[PLUG] Proper setup of HOSTAP Driver in client mode

[Keith Lofstrom]

Greetings (especially to AthlonRob, Russ, and Mike Rassmussen, who
know more than I do about HostAP):

Thanks for the info a couple weeks ago on setting up HostAP.  I have
something working; I thought I should see if I've done it right or
if I need to do some reconfiguration.

First, like AthlonRob, I was running wlan-ng.  On top of Redhat 9.
Headache city.  Also like A-R, I was under the mistaken impression
that HostAP was only for running Access Points.  Silly me.

Keegan Quinn at ptp pointed out that HostAP would improve my life,
and would operate in client ("Managed") mode.  So I ripped out
important bits of wlan-ng, then installed HostAP, and built a few
ifcfg- files.  I will describe a bit of what I did, and please
correct me if I kludged too stinkily.

First, the wlan-ng tearout;  I moved the old wlan-ng driver from
/lib/modules/<mykernel>/pcmcia/prism2_cs.o to a directory .../pcmcia/old/ .
Then I moved the wlan* files in /etc/pcmcia to /etc/pcmcia/old/ .  

I ran the make script for hostap-driver, with the make script modified
to point to my kernel source.  Then I made and installed hostap-utils.  

After that, kluging began.  I wrote a configuration file
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-wlan0, with ESSID=ANY .
Then I built a /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-klsg, with
ESSID=KLSG (my home network) and KEY="##########" (my WEP key). 
I also built a few other ifcfg- files, for personaltelco, tmobile,
boingo, and wayport, should I find myself in places with multiple APs.

I suspect there is a better way to do this, but right now, when
I insert my card, the system hotplugs the drivers and tries to
connect to an open AP in the vicinity.  It will automagically
find the ESSIDs for www.personaltelco.net or tmobile, for example.
It won't have much luck with my WEPed home network, so in that case
I type "ifdown wlan0" followed by "ifup klsg" and it connects.  I
do something similar if it connects to the wrong open site where
there is a choice. 

However I suspect there is a cleaner way to do this.  Any suggestions?

Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom           keithl at ieee.org         Voice (503)-520-1993
KLIC --- Keith Lofstrom Integrated Circuits --- "Your Ideas in Silicon"
Design Contracting in Bipolar and CMOS - Analog, Digital, and Scan ICs