Re: disabling keyring

[Myk Melez <myk mozilla org>]

Éric Brunet wrote:
> What I would find more logical is that NetworkManager itself manages the
> network informations and keys, storing them in someplace neutral
>   
I agree.  I've never quite understood why NM is designed to be so 
user-specific that it doesn't bring up a network connection until I log 
in and launch the applet.  On my laptop this means (among other things) 
that when ntpd starts up on boot it reports failure, dropping Fedora 
into detailed boot mode (i.e. the list of services starting up that you 
get when you click "show details" or the like as Fedora is booting).

Dropping into detailed mode is merely an aesthetic consideration, but 
presumably whatever ntpd is failing to do (update the system time?) is a 
technical issue, and I imagine there are other services that could 
benefit from having a network connection available to them once the 
network service starts up (fairly early in the service startup sequence).

> If, for some raison, it is needed to have some network keys available to
> one user and not another, this can be added later (a checkbox in
> nm-applet saying ``this key is private''). Why not. But I don't see why
> it should be the default.
>   
This seems like a sensible way to account for the rare case in which a 
user wants to be the only user on the system to be able to connect to a 
particular network.  The other option is to provide UI for specifying 
which connections can be started upon boot (as system-config-network 
currently does).  But hoarding a connection seems the rarer case, so 
sharing a connection and starting it on boot should be the default, 
however the UI is presented.

-myk