DapperNetworkManager

Revision 51 as of 2006-03-21 19:38:39

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Status

Dapper Network Manager

NetworkManager aims for Network Connectivity which "Just Works". The computer should use the wired network connection when its plugged in, but automatically switch to a wireless connection when the user unplugs it and walks away from the desk. Likewise, when the user plugs the computer back in, the computer should switch back to the wired connection. The user should, most times, not even notice that their connection has has been managed for them; they should simply see uninterrupted network connectivity.

NetworkManager that "has the chance" of being integrated into Dapper will feature support for WPA and 802.1x as well. We will also provide l-r-m packages with updated wifi drivers.

There is GNOME (nm-applet) and KDE ([:KNetworkmanager:knetworkmanager]) front-end that runs in sys tray and provides control over NetworkManager.

More information about NetworkManager is available [http://www.gnome.org/projects/NetworkManager/ here] .

NetworkManager is beta software.

Installation

  • Add the following to /etc/apt/sources.list:

    deb     http://kubuntu.no-ip.org/kubuntu dapper main
deb-src http://kubuntu.no-ip.org/kubuntu dapper main

  • Run sudo apt-get update

  • Run sudo apt-get install network-manager-gnome

Note: If you are running Kubuntu/KDE, then you should be installing [:DapperKNetworkmanager:KNetworkManager].

The repository contains the following packages:

  • network-manager, nm-applet (by us)

  • libnl, a dependency of n-m 0.6 (by TomParker)

  • libnl-dev (patched by us and the [:DapperKNetworkmanager] maintainers)

  • wpasupplicant 0.4 with the required feature for n-m backported from 0.5 (by ReinhardTartler)

And also:

Notes

NetworkManager doesn't manage interfaces with manual configuration defined in /etc/network/interfaces. To get n-m to manage all the interfaces properly, backup /etc/network/interfaces and remove all wired/wireless interfaces that you want to be managed by n-m (if you want to leave full control to NM just leave the lines concerning the lo and maybe ppp and tun interfaces). You can leave your wired/wireless interfaces only if they are set to auto and dhcp (and no other options!) - the only allowed config for NM is the following two lines (replace eth1 with your interface): 

  •   auto eth1
  iface eth1 inet dhcp

WPA users: you need to set "ENABLED=0" in /etc/default/wpasupplicant and ensure than wpasupplicant is not running. NM will take care for controlling wpasupplicant.

Discussion about these packages is also going on in this [http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=147249 forum thread]. There is also older [http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=145230 thread].where you may find useful info.

If it does not work for you, you may get more info from messages reported by NM processes - see this [http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=843493&postcount=31 forum post] for instructions.

New kernel builds are on the way, and once that happens, a new linux-restricted-modules will replace our patched package. Once the new kernel builds are out, we will work hard to rebuild the package, so that it works for the new kernel build as well. When that happens, you can just upgrade the system.

Issues

Cosmectic issues

  • The differents icons used in nm-applet don't have the same size. In some configuration, this can cause your whole gnome-panel icons moving forth and back when switching icon in NM.
  • With the new Dapper icons, the WEP icon looks like nothing. I guess it's the "lock" WEP icon but it doesn't mean anything. I think this icon must be set back as a lock or something similar.
  • If one of your card has a very long name (for example here : Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ ), the menu becomes really large and quite ugly.
  • There are no indications about the type of the Wifi network (ad-hoc, managed, ..) and the type of the encryption (WPA or WEP)

Comments

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