NM suboptimal with weak signal strength, easy fix



Hi,

I encountered the following problem with NM recently. I have a _very_
weak signal in my hotel room. It'll hover at 15% for a while (and I can
access the Internet then), then drop to 0% for 10--20 seconds (no
Internet), then come back again for a few minutes and so on.

With NM:
- Within a few seconds of the signal dropping to 0%, NM ifdown's the
interface and starts rescanning. It finds the network again in 10--20s
and tries to reaquire a lease. But at 15% SNR, it means some DHCP
packets get lost ... so the 10--20s WiFi outage turns into a 2min NM
outage with me clicking force it to retry after 2-3 DHCP failures etc.

Without NM -- i.e. w/ iwconfig+ifconfig+route:
I set up the device, interface routes etc. by hand. When SNR drops to 0%
for 10--20s, I have full packet-loss. 20s later, everything is back
working. There is no inflation of the network level outage to app level.

Easy Fix:
A "pin" button for networks. Kind of like that thumbtack pin icon in
Tomboy Notes Panel app. Once NM acquires a network, "pin" it, and NM
won't ifdown it even if SNR drops to 0%. Unpin it, and NM operates like
normal.

Thoughts?

-- 
Saikat

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