Re: NetworkManager with multiple wireless cards

[Andrea <mariofutire googlemail com>]

Dan Williams wrote:
> > Wouldn't it be easier to enter the interface name?
>
> No, because interface names are not universally stable; and ideally you
> never have to care what the interface name actually is.  At least the
> MAC address is often printed on the card/dongle itself, but "wlan11"
> never will be.
>
> MAC addresses aren't completely stable either (if you spoof another MAC
> for example), but they are stable at boot time and when HAL probes the
> device.

Ok, I agree that the MAC address is a better and more unique way of identifying the card.
I guess that having a list where to pick the MAC address from (showing the name too) would be all it 
is needed. Like a drop down menu.

> > Anyway now I've create 2 entries with different MAC and it works.
> >
> > What is misleading is that there are one list of networks per card, so one expects that the network 
> > is connected only on the selected card. Shouldn't NM set the MAC address automatically when it 
> > create an entry automatically?
>
> Maybe; but if you change wireless cards then you'd have to go back
> through and update the MAC in each connection for the new card, which
> would suck.  I think that case is /probably/ more frequent than the case
> of using two wireless cards in the same machine; who knows.

Maybe a dialog for each new automatic connection asking whether to bind to a specific card?

> > Or there should be only 1 list of all networks available regardless of the card.
>
> We can't really do that because cards have different capabilities
> (encryption, band, 802.11n).  Leads to situations where it's unclear
> which card the connection will be activated on.

I see it is not that easy and trivial.
In that case there could be an advanced option that can be used to change the default route among 
the existing connection, just to let people to change it.
And when that interface goes down, the usual default could be used.

Thanks for your explanation.

Andrea