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.
SEE ALSO
Further documentation for netenv can be found in
/usr/share/doc/netenv/netenv-en.html and /usr/share/doc/netenv/netenv-
de.html
AUTHOR
netenv was written by Gerd Bavendiek <bav@epost.de> and adapted for
Debian by Michael Meskes <meskes@debian.org>, Robert van der Meulen
<rvdm@debian.org> and Frank Küster <frank@kuesterei.ch>.
This manual page was written by Frank Küster.