Re: Disabling wireless networking.

[Dan Williams <dcbw redhat com>]

On Thu, 2010-03-18 at 12:00 -0400, Michael H. Warfield wrote:
> On Thu, 2010-03-18 at 11:43 -0300, José Queiroz wrote:
> > Sorry for the naive answer, but, if you're not using wireless, why do
> > you have a wireless adapter in your system?
> 
> It's a laptop (high end developer laptop) with built in bluetooth and
> 802.11 a/b/g/n wifi.  Why do I have it?  I am using it.  Sometimes when
> I don't have hard wired.  It's build-in so removing it is non-trivial
> and sort of senseless if you think about it.
> 
> > Is this some kind of mobile device, like a noteboot/netbook? Doesn't
> > it have some kind of "rfkill" button???
> 
> It does but it only controls the bluetooth for some reason.  My previous
> laptop, it controlled both but not this one for some reason.  It's my
> understanding that the switch is a soft switch, in any case, which does
> not physically or electrically disable the device itself and depends on
> the OS and drivers to do the right thing.  So it may be a driver issue
> at that.  But should it be in the kernel drivers or handled by NM?  I
> don't see the Wifi antenna symbol light up until NM is active.

The other alternative is blacklisting the kernel module that controls
the wifi device.

Dan


> Regardless, it should be possible to configure NM to do what I want, not
> arbitrarily always what it thinks it should in spite of what I've set it
> to.  That's been my perpetual complaint about NM.  I concur with the
> idea that things should just work out of the box, but then it should
> obey what I want it to do, if I don't want it to do what it's doing.
> It's a vast improvement over the bad old days where almost nothing was
> properly configurable and I'm glad to see that this, at least, has been
> already addressed in a newer release and that I'm not the only one with
> this annoyance.  That's progress.
> 
> Mike
> 
> > 2010/3/15 Michael H. Warfield <mhw wittsend com>
> >         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.
> >         
> >         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
> >         --
> >         Michael H. Warfield (AI4NB) | (770) 985-6132 |
> >          mhw WittsEnd com
> >           /\/\|=mhw=|\/\/          | (678) 463-0932 |
> >          http://www.wittsend.com/mhw/
> >           NIC whois: MHW9          | An optimist believes we live in
> >         the best of all
> >          PGP Key: 0x674627FF        | possible worlds.  A pessimist is
> >         sure of it!
> >         
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> >         
> > 
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