Re: Annoying NetworkManager "feature"

[Dan Williams <dcbw redhat com>]

On Sat, 2009-08-29 at 10:25 -0400, Gene Czarcinski wrote:
> On Wednesday 26 August 2009 13:03:36 Dan Williams wrote:
> > On Wed, 2009-08-26 at 11:59 -0500, Dan Williams wrote:
> > > On Mon, 2009-08-24 at 13:08 -0400, Gene Czarcinski wrote:
> > > > I like a lot about how NetworkManager works.  I especially like the way
> > > > it handles wireless connects.
> > > >
> > > > However, there is a NetworkManager "feature" that is extremely
> > > > annoying: creating new/additional device entries in its list of devices
> > > > ... sometimes one or more additional entries with the same name and
> > > > sometimes "Auto eth_" entries.
> > >
> > > Which new/additional device entries and what are their names?  When this
> > > happens, can you run 'nm-tool' for me and paste the output in here?
> > >
> > > The "Auto eth_" entries are there so that you can connect to *something*
> > > by clicking on it even when there's configuration defined.  Otherwise,
> > > you'd have nothing in the menu and no way to connect the device.  There
> > > are a few corner cases where more than one could appear, but I haven't
> > > seen those in quite a while.
> > >
> > > > This has become especially annoying with a qemu-kvm guest where on of
> > > > the NICs needs to have "Use this entry for network connections only on
> > > > its network" checked ... new entries are created when NetworkManager
> > > > starts which do not have the check.
> > > >
> > > > If there a way to disable this feature? [new/additional entries]
> > >
> > > Do you have backing system connections for any of these devices?
> > > Basically, a fake "auto" connection will be shown for any device that
> > > doesn't already have a connection defined either in GConf or via
> > > system-settings (/etc/network/interfaces for Debian/Ubuntu, ifcfg for
> > > suse/fedora, and /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections for all distros
> > > depending on the plugin that's been enabled
> > > in /etc/NetworkManager/nm-system-settings.conf).
> >
> > Also note that you'll want to lock connections to certain NICs using MAC
> > addresses.  That way the connection that you mark "only use this
> > connection for resources on its network" will always get assigned to the
> > same NIC and your network setup will be stable.  You can do that by
> > typing in the NIC's MAC address in the "Wired" tab for that connection,
> > in the "MAC Address" field.
> 
> So, both "System" and "Auto" devices have had MAC addresses filled in without 
> anything done by me.
> 
> As far as setting "only use this connection for resources on its network", I 
> did have this work "at one time" but now seems to be consistently failing to 
> set ... I can edit the device connection, check the box, and then save/apply 
> this change.  However, when I re-edit that device, the box is no longer 
> checked?

Hmm, you seem to be using an older version of NetworkManager... what
specific version do you have?

Dan