Working in a test lab I switch between Ethernet and Wi-Fi connections on my notebook to reach the Internet. Some applications apparently don’t notice which way is active and fail to connect after a change. Is there a way to ensure that an app will use the available path?
Apps include Winbox on Wine (boxed wine ? :-). Rebooting openSuse enables connectivity to the active communications path. Disconnecting and connecting in Networks may or may no provide a path for the app.
Suggestions welcomed.
If I close the ethernet connection on my laptop, and instead open a WiFi connection, then my computer IP address changes. The DHCP server on the network assigns a different local IP address, depending on the MAC of the network card.
A network connection is identified by source IP, destination IP, source port, destination port. By switching from ethernet to WiFi, you are breaking this.
If my application is using only UDP, then everything might still work. For UDP there isn’t really a connection, and the pairing of source/destination is made for each packet. But for a TCP connection, you cannot expect this to work without breaking the connection.
A web browser starts a new connection for each web page. So connections are short-lived, and you might not notice a problem. But applications such as SSH, which depend on a long duration connection, will run into problems.
You might be expecting too much.
Yes, and it seems that the title of your thread mirrors this. Applications have no knowledge about the connection and if it is using cable or wifi or what. They just have use a connection offered to them by the kernel and when that is broken they have a problem.