Re: Hello everybody

[Dan Williams <dcbw redhat com>]

On Mon, 2005-02-14 at 15:53 +0000, Rui Campos wrote:
> I am doing my PhD in the networking area (particularly in Mobile
> Networks) and I am very interested in this Network Manager, you have
> been designing and implementing. Can anybody tell me a bit more about
> it? For example, are you considering things like Mobility, i.e.
> always-on connectivity service? In the web page of the project, I
> think that you don’t refer explicitly to such a feature!

Hi,

Great to hear you're interested.  The point of NetworkManager was to
_attempt_ to provide a network connection no matter where you are.
Eventually, we hope to support things like Bluetooth, GPRS, and probably
ISDN and modems as well.  The auto-switching capability is a large part
of this, for example:  if you've been using the wireless network, and
you plug in the cable, NM will switch your connection to the cable.
When you unplug (or undock) it will switch to wireless.  NM attempts to
be as automatic as possible.

Some issues that get in the way are likely to be solved in the future,
for example not all wired cards support link-detection right now, and NM
just ignores those cards unless you explicitly tell it to switch to
them.  Furthermore, many wireless cards don't report correct signal
quality, making it impossible to pick wireless base stations based on
their quality or proximity.  This stuff slowly gets fixed in the kernel
though.  Many applications (like gaim or evolution) also aren't aware of
network changes, so when NM switches the network connection gaim pops up
a "you've been disconnected" dialog.  Support for NetworkManager will
gradually work its way into these apps.

We don't support WPA or other types of authentication besides WEP right
now, but that will hopefully be fixed in the coming months.  Again, that
needs to be seamless so the user is minimally interrupted.

Could you explain a bit more about the areas of mobility that you're
interested in, or some of the things you're looking at for your thesis?

Thanks
Dan