force connect to hidden wireless network

[dsr-mzpnVDyJpH4k7aNtvndDlA at public.gmane.org (Dan Ritter)]

On Thu, Feb 03, 2011 at 07:41:19PM -0500, Tom Metro wrote:
> Jerry Feldman wrote:
> > iwconfig wlan0 essid "my ssid"
> > Most of the time, setting this allowed network manager to connect.
> 
> I tried that in rc.local, and it didn't seem to help., Maybe my
> assumption that rc.local runs well before X starts is incorrect.
> 
> I've had a bit better luck with:
> 
> # force set ESSID so hidden WLAN is found
> iwconfig wlan0 essid $SSID
> until iwlist wlan0 scan | fgrep -q ESSID:\"$SSID\" ; do
>   sleep 2;
> done
> echo "Wireless connection established to $SSID WLAN"
> 
> 
> I don't know what impact "iwconfig wlan0 essid" has when you are in a
> foreign location seeking to connect to any available WLAN, but I know my
> solution won't handle that well, so I'd like to find a better solution.

In my experience, wicd does a better job than NetworkManager
with this sort of thing.

-dsr-

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