Re: Feature request: vpn auto-connect

[Dan Williams <dcbw redhat com>]

On Fri, 2006-09-29 at 09:01 +0200, Soren Hansen wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 29, 2006 at 12:17:47AM -0400, Golam Mortuza Hossain wrote:
> > After two weeks of frustrating attempts to run nm, finally I could get
> > nm (0.6.2-linux2go) working in my z60t thinkpad (running kubuntu
> > 6.06.1) with wpa_supplicant (0.5.5) and latest madwifi-ng.  I am
> > really amazed with nm operations! Its really cool!!
> 
> I'm really amazed at how many people use those packages. :-)
> 
> > In my institute, I need to connect through VPN.  With nm's vpnc plugin,
> > this is also hassle-free.  However, a problem arises when
> > wireless connection drops out. Although, nm reconnects to the wireless
> > network almost immediately but it doesn't run vpnc. So effectively machine
> > remains disconnected. Right now, I have to manually connect to VPN
> > every time it happens. So I would like to make a feature request for nm.
> 
> I have the same problem and have been thinking about how to fix it. I'm
> thinking about adding a "location" of sorts. When you connect to a new
> wireless LAN (identified by router's MAC address) the context menu for
> the applet could show a "Configure location" option. In there, you could
> tell nm to change connect using a certain vpn connection and also change
> your proxy settings accordingly.

I'd really like to get away from location-type "profiles."  That's too
manual.  But we can do this by inference.  You likely aren't going to
have a wireless setting for "SomeUniversity" if you don't use it fairly
often, and if you don't know how you connect to it.

So rather than have a "Configure Locations" menu item, which is fairly
manual and not necessarily what everyone wants/needs to do, here's what
we do instead:

For those types of connections which are distinguishable (ie wireless,
GPRS/CDMA-over-Bluetooth, PPP, etc) we can tie specific
actions/settings, like VPN connections to that connection's NM
Configuration, and just Do The Right Thing.

For those that _aren't_ distinguishable (ethernet, serial modem, isdn),
when the user explicitly sets that NM Configuration up (and not before),
we show a submenu of Configurations for the device from which the user
can choose.  That Configuration may or may not be connected
automatically by NM, a behavior which the user will be able to turn off.

Dan

> Is anything like this in the pipeline?
> 
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