Re: pessimistic NetworkManager and off-line mode

["Herriot, Nicholas, VF-Group" <Nicholas Herriot vodafone com>]

Hi I'm new to NetworkManager Mailing list,

I represent the guys at betavine http://www.betavine.net

Having read this post I feel I have to add my bit in to the mix!


>> NetworkManager will report online/offline state accurately for
>> connections that are managed by NM.

>"accurately", except for private networks, firewalls, etc. Which is
>probably OK.

We also have major problems with our Modem connectivity software (see
http://www.betavine.net/bvportal/web/linux_drivers for more info) and
Ubuntu 9.04 where applications are not aware that our modem manager has
made a connection.
I've had a long discussion with Dan about this over the phone and would
like to get other peoples opinions and ideas.

There seems to be two methodologies around this:

1) You may have more than one connection manager (e.g. A Network Manager
and a Modem Manger). Applications that run and require network
connectivity would maybe ask Network Manager via D-Bus have you got a
connection. If the answer is no, they move on to the Modem Manager and
do the same thing. I'd like to hear peoples opinions on this?

2) Network manager has a way to pass connectivity information to it.
(e.g. An API for an app to send info about a connection to Network
Manager. Hence a Modem Manager could say "I've made a connection, here
are the details about this connection."). Network manager would then be
the global manager of the connection and still be the single point of
contact for apps to talk to when discovering connections on the system.
As before I'd like to here peoples opinions on this.


>> However, if NM is running and you
>> still do your own connection stuff outside of NM it will not know
that
>> you are online and suggest that you are offline.

>Thanks for the clarification.

>I think one of problems lies in "suggest", which actually sounds more
>like "affirm".

>How hard would it be for NM to detect there are some non-managed
>interfaces? That does not seem like a lot to ask. Especially not hard
>in the "NM_CONTROLLED=no" case.

I'd like to know this to. I've thought about this for some time now and
I believe it's good to keep Network Manager at the centre of the
universe. However, I can see how this starts to creek a little when the
idea of "A connection" can be so vast! We have over 1/2 million
downloads of our software on Netbooks and Laptops and our Forum posts
are starting to fill up with people saying "I can't get my Mobile
Connect software to work with Ubunutu 9.04!" Maybe I should tell them to
contact the Network Manager team for help! :-) ....


Kind regards, Nicholas Herriot.

>Cheers,

>Marc

Nicholas Herriot

Web Technologies Researcher
Vodafone Group R&D - UK

www.betavine.net
www.betavine.mobi (from mobile)

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