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Generally, KWiFiManager should work

with any 802.11a, 802.11b, or 802.11g
wireless network adapter for which
there are Linux drivers. Frequently with
modern Linux distributions and a PCM-
CIA/USB 802.11b card, all that is
required is to plug the adapter in, and
Hotplug will take care of the rest. Other-
wise, it is best to consult the documenta-
tion for your distribution the distribu-
tions hardware management tool will
often allow you to set up the driver.
When you first start KWiFiManager,
youll see a display similar to Figure 1.
The main window gives the status of the
active wireless connection. The Scan for
Networks button initiates a scan that
determines if you are in the range of a
wireless network. The Settings menu
(Wired Equivalent Privacy) key. KDEs
KWiFiManager utility helps you manage
these and other wireless network set-
tings and also monitors your wireless
network connections.
Introducing KWiFiManager
KWiFiManager is part of the main KDE
distribution, and as such, if you have
KDE installed on your computer, KWiFi-
Manager will probably also be installed
already. If you dont already have KwiFi-
Manager, use your Linux distributions
package management tool to install the
kdenetwork package. Some distributions
package KWiFiManager on its own, not
as part of the kdenetwork package, so in
that case, look for a package with a
name similar to kwifimanager.
W
ireless networks are a very
valuable addition to modern
day computing. Wireless tech-
nology makes it easy to set up the net-
work, and users can get online from a
growing number of places, including
pubs, train stations, libraries, and air-
ports.
Although a wireless network is physi-
cally easier to install than a wired net-
work, the software side of a wireless net-
work is frequently harder to configure.
For instance, for each wireless network
connection, you must select the correct
network name commonly referred to
as SSID (Service Set Identifier) and you
must specify whether to use encryption.
If you are using encryption with the con-
nection, you must specify the right WEP
Connecting to wireless networks is
more popular than ever. KDEs KWiFi-
Manager is a handy tool for monitoring
and managing wireless connections.
BY CHRIS HOWELLS
WORKING WIRELESS
Wireless Networking with KWiFiManager
WORKING WIRELESS
KWiFiManager LINUX USER
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(shown in Figure 1) leads to settings that
help you configure and manage your
wireless connections.
Finding Wireless Networks
In order to connect to a wireless net-
work, you must know the SSID for the
network and whether WEP is in use or
not. In a location such as an office, WEP
will almost certainly be enabled, and
you will need to ask the system adminis-
trator for details. In a public place such
as a station or airport, WEP will not be
enabled, and you will need to scan for
available networks to find out the SSID
it will vary depending on which com-
pany is running the wireless network.
Scanning for all wireless networks is
easy using KWiFiManager. Simply load
KWiFiManager from the KMenu or by
running kwifimanager. Click the Scan
for Networks button (refer to Figure 1). A
window will appear, giving the list of all
networks nearby. If the wireless signal is
a little weak, the Acoustic Scanning fea-
ture (under the Settings menu) can help
to locate a stronger signal.
In Acoustic Scanning mode, KWiFi-
Manager will periodically emit a tone.
The higher the pitch of the tone, the
stronger the wireless signal, and conse-
quentially, the higher the likelihood of a
successful connection. Therefore, if
there are problems with the connection
and KWiFiManager emits only a low
pitch, it might be a good idea to wander
around a little bit until the pitch rises.
Now that the name of the wireless net-
work is known, you can use KWifi-
Manger to connect to it.
Connecting to a Wireless
Network
KWiFiManager lets you pre-define net-
work connection configurations. This
feature is very useful if you travel to dif-
ferent locations, for example, if you
roam between your home, your office,
and another network.
To configure a connection, load KWifi-
Manger from the KMenu and choose Set-
tings/Configuration Editor option (see
Figure 2). Youll need to enter the
administrator (root) password in order
to proceed, since the control panel will
need to have root privileges to make
configuration changes to the system.
One of the most important settings on
this page is the Network name setting,
where you will enter the SSID. Most
wireless networks are based around an
access point, and, in this case, the Oper-
ation mode should be set to Managed.
However if there is no access point and
you are simply connecting to other com-
puters with wireless network cards, the
mode should be set to Ad-Hoc.
Generally, the speed should be set to
Auto. The Auto setting means that,
when the signal is weak, the wireless
card will automatically fall back to lower
speeds in an attempt to facilitate com-
munications. If the signal strength
increases again, the speed should
increase again. However, if an attempt is
made to force a high speed and the sig-
nal becomes weak, the wireless card
may fail to transfer any data due to
transmission errors.
In the wireless networking world,
DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Pro-
tocol) is typically used to configure the
network interface. If this is the case for
your network, you can enter
/sbin/dhclient in the Execute script on
connect combo box. The network inter-
face will then be configured automati-
cally once the connection to the access
point has been made.
The Enable power management setting
(shown in Figure 2) can be very useful
for laptops. In the case that the signal
strength from the access point is strong,
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Wireless networks usually use the WEP
system to ensure that outside users
cant eavesdrop on wireless communi-
cations. WEP is particularly important if
data is being sent over a protocol that is
not itself encrypted.
In the past, WEP rightfully received a lot
of bad press. In part, this bad press was
because the first generation of wireless
products contained a particularly poor
implementation of WEP that allowed a
brute force attack to be carried out
against the encryption key when a suffi-
ciently large number of data packets had
been sampled. This risk is now lower,
though a new encryption standard
called WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access) is
starting to be introduced.
Wireless Network
Encryption
Figure 1: The KWiFiManager main window.
Figure 2: The KWiFiManager configuration
editor.
wish to connect to a different wireless
network, choose a different option in the
Configuration to load combo box and
press Activate to connect to that network
instead.
Monitoring the Wireless
Network Connection
KDE provides a few tools for monitoring
the active wireless network connection.
Monitoring the wireless connection is
fairly important because the strength of
the signal can vary
even if the location
of the laptop or desk-
top does not. Cord-
less phones, and
even microwaves,
can cause interfer-
ence that may
decrease the strength
of the signal.
KDE provides an
applet (Figure 4) that
you can add to the
panel to show the wireless signal
strength at an easy glance. To load the
applet, simply right click on the panel,
then choose Add, Applet, Wireless Net-
work Information. If this option does not
exist, you may need to install the kdenet-
work package, which should be part of
the Linux distribution.
Unfortunately, depending on the dri-
ver used for the wireless card, some
information about the network might
not be available. In this case, a few of
the fields in the information dialog
might be empty.
KWiFiManager can also provide simi-
lar functionality. KWifiManger adds an
icon to the system tray with a handy sig-
nal strength bar and a numerical indica-
tor of the signal strength. Clicking on the
system tray icon will hide the main win-
dow so that it does not interfere with
normal work. Click-
ing on the system
tray icon again will
show the main win-
dow.
A few enterprising
KDE users have
written their own
wireless network
applications. These
applications arent
part of KDE itself,
but they can be
found at the http://www.kde-look.org
web site.
Youll find KWirelessMonitor at http://
www.kde-apps.org/content/show.
php?content=11576. Install a suitable
binary or compile the source code as fol-
lows (assuming the KDE development
files are already installed):
tar xvjf U
<kwirelessmonitor-0.5.4.tar.bz2
cd kwirelessmonitor-0.5.4
./configure
make && sudo make install
You can start KWirelessMonitor by run-
ning kwirelessmonitor. Right click on the
icon in the system tray to apply configu-
ration changes to the network interface
(Figure 5).
Another nice program is Kifi, which
youll find at http://www.kde-apps.org/
content/show.php?content=13858. Kifi
displays information about available net-
works. Download the source code and
compile it:
tar xvjf kifi-0.2.4.tar.bz2
cd kifi-0.2.4
./configure
make && sudo make install
After you compile Kifi, start it by run-
ning kifi. Kifi will load an icon into the
system tray.
the amount of power used by the wire-
less card can be reduced, which can help
to save electricity. There are a few other
tricks you can use to help conserve elec-
tricity. Rather than being switched on
permanently, the wireless network
cards radio can be configured to turn off
periodically and for a configurable
amount of time. This option is not with-
out its drawbacks, though. If the radio is
turned off, it is impossible to transmit
any information, and consequentially,
the response times of programs
that use the network may be
slow since the radio needs to be
turned on again first. This will
be particularly noticeable for
tasks such as web browsing and
using ssh. However, if the wire-
less connection is used only to
check mail, this setting can be a
very handy way of conserving
electricity while you are on the
move.
You can enable WEP with the
Use encryption check box (see Figure 2).
If you check the check box and click the
Configure button, youll reach the dialog
shown in Figure 3. In the Configure
Encryption dialog box, enter the 13- or
26-character encryption key used on the
network. Sometimes wireless access
points allow you to use a password
instead of a hexadecimal key: this is,
however, just a way of hiding the hexa-
decimal, and using this setting can be a
bit of a hit-and-miss affair. Different
manufacturers use different methods to
calculate the hexadecimal from the text,
and as such, it is possible that the wrong
hexadecimal key may be used. If you
have problems connecting to the access
point, it is a good idea to try explicitly
setting a hexadecimal string in both the
access point and in KWiFiManager.
The configuration editor (see Figure 2)
also lets you set up additional
network configurations. Choose
a different tab and enter the set-
tings as described in this sec-
tion. It is usually better to load
the settings when KDE is started
so that the wireless connection
will be ready as soon as the sys-
tem starts. To do this, select
Load preset configuration on
startup, and then select a wire-
less configuration. If you
change your location and you
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Figure 3: The WEP config-
uration screen.
Figure 4: The wireless net-
work configuration applet.
Figure 5: The KWirelessMonitor configura-
tion dialog.
In real life, Chris Howells studies
Physics with Computer Science at
the University of Liverpool, UK.
The rest of the time he maintains
KDEs screen savers, as well as
working on a few other areas. You
can reach Chris at howells@kde.
org.
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