Re: NetworkManager-list Digest, Vol 46, Issue 11

[John Walicki <walicki us ibm com>]

Dan Williams wrote on 07/07/2008 16:00:11 AM:
> 
> On Mon, 2008-07-07 at 15:24 -0400, Grant Williamson wrote:
> > Hi,
> > are there any plans to add a "Connect" button to NetworkManager 0.7.0 
as 
> > part of the "Edit Connections " panel?
> 
> John W. wondered about that at RH Summit.  I'd rather not do that, but
> instead try to fix your use-case by using SSID probe-scanning of hidden
> networks.
> 
> In the ideal case, the admin would have pre-loaded the list of BSSIDs of
> the hidden network into GConf and the user wouldn't have to manually
> connect via a button, because NM would be able to match up the scanned
> BSSIDs with known SSIDs, and thus would auto-connect.  0.7 needs both
> the SSID and a scanned BSSID to complete a connection, so just trying to
> connect with the SSID will fail.
> 
> Dan
 
The IBM use case of hidden SSIDs is extreme in that there are over 10000 
wireless access points throughout the IBM infrastructure, 200000+ IBMers 
have wireless credentials and I can walk into any IBM facility around the 
world and get connected to the IBM network.  While all of this is 
centrally managed and authenticated, pre-loading 10K BSSID into GConf is 
not a viable option.  A "Connect" button on the 
"Edit Connections" panel is far more palpable.

-- John Walicki