Network Center

draknetcenter

This tool is found under the Network & Internet tab in the Mageia Control Center labelled "Network Center"

Introduction

When this tool is launched, a window opens listing all the networks configured on the computer, whatever their type (wired, wireless, satellite, etc.). When clicking on one of them, three or four buttons appear, depending on the network type, to allow you to look after the network, change its settings or connect/disconnect. This tool isn't intended to create a network, for this see Set up a new network interface (LAN, ISDN, ADSL, ...) in the same MCC tab.

In the screenshot below, given as example, we can see two networks, the first one is wired and connected, recognizable by this icon (this one is not connected ) and the second section shows wireless networks, not connected recognizable by this icon and this one if connected. For the other network types, the colour code is always the same, green if connected and red if not connected.

In the wireless part of the screen, you can also see all the detected networks, with the SSID, the Signal strengh, if they are encrypted (in red) or not (in green), and the Operating mode. Click on the chosen one and then either on Monitor, Configure or Connect. It is possible here to go from a network to another one. If a private network is selected, the Network Settings window (see below) will open and ask you for extra settings ( an encryption key in particular).

Click on Refresh to update the screen.

The Monitor button

This button allows you to watch the network activity, downloads (toward the PC, in red) and uploads (toward the Internet, in green). The same screen is available by right clicking on the Internet icon in the system tray -> Monitor Network.

There is a tab for each network (here eth0 is the wired network, lo the local loopback and wlan0 the wireless network) and a tab connection which gives details about connection status.

Note

At the bottom of the window is a title Traffic accounting, we will look at that in the next section.

The Configure button

A - For a wired network

It is possible to change all the settings given during network creation. Most of the time, checking Automatic IP (BOOTP/DHCP) will do, but in case of problems, manual configuration may give better results.

For a residential network, the IP address always looks like 192.168.0.x, Netmask is 255.255.255.0, and the Gateway and DNS servers are available from your providers website.

Enable traffic accounting if checked this will count the traffic on a hourly, daily or monthly basis. The results are visible in the Network monitor detailed in the previous section. Once enabled, you may have to reconnect to the network.

Allow interface to be controlled by Network Manager:

This section hasn't been written yet for lack of resources. If you think you can write this help, please contact the Doc team. Thanking you in advance.

The button Advanced:

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B - For a wireless network

Only the item not already seen above are explained.

Operating mode:

Select Managed if the connection is via an access point, there is an ESSID detected. Select Ad-hoc if it is a peer to peer network. Select Master if your network card is used as the access point, your network card needs to support this mode.

Encryption mode and Encryption key:

If it is a private network, you need to know this settings.

WEP uses a password and is weaker than WPA which uses a passphrase. WPA Pre-Shared Key is also called WPA personal or WPA home. WPA Enterprise is not often used in private networks.

Allow access point roaming:

Roaming is a technology which enables allows computer to change its access point while remaining connected to the network.

The button Advanced:

This page hasn't been written yet for lack of resources. If you think you can write this help, please contact the Doc team. Thanking you in advance.

The Advanced Settings button

This section hasn't been written yet for lack of resources. If you think you can write this help, please contact the Doc team. Thanking you in advance.

You can start this tool from the command line, by typing draknetcenter as root.

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