From: "Christian Langanke" <os2-wireless_users@2rosenthals.com>
Message-ID: <44A18C5F.3040707@clanganke.de>
Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 21:51:59 +0200
User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5 (OS/2/20060113)
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: OS/2 Wireless Users Mailing List <os2-wireless_users@2rosenthals.com>
Subject: Re: [OS2Wireless]Re: xwlan 2.14
References: <list-191770@2rosenthals.com>
In-Reply-To: <list-191770@2rosenthals.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Mark Henigan wrote:
> Hello Christian, Michael, and list:
>
> Please forgive the top posting.  This is more generally
> about the topic below rather than addressing specific
> technical points made by either of you.
>
> On the Suntan Special CD, Neil Waldhauer provides a
> script to disconnect from a wired LAN and to provide the
> changes necessary for XWLAN to operate via the wireless
> card.  He also provides a script to do the opposite,
> i.e., to disconnect from the wireless card and rejoin
> the wired network.  They are quite probably worth a
> look.
I think I once checked these out. I don't recall exactly what the 
differences to XWLAN were, I think it was all covered, at least at that 
time, by XLAN. But if there are still some, it may worth it to review 
them. I need to keep in mind though that such a script must work under 
all configurations, so a scheme implemented by a certain script solution 
may be just fine for switching between cabled and wireless, but may be 
not as good for switching between different hotspots. So IMHO XLAN must 
implement the most general scheme possible, which is not always simple 
to determine. Moreover, the event driven code of XWLAN has gron quite 
some complex, as I wrote already concerning the route issue. A solution 
for one used that I testwise inplemented easily broke another one...
> One "feature" that impressed impressed me was that it
> corrected an error in my wired LAN configuration so
> that upon reconnecting to the wired LAN, I was finally
> able to use the router at work.  That doesn't say much
> for my networking skills, but, it gives a positive
> view of Neil's.
Ok, this can easily happen. Moreover, the LAN configuration script is 
not intended or cleanup by default, as it is supposed to run from a 
freshly booted system anyway. Just an example: for unconfigured 
interfaces you find a line "REM ifconfig lanx", for a proper cleanup a 
"ifconfig lanx delete" would be required. As a conclusion it may well be 
that cleanup code would needed to be executed in addition to setup.cmd, 
and that is what the XWLAN script feature is intended for. The script 
for disconnect event is executed only after WLAN has finished its 
cleanup of the wireless interface, so this approach should do well.
>
> I also want to echo Michael's praise for XWLAN.  When
> I use it correctly, it is excellent with my Cisco 350
> PCMCIA card.  Without it, OS/2-eCS would be hobbled.
> Thank you, Christian, for your continued support.
That is very kind of you, and you and all others are very welcome. I 
very well remember how I felt once this piece of software made my 
wireless life easier :-)

I cannot stress enough that I would like to have feedback on any of your 
scripts, as my intention is to make scripts mostly obsolete, if 
possible. So for any standard network environment I would like to see 
XWLAN being capable of handling all IP interface related configuration, 
at least for TCP/IP (it currently lacks ay support for NetBEUI).

If you use scripts, please tell me why and why you think XWLAN cannot do 
the same for you. You can make the TCP/IP commands excuted by XWLAN 
visible by executing the following REXX code:

/**/
call RxFuncAdd    'SysLoadFuncs', 'RexxUtil', 'SysLoadFuncs'
call SysLoadFuncs
rc = SysIni(, 'Wireless LAN Monitor:Properties', 
'Debug_TcpConfigCommands', '1'||'0'x)

Then launch pmprintf (get it from hobbes) and see the commands executed 
.Please keep in mind that due to the complex code of XWLAN sometimes the 
same command is executed several times.

change the last line in the above code as follows to turn of the debug 
output again (consumes some CPU ;-) ):
rc = SysIni(, 'Wireless LAN Monitor:Properties', 
'Debug_TcpConfigCommands', 'DELETE:')

_If_ a script is necessary, it should be that only for special things 
like e.g. certain network or host routes, VPN stuff, firewall issues or 
whatever. So even when WPA is not yet in (what I am very sorry for but 
can't helkp for that alone right now) I see still reqirements for 
further development of XWLAN. Solving as much network issues 
automatically as possible is a major part of this.


Thank you very much for your feedback, it is highly appreciated.

bye, Christian

-------------------------------------------------

Christian Langanke
COS2E & CWSE
Team OS/2 Ruhr e.V.
cla@clanganke.de