NYC schools and cloaked APs

[Ricardo Carrano]

Hi!

Please contribute with your ideas to the following:

NYC schools use cloaked access points to provide wireless connectivity.
We currently do not support cloaked APs (and ... ok, they hardly provide any
additional security).

Support for cloaked APs is being discussed in #6237 and it involves changes
to the UI and to the way NetworkManager orchestrates the starting of the
networking (searches for a school server, for previously connected AP, for
xo-mpps, etc) and keeps the network view fresh (by passively scanning the
medium). Contributions to the ticket are welcome.

While the support is not there, NYC is considering disabling NetworkManager
but this is not a good solution for (1) the XO will not boot into sugar and
(2) collaboration will not work, because the mesh view will be broken.

They are interested in a way (quick workaround) of doing the configuration
manually in a persistent manner and still be able to collaborate. Any ideas?

Btw, note that:
- Manually editing networks.cfg won't work because the scanning (the
blinking icon phase in the mesh view) is passive. So, if the AP do not
broadcast its SSID it is like it is not there.
- Manually associating  to the AP would work but NetworkManager prevents
dhcp from working.

I have a feeling that enabling support to cloaked APs may be quicker than
hatching a workaround, but to do it fast we would need help in the NM part.

Cheers!
Ricardo
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