Ubuntu Wiki

• Blueprint: linux-connection-manager-intrepid

• Drafter: AlexanderSack

• Target: Informational (not for intrepid)

Linux Connection Manager (connman) is developed and maintained as a moblin.org project. Connman was first announced in December 2007 and tries to cover similar use-cases as NetworkManager. Logically, connmans architecture is quite similar to the one used by NetworkManager as it comprises a network management daemon and a managed GUI that allow users to manage/fine-tune their network connections.

In addition, moblin.org ships a glib-style wrapper library for dbus - used by connman - which is ment to ease dbus development without using GObject.

Summary

"The Connection Manager is designed to be slim and to use as few resources as possible, so it can be easily integrated in other Moblin-based embedded systems. It is fully modular system that can be extended through plug-ins, to support all kinds of wired or wireless technologies. Also, configuration methods like DHCP and domain name resolving are implemented using plug-ins. The plug-in approach allows for easy adaption and modification for various use cases." -- from moblin.org website.

Purpose

Connman was created to specifically target mobile devices and doesnt aim to be a complete replacement of NetworkManager - the current (as of hardy) network management solution shipped by default in ubuntu. The connman author emphasized during his presentation at UDSPrague that in the end both projects will benefit as they both face common problems in buggy linux drivers as well as inefficient dhcp and wpasupplicant implementation. Fixing those issues will directly contribute to both projects.

Key Objectives

The following key objectives were named during UDSPrague presentation and in post-session discussions:

• connman is a lightweight solution for small form factor devices
• connman aims to reduce power consumption by improved scanning heurisitics
• connman makes connecting to networks as fast/snappy as on Mac; this should be done
  • by replacing/fixing dhclient and wpasupplicant

• connman aims to support WiMax

• connman provides a kernel-developer friendly code style: no use of GObject in daemon code.

Status

As of end of May 2008 the status of the code is still in pre-alpha state and not ment to work. The documentation is not yet available due to legal problems. Further, the moblin.org tree is not the master tree yet - however, this was announced to happen soon. The initial usable release is currently targetted for Q4/2008. Until then only some use-cases will work - if any.

Actions

Given the current pre-alpha status there are no actions on the distro side. However, ubuntu should review Linux Connection Manager at regular intervals.