/usr/share/doc/whereami/html/index.html

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 TRANSITIONAL//EN">
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Whereami? - Network Autoconfiguration Utility</TITLE>
<!-- $Id: index.html,v 1.7 2005/05/15 09:18:01 andrew Exp $ -->
</HEAD>
<BODY FGCOLOR="#090933" BGCOLOR="#f0ffd0">

<TABLE WIDTH=100% BORDER=0  BGCOLOR="#faea0c" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=10><TR VALIGN=BOTTOM>
<TD ALIGN=CENTER><IMG SRC=images/q1.gif WIDTH=96 HEIGHT=126></TD>
<TD VALIGN=BOTTOM BGCOLOR="#d0b030"><H1 ALIGN=RIGHT VALIGN=BOTTOM><I>whereami</I> - Automatic Configuration Utility</H1></TD>
</TR></TABLE>
<HR><H2>What?</H2>
<P><I>whereami</I> can automatically configure the system during boot, whenever a PCMCIA network
card is inserted or removed, and whenever there is an APM event.  It can:
<UL>
<LI>examine the system's network environment in order to detect the current location</LI>
<LI>adapt the system configuration to that environment</LI>
</UL>
<P>Since this all happens on PCMCIA card removal or insertion (or whenever else you set it to happen),
it should be easy to automate all the actions you would normally take when you arrive at
a new location.</P>

<HR><H2>Why?</H2>
<P>I work at quite a variety of places.  When I arrive at a new location
I find it a pain if it takes me half a morning to get the network set up.  Well, I could write scripts to
tell my computer where I am, but that's no challenge!</P>
<P>So I like to have my computer automatically know where it is, set the mail relay,
DNS forwarder and so forth automatically
without me having to worry about it and I can concentrate on getting my job done :-)</P>
<P>Other considerations which have made me design this framework in this way include:
<UL>
<LI>easy extension to new situations</LI>
<LI>easy to enhance functionality through new helper scripts</LI>
<LI>a component-based framework which I (and others) can enhance piecemeal</LI>
</UL>

<HR><H2>How?</H2>
<P><I>whereami</I> splits the problem of re-configuration into several parts:
<UL>
<LI>triggering of location detection</LI>
<LI>detecting the current location</LI>
<LI>adapting to the current location</LI>
</UL>

<H3>Triggering location detection</H3>
<P>My feeling is that there are only a few times when a laptop might find itself in a new 'location':
during the boot process, when a PCMCIA (network) card is inserted or removed and after waking up.
<I>whereami</I> can run at any or all of these times, after basic hardware initialisation, to detect and
configure the more high-level components of the system such as <I>named</I> and <I>sendmail</I>.</P>

<P>By default, <I>whereami</I> is run at boot time and on <I>ifup</I>.
</P>

<P><I>whereami</I> can also be run by the PCMCIA card manager, <I>cardmgr</I>,
if the pcmcia-cs package is appropriately set up.</P>

<P>You can also configure <i>whereami</i> to run before APM suspend or after APM resume.
This might be useful, for example, for configuring a built-in network adapter when one changes location.
You can enable this by editing /etc/whereami/apm.conf.</P>

<H3>Detecting the current location</H3>
<P>Location detection is configured by editing /etc/whereami/detect.conf.
Here one specifies the unique characteristics of a location that can be discovered by performing tests.</P>
<p>Since version 1.0, whereami allows for one to be at multiple locations at the
same time; for example, both 'docked' and 'atwork'.</p>
<P><a href=detection.html>Go here for full details of setting up location detection in whereami</a>, or
read the detect.conf(5) manual page.</P>

<H3>Adapting to the location</H3>
<P>Once the current location has been detected, <I>whereami</I> performs actions
that are specified for:
<UL><LI>when one 'leaves' a location</LI>
<LI>when one 'arrives' at a location</LI>
<LI>when one 'is at' a location</LI>
</UL>
<P>For full details of configuration actions, <A HREF=actions.html>go here</A>, or
read the whereami.conf(5) manual page.</P>

<H4>Overriding location detection</H4>
<p>Sometimes it is desirable to tell <I>whereami</I> where we are rather than let it try to work it out.
This can be used, e.g., to ensure that network drives are unmounted cleanly before going somewhere else.
To override the location, give the name of the location as an argument to <I>whereami</I>:
<br>
<pre>      whereami &lt;location&gt;</pre>
<br>
For example, I often use "<tt>whereami undocked</tt>" when I am about to disconnect from my current network
to ensure that all nfs drives are unmounted <em>before</em> the network is physically disconnected.</p>
<p>The <i>whereami</i> command accepts other options.  Enter:
<br>
<pre>      whereami --help</pre>
<br>or read the whereami(5) manual page for more information.</P>

<HR><H2>Where?</H2>
<P>Since version 0.8, <i>whereami</i> is <a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/whereami.html">included in Debian</a>.
E-Mail me if you would be interested in using this utility in other distributions,
and if you are willing to be a guinea pig for me!</p>


<HR><H2>Who?</H2>
<P><I>whereami</I> was written by <a href="mailto:debian @ mcmillan.net.nz">Andrew McMillan</a>,
with contributions from various other users, most notably Chris Halls.  See the AUTHORS file for full details.</P>

<P>&nbsp;</P><HR>
<TABLE WIDTH=100%><TR>
<TD ALIGN=LEFT><FONT FACE=sans-serif SIZE=2>
<A HREF="http://mcmillan.net.nz/linux/">Andrew's Linux Page</A>&nbsp;&nbsp;|&nbsp;&nbsp;
<A HREF="http://mcmillan.net.nz/linux/whereami/">'Whereami' home page</A>&nbsp;&nbsp;|&nbsp;&nbsp;
<A HREF=detection.html>Location Detection</A>&nbsp;&nbsp;|&nbsp;&nbsp;
<A HREF=actions.html>Actions</A>&nbsp;&nbsp;|&nbsp;&nbsp;
</FONT></TD>
<TD ALIGN=RIGHT><FONT FACE=sans-serif SIZE=2>&copy; Andrew McMillan, 1999-2002 released under the <A HREF=http://www.gnu.org/>GPL v2</A></FONT></TD>
</TR></TABLE>
<HR>

</BODY>
</HTML>
whereami 0.3.34-0.3 / usr / share / doc / whereami / html / index.html
