card will determine the
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appropriate speed itself. However, if you find that the speed changes every few seconds,
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for example when you have a weak connection, you can set the speed manually.</para>
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<para>Below these configuration items you will find a field named<guilabel>Execute script on
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connect:</guilabel>. Here you can enter the name of a script to execute after setting up
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the network connection. It will be
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executed whenever you hit the <guilabel>Activate configuration</guilabel> button and,
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optionally, automatically when you start the Control Center module. The script will have
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<systemitem class="username">root</systemitem> rights. This may lead to problems
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if you want to start an X application in the script and the X server belongs to someone
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else than root. You can make such scripts work correctly if you execute the X application
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via<userinput>
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<command>tdesu</command>
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<option>-u</option>
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<replaceable>USERNAME</replaceable>
|
|
<option>-c</option>
|
|
<replaceable>COMMAND</replaceable>
|
|
</userinput>. Or, you can instruct your X server to also allow connections coming from
|
|
root. You can do this with the <command>xhost</command> program.</para>
|
|
</sect3>
|
|
<sect3 id="config_crypto">
|
|
<title>Cryptography settings</title>
|
|
<para>The checkbox <guilabel>Use encryption</guilabel> determines whether or not encryption
|
|
shall be activated. If it is checked, a button labelled <guibutton>Configure...</guibutton> becomes
|
|
available which allows you to configure the details of encryption.
|
|
After pushing the button, you are presented the following settings in a new dialog: </para>
|
|
<variablelist>
|
|
<varlistentry>
|
|
<term>
|
|
<guilabel>Key to use:</guilabel>
|
|
</term>
|
|
<listitem>
|
|
<para>You can define up to four secret keys for each configuration; in this field you
|
|
can set which one you want to use to send encrypted packets. The card can always
|
|
receive packets that are encrypted with <emphasis>any</emphasis> of the keys.</para>
|
|
<tip><para>You can achieve asymetrical encryption (different keys for sending and receiving)
|
|
if you configure your access point to send packets with a different key than the card. Just make
|
|
sure that the partner station has the required key in any one of its key slots.</para></tip>
|
|
</listitem>
|
|
</varlistentry>
|
|
<varlistentry>
|
|
<term>
|
|
<guilabel>Crypto mode:</guilabel>
|
|
</term>
|
|
<listitem>
|
|
<para>When encryption is activated, there are two ways to deal with incoming
|
|
non-encrypted packets: discard or allow. When you set your card for <guilabel>Open</guilabel>,
|
|
the card will also listen to non-encrypted packets.
|
|
<guilabel>Restricted</guilabel> will only allow encrypted network packets,
|
|
any other packets are discarded.</para>
|
|
</listitem>
|
|
</varlistentry>
|
|
<varlistentry>
|
|
<term>
|
|
<guilabel>Crypto keys:</guilabel>
|
|
</term>
|
|
<listitem>
|
|
<para>This box lets you specify the secret keys to use for cryptography. To protect
|
|
your passwords, only asterisks will be shown when you enter a password. The &kcontrolcenter;
|
|
module will automatically try to guess whether you want to set an encryption string
|
|
or a hexadecimal number by checking the input length: string keys are usually 5 or 13
|
|
characters long (for 64- or 128-Bit key lengths) whereas hex values are 10 or 26 characters
|
|
long (please do not put a <quote>0x</quote> in front of hex keys).</para>
|
|
</listitem>
|
|
</varlistentry>
|
|
</variablelist>
|
|
<para>Be aware that the built-in cryptography support (named WEP for Wired Equivalent
|
|
Privacy) is not very safe at all. See <xref linkend="wep"/> for details.</para>
|
|
</sect3>
|
|
<sect3 id="config_power">
|
|
<title>Power saving settings</title>
|
|
<para>The last configuration element that remains to be described is the power management.
|
|
When checking the box <guilabel>Enable Power Management</guilabel> a button for the
|
|
configuration of the setting will become active. After clicking this button, a new dialog will open
|
|
and you will be presented
|
|
some options that can help you save energy. The first two input fields named
|
|
<guilabel>Sleep timeout</guilabel> and <guilabel>Wakeup period</guilabel>
|
|
describe the periodicity of network online times for your wireless &LAN; card. The card will
|
|
turn the radio antenna off for the time period (in seconds) specified in
|
|
<guilabel>Sleep timeout</guilabel>. Afterwards it will be active for <guilabel>Wakeup
|
|
period</guilabel> and will in that time establish the network connection and send/receive
|
|
packets that queued up during the sleep time. If no network
|
|
connection is found, it will go to sleep again immediately and the cycle begins again. The box named
|
|
<guilabel>Receive packets</guilabel> below lets you specify which packets the card
|
|
should listen to when awaken. You can either select <guilabel>Unicast only</guilabel>
|
|
(which will only let your card listen to packets sent specifically to your card),
|
|
<guilabel>Multi/Broadcast only</guilabel> (will only listen to packets sent to multiple
|
|
machines and discard packets directed to your card) or <guilabel>Both</guilabel>. Most
|
|
people should select the default value <guilabel>Both</guilabel>.</para>
|
|
</sect3>
|
|
</sect2>
|
|
<sect2 id="auto-configuration">
|
|
<title>Auto-configuration on &kcontrolcenter; Module startup</title>
|
|
<para> If you wish, you can make &kwifimanager; initialize your wireless &LAN; card
|
|
whenever you start the &kcontrolcenter; module. To do so, check the box <guilabel>Load
|
|
preset configuration on startup</guilabel> and select the configuration you want to use
|
|
in the listbox below. If you want to set the card to
|
|
these settings at once, push the button <guilabel>Activate
|
|
configuration</guilabel>.</para>
|
|
</sect2>
|
|
<sect2 id="autodetect">
|
|
<title>Autodetecting your device</title>
|
|
<para>&kwifimanager; needs to know the interface name of your wireless &LAN; card to
|
|
apply any settings. You can either enter the information (⪚
|
|
<userinput>eth1</userinput> or<userinput>wlan0</userinput>) manually in the input field
|
|
on the right-hand side of<guilabel>Settings apply to interface:</guilabel>, or let &kwifimanager;
|
|
auto-detect the interface. To do so, push the button<guibutton>Autodetect
|
|
interface</guibutton>. This will perform a scan on all interfaces listed in <filename
|
|
class="directory">/proc/net/dev</filename> to find your card. The result of the scan
|
|
will show up in the input field beside the button. If the field remains empty, no card was
|
|
found. Please note that &kwifimanager; uses the wireless extensions to detect cards.
|
|
If you use a card controlled by the wlan-ng package, &kwifimanager; only shows correct
|
|
results if your driver has a compatibility layer for the wireless extensions
|
|
built-in. In the case that there are multiple wireless LAN cards present on the system,
|
|
scanning stops after the first card found. So, if you want to apply the settings to a different
|
|
card than the one that was detected during the scan, you need to enter its interface name
|
|
by hand.</para>
|
|
</sect2>
|
|
</sect1>
|
|
</chapter>
|
|
<chapter id="credits">
|
|
<title>License and contributors</title>
|
|
<para>Documentation copyright © Stefan
|
|
Winter<email>mail@stefan-winter.de</email>.</para> &underFDL; &underGPL;
|
|
<!-- TRANS:CREDIT_FOR_TRANSLATORS -->
|
|
</chapter>
|
|
<appendix id="further-information">
|
|
<title>Further Information</title>
|
|
<para>This appendix contains some extra information of items concerning wireless &LAN; that
|
|
are not directly related to &kwifimanager;.</para>
|
|
<sect1 id="macaddress">
|
|
<title>Notes on the MAC address display in Ad-hoc mode</title>
|
|
<para>At first glance, the MAC address in the field <guilabel>Access Point</guilabel> seems to
|
|
be wrong in Ad-hoc mode because it changes the first two digits of the MAC address
|
|
to<computeroutput>02</computeroutput>. But actually, this is a hardcoded feature in
|
|
wireless &LAN; cards.</para>
|
|
<para>Usually a card is connected to a <quote>real</quote> access point. Then the correct MAC
|
|
address is shown. If you change to Ad-hoc (or <quote>Peer-to-peer</quote>) mode, one of the
|
|
computers must act as a server for the other computers. The first computer that enters a
|
|
network will set itself as server. So, all other computers connecting to the same Ad-hoc
|
|
network will see that first computer as network server. But since this computer is not a
|
|
<quote>real</quote> server (that is, it is not a permanently available access point),
|
|
clients should be aware that the network they are connecting to is not a permanent one. IEEE
|
|
standards for MAC addresses have a place reserved for such (rare) occasions: MAC addresses that are
|
|
not globally valid have a bit set to one that shows that these addresses are
|
|
<quote>locally administered</quote>. This bit is the second bit in transmit order, and the seventh
|
|
bit in logical order and will hence raise the number of the MAC's first digit block from 00 to 02.</para>
|
|
<para>You can compare this sort of address to the non-global IP addresses like<quote>192.168.*.*.</quote>
|
|
</para>
|
|
<para>So, the implementors of wireless networking agreed to give these<quote>virtual</quote>
|
|
network servers a MAC address that is within the <quote>locally administered</quote> scope.
|
|
To keep this virtual MAC address unique, they used a little trick: they only changed the
|
|
first segment of the MAC address of the wireless &LAN; card, and since the remaining
|
|
segments are still unique in the world, they have a unique address to use as network
|
|
server.</para>
|
|
</sect1>
|
|
<sect1 id="wep">
|
|
<title>Security considerations on <acronym>WEP</acronym> cryptography</title>
|
|
<para>
|
|
<acronym>WEP</acronym> cryptography is not very secure at all. A paper from
|
|
cryptography analysts called the encryption algorithm <quote>kindergarten
|
|
cryptography</quote>. Actually, software exists that exploits a huge security hole in the
|
|
encryption standard. This software listens to the encrypted network traffic, analyzes it,
|
|
and after only a few hours it reveals the password to enter the network in clear text. The
|
|
more traffic on the network, the easier it is to find out the password because some packets are
|
|
particularly weak because they carry a bad so-called initialisation vector (IV). Recent access
|
|
points try to avoid these bad IVs, so it is getting harder to exploit the hole.</para>
|
|
<para>If you are truly concerned about your security, do<emphasis>not</emphasis> use plain
|
|
<acronym>WEP</acronym>. If you are just setting up a two-computer home network, well, then
|
|
I guess<acronym>WEP</acronym> should do.</para>
|
|
<para>There are many alternatives to <acronym>WEP</acronym> encryption. Its successors WPA and
|
|
WPA2 are better designed and do a better job protecting your traffic, for example by dynamically changing
|
|
the keys after a while.
|
|
If you dont want to rely on the basic safety of the network link you could use
|
|
<acronym>SSH</acronym> to communicate over the network. <acronym>SSH</acronym> is a
|
|
program suite that encrypts data with its own algorithm, which is very secure. Another
|
|
option is to use <acronym>PPTP</acronym>, the Point-to-Point-Tunneling protocol. However,
|
|
even <acronym>PPTP</acronym> seems to be a bit leaky concerning encryption security. And
|
|
finally, you could set up an IPSec tunnel (VPN connection) for your encrypted connections. As of yet, this
|
|
encryption seems to be very safe and flexible.</para>
|
|
</sect1>
|
|
</appendix>
|
|
<appendix id="compile">
|
|
<title>Compilation and Installation</title> &install.intro.documentation;
|
|
&install.compile.documentation;</appendix> &documentation.index;</book>
|