Asus eee laptop internet at home and work

[Roopert]

A school i work in has recently purchased the laptops of the future Asus eee ones. They run a linux distro and have most essential functions installed on the build. (open office, educational software, internet email etc.)

 

My question is that as it uses firefox i have had to set up the internet settings so that it uses a manual proxy , which in this case is a cachepilot system.

 

The internet connects fine, but i assume that once they take it home the proxy settings will remain and the user will not be able to connect to the wireless internet at home.

 

Is there a way so that these settings can be per wireless connection or some sort of profile which can be loaded, so the user can take it home and get internet there?

 

Any advice here will be appreciated

[Jona]

Not automatic but I use switchproxy for firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/125

 

Some other useful proxy addons:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3896

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1557

 

You might be able to use a PAC file see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_auto-config

 

I'm sure someone else will chime in with some better ways of doing it...

 

Cheers

Jona

[CyberNerd]

I second the pac file.

You can set it to automatically go to the proxy if in the school network, but automatically go direct if in a home network. Also it will work with IE as well.

[MkII]

Is the PAC/ WPAD method slow?

 

I'd imagine that if the browser couldn't see the file it'd take a while each time before deciding to route via no proxy, if the user was trying to browse from home, for example.

 

I use a logon script that works via IP range (that I know isn't used in our WAN). I've heard that the PAC method is better and just wanted some confirmation

[powdarrmonkey]

A PAC/auto-config script that you set in the browser's options doesn't result in a delay if the browser can find it (ie. execution is pretty quick) but at home you might find a DNS delay.

 

I use DHCP and a script. Put the auto-config script somewhere useful on the network - ours is on the intranet - and then set option 252 in DHCP to point to it. In the browser just set 'Automatically detect settings'. When the machine fetches a DHCP address it then also knows to use a script, whereas at home it won't get the extra details and will go direct.

 

When you first launch the browser you'll find a few seconds delay showing the first page, while Windows decides configuration to use, but after that it's seamless.

[tom_newton]

Proxy.pac (locally) should be ok, that or something in your if-up scripts to detect the network... bit hacky tho.

[Oops_my_bad]

I use DHCP and a script. Put the auto-config script somewhere useful on the network - ours is on the intranet - and then set option 252 in DHCP to point to it. In the browser just set 'Automatically detect settings'. When the machine fetches a DHCP address it then also knows to use a script, whereas at home it won't get the extra details and will go direct.

 

Does this work OK without an ISA server? I read to use this method you had to have an ISA server. We don't have one, so didnt bother looking into it.

[powdarrmonkey]

I don't know where you've read that. I don't have one, no. I just refer to the .pac file directly (with an IP-based hostname, to avoid any DNS issues). I'll PM you our script if you like.

 

Edit: I had forgotten that the eeePC is *nix. All our machines are Windoze, so I don't know how you'll get on. Got to be worth a go though.

Edited March 22, 2008 by powdarrmonkey