Improving dynamic wired/wireless profile management

Most Linux distributions support some form of network profile management. Some of these distributions can be modified by the user via script modification and installation of user space tools to dynamically manage the network profile based on whether a hard link or wireless link is being used for the network connection.

This tutorial provides an overview of what is required to be supported by the driver, middleware (scripts, security supplicants, etc.), and graphical/command line tools in order to provide the user with a seamless experience when moving between different physical links (wired to wireless, wireless to wireless, etc.) This includes topics such as hotplug, ifplugd, wpa_supplicant, xsupplicant, dhcpd, proxy configuration, etc. In addition examples are provided of how the capabilities are currently supported. Common pitfalls are discussed that plague users especially when trying to create a tool or user experience that can work across multiple distributions.