Re: Bugs in network manager

[Alexander Sack <asac ubuntu com>]

On Sat, Nov 29, 2008 at 08:11:50PM +0200, Maxim Levitsky wrote:
> On Sat, 2008-11-29 at 17:57 +0100, Alexander Sack wrote:
> > On Sat, Nov 29, 2008 at 05:03:08PM +0200, Maxim Levitsky wrote:
> > > Recently I installed ubuntu 8.10.
> > > 
> > > I found few bugs in new network manager, and I like to report them here.
> > > I will also fill them at bugzilla.
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 1. any wireless connection marked as "system setting" doesn't work, nm
> > > attempts to connect but fails.
> > > Such connections confuse the nm to the point that it might even forget
> > > about a connection and create a new one, I not sure about this, but I
> > > avoid them now, as they really are unstable, nm even crashed few times
> > > when system wide connections were there. On top of that to switch
> > > between local and system connection it in not enought to toggle the
> > > checkbox, but you must change any setting with the checkbox.
> > 
> > I think there have been improvements in trunk after we released
> > intrepid. Though I dont know about crashes. Can you get backtraces for
> > those cases?
> > 
> Will try to do so, thanks
> btw, I won't have a problem to compile trunk of nm on interpid and use
> it?

If you want final 0.7 I would suggest to wait for packages. Will
provide backports in the network-manager PPA for intrepid really soon:

   https://launchpad.net/~network-manager/+archive


If you want debug symbols, read:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingNetworkManager#Debugging%20Crashes

Due to a bug in symbol server, if you want symbols for -proposed
or -updates packages you need to build the package locally with
pkg-create-dbgsym installed.


> 
> > 
> > > 
> > > 2. Auto enabled wired connections "Auto eth0" appear on each boot.
> > > This means that even if I set up a manual connection and make it
> > > autoconnect, on next boot "Auto eth0" will reappear and be used instead
> > > of manual connection. Editing "auto eth0" doesn't help, it is reset
> > > after boot.
> > > 
> > 
> > Same here. I have to spot the right changes and then have to backport
> > that.
> Great!, I hate this bug so much....
> > 
> > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 3. Even if I tell nm not to remember VPN password it still uses same
> > > password if VPN connection failed (I talk about pptp) 
> > > The problem is that I connect to network that uses one time password
> > > generator combined with pin.
> > > This means that if I mistype the pin or password, or time runs out, 
> > > I can't reconnect since nm uses now surly invalid password.
> > > 
> > 
> > Haven't heard of this bug ... which network-manager-pptp package are
> > you using?
> What do you mean?
> 
> dpkg -l network-manager-pptp
> 
> network-manager-pptp   0.7~~svn20081015t02462 network management
> framework (PPTP plugin)

Please give the full version:

 COLUMNS=200 dpkg -l network-manager-pptp


> 
> 
> Btw, my university also support L2TP, I guess that this isn't supported
> now, right?
> 
> Are there plans to add this.
> They recommend using L2TP, and unlike PPTP it isn't microsoft technology

Dont know about VPN roadmap, but priority can probably be bumped by
contributions.

> 
> > 
> > > 
> > > 4. Link-local is broken, this is not your failt, the problem is that
> > > avahi-autopid uses dbus to connect to some service, but it is forbidden
> > > by dbus even for root, I fixed this, and I post details later.
> > 
> > you need to install dnsmasq-base package. We will add this to a
> > Recommends, so it gets auto installed in future.
> Doesn't help.
> 
> /usr/lib/NetworkManager/nm-avahi-autoipd.action is guilty.
> it is trying to access org.freedesktop.nm_avahi_autoipd
> but like I said it is forbidden even for root.
> attached is a fix, that I created looking at other dbus permission
> files.
> 

Thats fixed in the Stable Release update currently undergoing QA in
proposed repo. Just enable the proposed repository to get the
update and help testing.


> 
> > 
> > > 
> > > 5. If nat modules aren't compiled in kernel there is no warning about
> > > that, but connection sharing just fails, I din't yet test this with nat
> > > modules, would be fine to add description stating that this is NAT.
> > > 
> > 
> > Error condition reporting probably could be improved in general.
> Lets rename this to 'shared with other computers (NAT)'
> Btw, nat isn't that simple, I need to see how this works, but
> for correct sharing a dhcp server is needed and also interesting to know
> what netmasks are used for network behind nat.

My opinion is that distros have that enabled in all their default
kernels. Folks building their own custom things probably know about
NAT and can figure this out on their own.


 - Alexander