NetworkConfiguration

(How to config your network interface: NetworkConfigurationCommandLine )

Summary

Activation of network hardware is a complicated issue, we need to ensure that any hardware the user plugs in is automatically configured and used if possible and that devices such as modems and wireless cards just work; including choosing the appropriate default route for the system. The best tool for this job still seems to be network-manager, but it doesn't really play nice with the netbase/ifupdown system we currently use. This BOF will talk about making them both work together when the hardware is activated to get it running without bothering the user too much. Also the WEP Shared Key/Open Key/WPA mess should be addressed here.

One of the main issue of network configuration is that user should be able to change it easily, specially on laptops. It is currently quite boring to change one's configuration when you arrive home, work, access points, etc. Ideally, you should be asked root password only when you add a new configuration. A small applet allowing user to indicate whether he's home, work or whatever place his network is already configured would be great.

Rationale

Use cases

Bob want to connect to the company wifi network that use WPA with RADIUS authentication.

Alice has a Wifi AP at home and have it protected lightly with WEP. She needs to configure her laptop to use said WEP key.

Scope

We should define the user experience for setting up these security parameters. Let's focus on the dekstop case as currently server used as AP are quite marginal and NetworkManager is only planned for the desktop in Dapper.

Design

NetworkManager will be the Wifi configuration tool, and everything is centered around it.

Implementation

* Upstream WEP and WPA management in NetworkManger. WEP is already managed

  • Make sure this information is stored in the Keychain. WEP keys are already in.

* Kernel driver update to handle WPA as much as possible. Most of then handle WEP. See http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0501.3/0667.html for some insight about the work to be done in the kernel

Code

Data preservation and migration

Outstanding issues

BoF agenda and discussion

CategorySpec

NetworkConfiguration (last edited 2008-08-06 16:38:43 by localhost)