Something like NetworkManager ?

Hello,

In most GNU/Linux distributions, you have a kind of an applet to manage the network, which is very practical for a laptop which travels and doesn't always use the same network.

I mean, how can I have something like that in FreeBSD ?
As long as my laptop stays at home, there's no problem : it connects automatically to the wireless network I have set up during installation, but how can I configure it in order to use different wifi networks, depending where I am ?

Thank you !
 
Network connections are handled by dhclient() and ifconfig(). The latter can be used to scan local networks and connect to them. However, I also never heard of GUI applets for either of those programs. There is one for dhcpcd, so who knows ;).
 
Does it use wpa_cli to poll networks or relies on the FreeBSD facilities I mentioned earlier?

The project homepage says that it's just a front-end to wpa_supplicant(8). I didn't think ifconfig(8) handled encrypted connections, but the man page says it can handle WEP. But that's still unsuitable for wireless networks.

EDIT: To build upon what SirDice says below, I'll also add that NetworkManager for Linux is itself a sort of daemon/CLI application combination, and doesn't have a graphical interface by default. Desktop environments and third-party projects just offer graphical front-ends to it. wpa_cli(8) is basically the FreeBSD equivalent of NetworkManager for wireless connections, while ifconfig(8) is used for wired connections.
 
Note that FreeBSD's wpa_supplicant(8) differs in a lot of ways compared to Linux's wpa_supplicant. They are named the same and have the same function but they're not the same application.
 
They should be both based on the same original implementation by Jouni Malinen (https://w1.fi/wpa_supplicant/) but I guess our version has diverged quite a bit because of differences in the networking stack and many of the details that go into configuring network intefaces and routes.
 
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