Re: two queries: lan/wlan autoswitch, default wap

[Dan Williams <dcbw redhat com>]

On Sat, 2006-06-03 at 20:05 +0200, Colin Brace wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> 1.) When I was using an earlier version of NM (v.05.?) under FC4 on a
> different laptop last year,  it would automatically switch to the lan
> connection when I connected an ethernet cable to the laptop. Now this
> only works when I select Wired network in the applet. eth0 is
> commented out in /etc/network/interface, so NM should be managing lan
> connections as well. When I unplug the ethernet cable, it does work as
> expected, ie, reconnect with my wap. Has this autoswtiching function
> changed from earlier versions?

If you explicitly choose a connection from the menu, then NM will stick
with that connection as long as it's available.  i.e., if you pick your
wireless access point, but then plug in a cable, NM will stay on the
access point rather than switching to the cable.

This happened last year I think, and the debate about how the autoswitch
behavior works has just been swept under the rug.  I think some bits of
the behavior will change again with 0.7 when you can have multiple
connections active at one time.

> 2.) Is there some way of configuring NM to automatically connect to my
> home wap at boot time? At the moment, I have to keep unlocking the
> Gnome keyring and entering the WEP key every time I start. Ideally, NM
> would take care of this stuff at boot time -- but at the same time not
> stall bootup with a long timeout if wap is unavailable (ie, I am away
> from home).

Not at the moment.  NM stores the WEP keys in your user keyring, which
means you have to log in to allow NM to access them.  That's also planed
to be dealt with in 0.7.

Dan