Fedora – Setting up an ad-hoc network on boot

bootfedoranetworkingwifi

I'm pretty new to Linux; this project is me trying to learn more. I've done login scripts before but not boot scripts, so that's one of my questions. My other question is how to get an ad-hoc network working with just terminal commands, so that I can make a boot script to do it. I'm running Fedora 18 off of a flash drive for now, but when I'm done configuring I'll be copying everything to an old laptop's hard drive. (The goal of this project is to not have to buy a better wireless router)

The most luck I've had setting up an ad-hoc was by using Gnome's "Use as Hotspot…" button in my wireless network settings, and then changing the name and WEP code (Can I use other encryption methods?) using iwconfig in the terminal, but I want it all done with terminal commands so that I can just run a script to set it all up. I think I can figure out how to use iptables to set up my port forwarding and junk myself, but first I need to get this computer able to share its internet connection wirelessly.

Best Answer

This blogspot entry has a guide for configuring a wireless network in ad-hoc mode. On the first machine, run these commands (fill in your own network information):

 ifconfig wlan0 down
 iwconfig wlan0 channel 4
 iwconfig wlan0 mode ad-hoc
 iwconfig wlan0 essid 'fermilevel'
 iwconfig wlan0 key 1234567890
 ifconfig wlan0 192.168.1.1

On the second machine:

 ifconfig wlan0 down
 iwconfig  wlan0 channel 4
 iwconfig  wlan0 mode ad-hoc
 iwconfig  wlan0 essid 'fermilevel'
 iwconfig  wlan0 key 1234567890
 ifconfig  wlan0 192.168.1.2

The essid and key must be the same on both machines.

Related Solutions

Ubuntu Networking – How to Set a Static IP for Firewire

On Debian and Ubuntu, the place to configure networking without Network Manager is /etc/network/interfaces. Something like this should work (you may need to change the interface number):

auto eth2
iface eth2 inet static
    address 10.10.6.1
    netmask 255.255.255.0
    broadcast 10.10.6.255
    pre-up modprobe eth1394

Run ifup eth2 and ifup eth2 to bring the interface up or down. The auto statement causes the interface to be brought up as part of the boot process. Network Manager won't touch an interface mentioned in /etc/network/interfaces.

Zeroconf is often nice for Firewire links: if you run it at both ends, it automatically negociates addresses and routing. However it's no help if you want a more managed network (e.g. to give your laptop a name, bring it inside a casual firewall, …).

Linux – How to create an ad-hoc connection

The sed command is broken (I guess people overlooked it somehow on the forum you refer to). It should be:

sed  '/-z/s:dnsmasq:dnsmasq -r /etc/dnsmasq/resolv.conf :g' dnsmasq>dnsmasq.local

The fact that you used that broken sed command resulted in erasing /etc/rc.d/dnsmasq.local (or creating it as an empty file). I don't know the details of how NetworkManager is configured on Ubuntu, but I'm guessing that the fact of /etc/rc.d/dnsmasq.local being empty can have an important impact on your whole network configuration.

You can either:

Verify that /etc/rc.d/dnsmasq.local really is empty and if so, remove it - your network configuration should get back to the state at which it was before issuing that unfortunate sed command.
cd into `/etc/rc.d/ and run the corrected sed command above. This should create the dnsmasq.local file containing what the author of that forum post really intended. Possibly the rest might work after that.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Ubuntu Networking – How to Set a Static IP for Firewire

Linux – How to create an ad-hoc connection

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