Networking With Linux Wireless-Tools

Using iwconfig For wireless-tools Configuration

After physically installing your Linux-compatible NIC, you need to configure your NIC's IP and wireless settings before Wireless Tools works.

You can configure your NIC's IP settings as if the NIC were a regular Ethernet device. After you use the ifup command the NIC becomes active, but it will not function correctly as its wireless settings haven't been configured yet.

The most commonly used command in Wireless Tools is iwconfig, which you can use to configure most of the wireless parameters, including the SSID and the wireless mode. For the wireless mode, Managed means that there is a wireless access point (WAP) on the network and Ad-hoc signifies that there is none.

For example, if your wireless NIC is named eth0 and your managed network's ESSID is homenet, then the commands would be.

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

   |                   iwconfig eth0 mode Managed                         |    
  |                    iwconfig eth0 essid homenet                       |

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