Configuring for multiple networks

[scottae]

Hi

I'm fairly new to Linux, so please forgive any stupid comments etc. I;ve searched on Google and in the forum but can't find what I need.

I have a Dell Latitude D830 with a Broadcom 57xx network card. I use the laptop at university and at home. My university network requires a static IP address, my home network assigns automatically. I have use a post on this forum to download and install what I need to get the network card working.

When I boot up, the laptop stops for about 5 minutes when trying to sort out the sendmail daemon (which it eventually does with 'OK' as its result). If I a trying to access the uni network, I need to use the network device control to enter all my settings, activate the network card and then I can access the internet etc. No matter what I do (setting up a University profile, saving changes etc), I lose all of these settings when I reboot.

Home is less of a problem but sendmail still slows the laptop right down on startup.

Any help with this would be appreciated, but needs to be in idiot-friendly language.

[Iron_Mike]

Do you really need "sendmail"? Shut off the service at system ->administration ->services.

Not much way around the changing of the settings between your University and Home

[scottae]

Thanks - I did as you suggested, rebooted and the system started fine.

However, I had to unplug my network cable and re-insert it (another issue - not sendmail related) and I had to re-enter all of the network card settings. Surely there is a way round this i.e. for the card retain its settings?

[Iron_Mike]

I understand. If both Networks used DHCP it would not be a problem. There isn't a way to store individual network profiles. The profiles are linked to the hardware and are kept in:
/etc/sysconfig/networking-scripts and are labeled like ifcfg-eth1, ifcfg-eth0, or maybe ifcfg-wlan0 something along those lines. For example if your using eth1 with static addressing, then go to dhcp, it will overwrite the previous settings and use the currrent one. No matter what your using, it will require some input from you to configure. The easiest way at this time is goto system ->admin ->network, uncheck the boxes for "start on boot", "controlled by Network Manager", and add a check to "allow users to enable/disable the device" so depending on what network your trying to connect to, you will have to open the system ->admin ->network, select the device and click edit, then either select DHCP or STATIC and fill in the blanks.