Re: Disabling wireless networking.

[Dan Williams <dcbw redhat com>]

On Mon, 2010-03-15 at 16:39 -0400, Michael H. Warfield wrote:
> Hey all,
> 
> Pop question.  This is one of my burning annoyances with NetworkManager
> and maybe there's an easy way to do this and I just can't find it.
> But...  How do I disable wireless networking by default.  I can disable
> it but, the next time I log in, it's enabled again.  I want it stone
> cold dead unless I overtly and explicitly choose to enabled it and then
> I want it off if I log out and log back in again.

There are two solutions to your problem; first is that NM 0.8.0 and NM
0.7.3 (not yet released) will save the wifi state and restore it when
you restart.

Second is that NM 0.8.x has IPv6 support, and if you're running that
version you can set your wifi connection's IPv6 method to "ignore", and
NM will not start IPv6 on that interface.

Dan

> The problem is that I work in an environment that is very rich in IPv6
> support, at home and at work and on the road and at my colocation
> facility.  I have v6 everywhere.  The problem is that NM brings up wlan0
> long after eth0 has been up and then the wlan0 interface gets hit with a
> new RA (router advertisement) which then causes all the v6 traffic to be
> routed out through the wireless WHICH I DO NOT WANT even though the v4
> default route is out eth0.  Because wlan0 gets the RA later than the
> eth0 address in response to its RD (router discovery) request, it has a
> later expiration time on the routes so it gets preference over the eth0
> interface.  This is by design.  It's the way v6 is suppose to work and
> is how you renumber autoconfed v6 networks.  But is screws me over
> royally when I'm in a situation where I've got a hard wired network
> connection and the wireless is less than stable and keeps screwing up
> all my v6 connections.  Disabling it after logging in is useless because
> it has already brought it up and loaded the v6 routes with a new default
> and that then just breaks things.
> 
> I want wireless off and to STAY OFF unless I want it on and know that I
> want it on.  But I can't find a sticky setting that basically tells it
> to play dead and STAY DEAD.  (The wireless "switch" on my laptop only
> switches the bluetooth, unfortunately).
> 
> Mike
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