Laptops and HOSTNAME?

[nko]

The more I use Linux, the more I feel like a n00b :) I've been using it since 2001, and every time I learn something, I find there are two more things I don't know.

So I just thought I'd bring up the latest thing. The whole way host / domain names work don't really jive well with laptops, now, do they? I connect my laptop to a network at the office, a network at home, and could potentially drag it over to Starbucks some day, and each of these is a different domain (if applicable... which confuses me further). I think hostname.domainname was probably invented with the idea in mind that any "portable" computer was only so portable that it'd still be reasonable to reconfigure everything manually if you ever moved the thing.

Didn't SUSE recently come out with some add on that changes your "location profiles" or something? Anyone want to fill me in on any part of this that I'm obviously not getting?

[dkeav]

works fine without changing it so why worry?

[cybertron]

I know under Mandrake there's a way to tell it to get the hostname from the DHCP server. I assume there would be under Suse too.

[Parcival]

In OSX, you can manage several locations in your network settings and change woth the click of your mouse in the Apple menu. :)

[cybertron]

Originally posted by Parcival
In OSX, you can manage several locations in your network settings and change woth the click of your mouse in the Apple menu. :)
Yes, and you can have to deal with the stupid permanent menu bar, and the stupid dock, and the lack of virtual desktops by default (though I'm sure you can add them somehow).

I admit it, I'm a Mac hater.:D

Though I do give them some credit for OS X which is a better OS in many ways than OS 9 *shudder* or Windows. It's definitely not for me though.;)

Edit: oops, that was kind of an OT rant, wasn't it?

[quip]

Originally posted by nko

Didn't SUSE recently come out with some add on that changes your "location profiles" or something? Anyone want to fill me in on any part of this that I'm obviously not getting?

Using wireless tools, there is a way to manage wireless profiles, cardctl scheme scheme_name My experience was that I had to also use cardctl to suspend the card to get the changes to take, so I just hammered out a little script and added a launcher on my toolbar to do just that.

I believe kde also has a nice little gui to let you manage several profiles...

[thaddaeus]

I wouldn't worry about the domain name stuff, i use my laptop at my Church, School and home, i don't change any settings (dhcp) and never had a problem, your probably good leaving what you need for work set, that way it works there and the IT staff won't hunt you down, but otherwise its never been a problem for me.

edit:

As long as it gets an ip, and dns from dhcp and the host your connecting into also supports dhcp then you'll be good to go

[DimGR]

you need this :)

NAME
ifscheme - scheme control for network interfaces

SYNOPSIS
ifscheme [-v] [[-s] newscheme]

mapping <interface> script ifscheme-mapping

DESCRIPTION
ifscheme allows you to change network configuraton schemes or query the
current scheme. It integrates with the ifup(8) command and inter-
faces(5). For example, you might use this program to configure a
"home" scheme and a "work" scheme for a network device on a laptop.
When you move between home and work, a simple command can reconfigure
your networking.

If you run the program with no parameters, it will tell what the cur-
rent network scheme is.

The ifscheme-mapping utility is used to tell the ifup and ifdown utili-
ties about the current scheme.

[nko]

ifscheme sounds perfect! I know networking functions enough to give me basic network access no matter what my settings are, but I'd like to have different settings for work and home.

Looking through some google results, ifscheme seems to definitely be in Debian.... but I haven't seen evidence that any other distro even knows about it. Since I'm on Slackware.... is it possible for me to find / use ifscheme? I can't even find a homepage for it- just Debian references.

[DimGR]

SuSE 8.0 and later
--------
(Contributed by Christian Zoz <zoz@suse.de>)
All network configuration is done in the directory
/etc/sysconfig/network. It does not matter if it's a build in NIC or
PCMCIA, USB, etc. The files network.opts and wireless.opts in
/etc/pcmcia are not used any longer. There is /sbin/ifup to set up all
kind of network interface.
There is a file /etc/sysconfig/network/wireless where you may
set most of the options of iwconfig in seperate variables (they are
named like the options). Additionally you may use
WIRELESS_IWCONFIG_OPTIONS e.g. for setting key 2, 3 or 4 or
unsupported iwconfig commands. This file is documented and its
settings are used for any wlan NIC.
Configuration of wireless variable looks like :
WIRELESS_ESSID="<essid>"
Every variable from file wireless may be used in the interface
configuration files /etc/sysconfig/network/ifcfg-* as well. As
expectable this overwrites the global setting in wireless. For
sophisticated use of the ifcfg-* files read 'man ifup'.

Hint for PCMCIA and USB users:
You need not to use the iterface name for the configuration as
this may vary from one plugin to another. You may use a description of
your hardware instead (ifcfg-<MACADDRESS> or ifcfg-pcmcia-1 for card
in Slot 1)

Some of the variables can be set with YaST2 as well.

If you miss the 'schemes' functionality from the pcmcia-cs
packages use the tool SCPM (System Configuration Profile Management)
instead. This extends the pcmcia schemes to the whole system
configuration. Read 'info scpm'. Since SuSE 8.1 there also is a YaST2
modul for SCPM.

---------------------------------------------------------------------