Finding the SSID of a Wireless Network

[Jon Savage]

On Sun, 17 Oct 2004 15:37:37 -0400, rab <rab at nauticom.net> wrote:
> Is there a way to determine the SSID of a wireless network? I have never
> been able to connect to a hotel network or one at my university, even
> though it works fine with my home wireless network. I don't understand
> why I can't connect. I set up the card to use DHCP. At the unversity, I
> even put in the SSID. The card is a D-Link DWL-650 (uses the prism2
> chipset). The card works perfectly with my home wireless network under
> Linux. I've tried using the card under XP (the laptop dual boots) but
> even with the latest windows drivers, XP crashes EVERY time if the card
> is plugged in
If you want to determine the essid of a non essid broadcasting WAP
there are a number of tools that can get that information for you-
kismet/gkismet & airsnort come to mind. Since the card is working for
you @ home it is likely that you are somehow misconfiguring the
wireless connection at university. Does the uni use WEP? Is access to
their WLAN restricted by MAC address? Note also that the ESSID is case
sensitive. You may be able to set up different profiles using
system-config-network or you could just edit the wireless config
manually when you change location. This will probably become a little
easier with core 3 /NetworkManager once the bugs get worked out :).
You might also want to have a look at kfifimanager (AFIK shipping w/
core  3) - that might just solve the issue for you assuming everything
is correctly configured for each connection.

-- 
Bests,
Jon