Re: security selection via nm-applet

[Dan Williams <dcbw redhat com>]

On Thu, 2008-06-19 at 13:52 -0400, Miner, Jonathan W (US SSA) wrote:
> When I try to create a new wireless network connection using the nm-applet
> dialog, I get two different "Wireless Security" drop-down lists, depending on whether I use "Create New Wireless Network..." (4 options) or "Connect to Other Wireless Network...", then select "New..." at the "Connection" prompt (8 options).

So the menu item titles are somewhat confusing here, and I'd like to
clean that up.  "Connect to other..." is used to connect to SSIDs that
you can't see right now (like hidden SSIDs for example).  "Create
new..." will create a new ad-hoc network connection.  Confusing, yes.

> This looks like it comes from the security_combo_init() function in wireless-dialog.c, but I'm not sure why the options would be different... or even why there would be two different paths to create a new network.

Because "Create new..." will create a new ad-hoc network, and because
you cannot do 802.1x (WPA & WPA2 Enterprise and Dynamic WEP) on an
ad-hoc network because by definition there is no authoritative RADIUS
server, you won't get those options in the security dropdown.

There's two use-cases the "Create new..." serves right now:

1) shared adhoc wifi network (NAT-ed to the current internet connection)
    - share your 3G card with some friends
    - share paid hotel ethernet or wifi with friends
2) unshared adhoc network (standalone, would use IPv4 link-local
addresses)
    - quickly share some files at a conference, on a train, etc

The configuration is just about the same, the only difference is really
a checkbox for "share my internet connection to friends on this new wifi
network".  I'd like to play around with some names for this menu item
that include the word "share".

dan