Re: How to get NetworkManager connect to known WIFI networks upon BOOT

[Tony Espy <espy canonical com>]

Dan Williams wrote:
> On Wed, 2007-11-28 at 23:42 -0600, Igor Chudov wrote:
>> My Ubuntu 7.10 computer boots up and gets its IP address just fine
>> when it is on a wired network (via DHCP). 
>>
>> It can also connect to wireless networks, however, it requires me to
>> be logged on to gnome and enter my password. 
>>
>> I want to skip all of that and make NetworkManager connect to several
>> known wifi networks automatically upon boot, even if no one logs on to
>> this laptop. 
>>
>> In Fedora, I wrote a custom  script calling wpa_supplicant with a .conf
>> file, but I want to integrate NetworkManager better as I like its
>> reconnection abilities. 
>>
>> So. How can I make NM connect to password protected wifi networks upon
>> boot, without users logging in?
>>
>> How can I do it?
> 
> It isn't possible with NM 0.6.x.  I've already committed code to trunk
> (0.7) for the system settings service, which will provide NM connection
> information before logins, therefore providing this functionality.  I'm
> currently implementing the 'ifcfg' backend that will work with Fedora
> and SUSE distros, and I'm going to implement a more flexible format
> based on key/value pairs (essentially .ini files, really) and maps much
> better to the NM connection/setting structure.  Somebody from the
> Debian/Ubuntu community will need to step up and write the plugin for
> their distro.

Dan --

I recently started working at Canonical, working on Ubuntu Mobile.
We've been having conversations recently re: the NM 0.7 planned system
settings service and it's applicability to mobile devices.

A couple of questions for you...

1. Does the global settings service use the keyring-daemon to store
global key / passphrases?

I'm working on a problem right now with a MID device that doesn't
require the user to login, therefore there's no keyring setup.  We also
would like to avoid requiring the user to enter a keyring pw. Someone
earlier today pointed me at the following gnome-keyring bug:

http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=386866

I'm going to try and implement this as a short-term solution.

I guess what I'm wondering is whether or not the global settings
service, if fully implemented on Ubuntu, would alleviate the need to
create a pw-less keyring as mentioned in this bug.

2. Could you explain how the 'ifcfg' backend will work?

Thanks,
Tony Espy

---
"Jazz isn't dead, it just smells funny." -- FZ