Auto Airport Shut off

Apple
Macintosh

If you often find yourself working at desk with an Ethernet connection and then using Airport when you're mobile, you have to manually shut off Airport when connected to wired network. Here's an automated way to do that. If you're on battery, it'll save you some minutes of battery life by shutting down Airport when it's not needed.

Source

 

  1. Copy toggleAirport.sh to /Library/Scripts/toggleAirport.sh
  2. From Terminal windows: sudo chmod 755 /Library/Scripts/toggleAirport.sh
  3. Copy com.mine.toggleairport.plist to Desktop
  4. Open Finder, visit Desktop.
  5. Open new Finder. Visit /System/Library/LaunchAgents
  6. Drag com.mine.toggleairport.plist from Desktop to /System/Library/LaunchAgents
  7. Enter password if asked
  8. Lot out and log back in

If you care about the on-screen notification, install Growly and then growlynotify (command line tool) from the Extras folder. It's a 'nice to have' but not really necessary. I've tested the following scripts on Mac OS X 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard).

 

 

/Library/Scripts/toggleAirport.sh

 

#!/bin/bash

 

function set_airport {

 

    new_status=$1

 

    if [ $new_status = "On" ]; then

/usr/sbin/networksetup -setairportpower en1 on

touch /var/tmp/prev_air_on

    else

/usr/sbin/networksetup -setairportpower en1 off

if [ -f "/var/tmp/prev_air_on" ]; then

    rm /var/tmp/prev_air_on

fi

    fi

 

}

 

function growl {

 

    # Checks whether Growl is installed

    if [ -f "/usr/local/bin/growlnotify" ]; then

/usr/local/bin/growlnotify -m "$1" -a "AirPort Utility.app"

    fi

 

}

 

# Set default values

prev_eth_status="Off"

prev_air_status="Off"

 

eth_status="Off"

 

# Determine previous ethernet status

# If file prev_eth_on exists, ethernet was active last time we checked

if [ -f "/var/tmp/prev_eth_on" ]; then

    prev_eth_status="On"

fi

 

# Determine same for AirPort status

# File is prev_air_on

if [ -f "/var/tmp/prev_air_on" ]; then

    prev_air_status="On"

fi

 

# Check actual current ethernet status

if [ "`ifconfig en0 | grep \"status: active\"`" != "" ]; then

    eth_status="On"

fi

 

# And actual current AirPort status

air_status=`/usr/sbin/networksetup -getairportpower en1 | awk '{ print $4 }'`

 

# If any change has occured. Run external script (if it exists)

if [ "$prev_air_status" != "$air_status" ] || [ "$prev_eth_status" != "$eth_status" ]; then

    if [ -f "./statusChanged.sh" ]; then

"./statusChanged.sh" "$eth_status" "$air_status" &

    fi

fi

 

# Determine whether ethernet status changed

if [ "$prev_eth_status" != "$eth_status" ]; then

 

    if [ "$eth_status" = "On" ]; then

set_airport "Off"

growl "Wired network detected. Turning AirPort off."

    else

set_airport "On"

growl "No wired network detected. Turning AirPort on."

    fi

 

# If ethernet did not change

else

 

    # Check whether AirPort status changed

    # If so it was done manually by user

    if [ "$prev_air_status" != "$air_status" ]; then

set_airport $air_status

 

if [ "$air_status" = "On" ]; then

    growl "AirPort manually turned on."

else

    growl "AirPort manually turned off."

fi

    fi

fi

 

# Update ethernet status

if [ "$eth_status" == "On" ]; then

    touch /var/tmp/prev_eth_on

else

    if [ -f "/var/tmp/prev_eth_on" ]; then

rm /var/tmp/prev_eth_on

    fi

fi

 

exit 0

 

/System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.mine.toggleairport.plist

 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">

<plist version="1.0">

<dict>

  <key>Label</key>

  <string>com.asb.toggleairport</string>

  <key>OnDemand</key>

  <true/>

  <key>ProgramArguments</key>

  <array>

    <string>/Library/Scripts/toggleAirport.sh</string>

  </array>

  <key>WatchPaths</key>

  <array>

    <string>/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration</string>

  </array>

</dict>

</plist>