Ubuntu Manpage: netenv - Configure your system for different network environments

NAME

       netenv - Configure your system for different network environments

SYNOPSIS

       netenv

DESCRIPTION

       netenv  is  an interactive utility to switch between different network configurations. It does not accept
       any command line arguments.

       On Debian systems, netenv can work with both PCMCIA and on-board network cards. You can also  use  netenv
       to  configure  your windowmanager or your printing environment. The new menu item, however, will not work
       under many circumstances (it might work with a PCMCIA card). The full documentation is included  in  html
       format (see below).

       Note that you either have to specify the boot parameter

       NETENV=configname

       or  enter  the  chosen environment by hand during boot time. The boot process will stop until you entered
       something. Alternatively, you can specify a timeout, after which the default configuration will  be  used
       (see  below).  If  you  want  to change to the default configuration without waiting for the timeout, set
       NETENV to the hostname of your computer.

       Netenv needs the dialog binary for user interaction; if it cannot be found,  it  will  display  an  error
       message and exit.

       The  system  administrator  can  also run netenv during normal operation.  netenv will then ask wether to
       activate the changes by restarting the networking now. In this case, /etc/init.d/networking restart  will
       be executed as well as additional scripts specified in NETENV_RUN_INIT_SCRIPTS

CONFIGURATION

For setting up different network configurations and related configuration files like XF86Config, see the
html-Documentation.

netenv will read the file /etc/netenv/netenv.conf. You can specify the following variables there:

ALLOW_EXPERT
If this is set to YES, you can enter "expert mode" by pressing CANCEL in the chooser dialog.
THIS IS A SECURITY RISK! Everybody with physical access to your computer will get a ROOT SHELL
without any password! Do not leave your laptop alone when this is set to YES. This feature is
disabled by default.

COLS The width of the screen used, in columns or characters. Default is 68.

NETENV_DO_RESTART
If set to yes, and netenv is called with a controlling tty (that is, interactively by root instead
of by the init script), netenv will restart the network without asking. If set to never, it will
not do this, also without asking. Otherwise you will be asked, obviously.

NETENV_TIMEOUT
The time (in seconds) netenv will show the dialog before chosing the default configuration. The
default is 0, which means that it will wait forever.

NETENV_RUN_INIT_SCRIPTS
If the system administrator runs netenv during normal system operation and chooses to activate
the changes at once, then the init scripts specified in this variable are called with argument
restart after calling /etc/init.d/networking restart. You can use this to notify daemons of the
changed network configuration. The scripts have to reside in /etc/init.d/ and must be specified as
a space separated list, e.g. NETENV_RUN_INIT_SCRIPTS="chrony myinitscript". Default is none.

NETENV_START_STOP_SCRIPTS
In Debian, calling an init script with the argument restart means that it will execute itself
twice, first with the argument stop, then with start. Some init scripts, however, do more than
that. Currently I am only aware of wwwoffle, which checks its online status before and switches
back to the same state after restart. (The netenv maintainer considers this a bug, the wwwoffle
maintainer a feature.) To be able to change from offline to online, or vice versa, we have to work
around this magic. This can be done by stopping the service manually and starting it again, and
that is what is done for scripts in this variable (again a space separated list), e.g.
NETENV_START_STOP_SCRIPTS=wwwoffle (for further information, see the html documentation).

NETENV_REMEMBER_LAST
Debian's netenv can also remember your last selection. You can enable this by setting the variable
to yes. Furthemore if you set it to default, your last selection will be used in case of timeout
(see NETENV_TIMEOUT).

Note that the default values are set in the script before /etc/netenv/netenv.conf is sourced. Thus,
environment variables cannot be used (and this doesn't make much sense since netenv usually is not called
by a user.

Some other variables are also used and could, in principle, be defined in /etc/netenv/netenv.conf, but
aren't useful. See the executable /sbin/netenv for further information.

REPORTING BUGS

       Report  bugs  to  Gerd Bavendiek <bav@epost.de>, or to the Debian Bugtracking System if you're using this
       distribution.

AUTHOR