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WiFiconfig documentation

What it does

WiFiconfig can list nearby networks (if your interface supports scanning), associate with the selected network, ask you for an encryption key if needed, and spawn dhcp. Encryption keys are stored and reused on subsequent connections

Installation

In theory, installing WiFiconfig is as simple as configure; make; sudo make install. In practice, this may fail miserably for a number of reasons, including the absence of some library from your system (see Dependencies below). If all the dependencies are installed and you still get an error, and you feel particularly altruistic, send a bug report.

Usage

  1. Become root (the program sends commands to the network interface, so it needs appropriate privileges). Note: if using KDE, you could setup a menu entry to run the command 
    kdesu -c wificonfig
    which will run wificonfig as root for you (thanks, Clark!)
  2. If a dialog pops up asking you for paths to the dhcp and pkill programs, enter them.
  3. Start the program
  4. Click "Scan"
  5. Select a network from the list, and click "Connect"
  6. Enter the WEP key if asked
  7. Wait for the "connection OK" message
  8. Enjoy!

Caveat

I wrote this program for my own use, and so I didn't worry much about security. WEP keys, for example, are stored in plain text. Also, there are (probably) lots of bugs in the code I haven't discovered yet. Since the program is only useful if you run it as root, many of those bugs could be viewed as security holes. WiFiconfig doesn't open any ports on the host computer, so a remote exploit is unlikely, but a local user could conceivably use it to gain root privileges.

Knowing that, if you still want to use it, go ahead, but don't say you haven't been warned.

Dependencies