[Gllug] roaming problem

[Alain Williams]

I take my laptop all sorts of places, plug it into a customer's network, run a script
(set up IP address, /etc/resolv.conf, ..., default printer, perhaps NFS mount something) & off I go.

But it means that I need to: boot it, switch to VT1, login as root, back to VT7, Ctl-Alt-Backspace
(to kill X), wait for X to restart & then login.

I was wondering is there an easy way of determining where I am & running the appropriate
script to do the config ? The obvious way is to try them all, one after the other, and
see what works (setup eth0, try to ping/nslookup or something, try again it I can't see it).

But it's not that easy: that would mean grabbing an IP address - which is not a very
nice thing to do. Many people run 192.168.xx.yy, so the chances are that I would grab
a valid address that is mine (in one location) which corresponds to some important
server (or worse: the MD's PC) in another.

DHCP is the obvious answer:
* in some places this is indeed the answer & my script does get an address via DHCP
* some places run DHCP, but I have a static address. OK: I could get one, find out where
  I was, drop the DHCP address & setup the static one.
* in some places DHCP is not run on the network (like at home).

Summary:
with no input from me, how can my laptop work out (at boot time) where it is & configure
itself appropriately ?

-- 
Alain Williams

#include <std_disclaimer.h>

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