From owner-freebsd-mobile Tue Feb 12 6: 6:45 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-mobile@freebsd.org Received: from www.example.org (dhcp-nic-val-26-131.cisco.com [64.103.26.131]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id F009B37B422 for ; Tue, 12 Feb 2002 06:06:31 -0800 (PST) Received: (qmail 1046 invoked by uid 1000); 12 Feb 2002 13:37:58 -0000 Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2002 14:37:58 +0100 From: Marco Molteni To: freebsd-mobile@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Automatic SSID assignment? Message-ID: <20020212143758.A961@cobweb.example.org> References: <20020211191815.73373.qmail@web21106.mail.yahoo.com> <20020212080023.E46129-100000@cti.2y.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5.1i In-Reply-To: <20020212080023.E46129-100000@cti.2y.net>; from darien@kindlund.com on Tue, Feb 12, 2002 at 08:13:46AM -0500 Sender: owner-freebsd-mobile@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On 2002-02-12, Darien Kindlund wrote: > > I know that Jim Binkley is currently developing an SSID scanner for > Lucent/Orinoco 802.11 cards at: http://www.cs.pdx.edu/research/SMN/ > > However, I'm curious if there will be any attempts at integrating this > within the wireless drivers? This would allow the card to use > any base station without knowing/manually assigning the SSID. > > I know Linux has similar functionality, where the SSID can be set to "ANY" > within the driver -- a specified keyword. This type of functionality > would be very useful, as I tend to use more than 3 stations with my > Aironet 340 card each day. Darien, according to 802.11, if you set the SSID to a zero-length field, ie the NULL string "", the station will enter passive scanning mode, and will associate with the first SSID contained in an 802.11 broadcast beacon. Setting the SSID to "ANY" is treated specially by the driver and actually becomes the zero-lenght string "". What you want to do is decoupled from SMN or any other scanner. With the aironet card, you simply type ifconfig an0 ssid - and it will magically associate. This will work only if the AP is set to broadcast the SSID, which is not a very good idea from a security point of view, especially if you don't use WEP (which itself is broken but a lot better than nothing). Marco To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-mobile" in the body of the message