On Fri, 2012-12-07 at 11:39 -0600, Dan Williams wrote:
> On Fri, 2012-12-07 at 14:50 +0200, Mark Elkins wrote:
> > Hi, I have several questions regarding NetworkManager.
> > I'm using net-misc/networkmanager-0.9.4.0-r6 USE="avahi bluetooth
> > dhcpcd gnutls introspection modemmanager ppp wext -connection-sharing
> > -dhclient -doc -nss -resolvconf -wimax" (Gentoo-3.5.3, without
> > '~amd64', on a 64-bit Dell XPS Laptop)
> >
> > The wireless card is (from 'lshw' command)
> >
> > product: Centrino Wireless-N 1030 [Rainbow Peak]
> > vendor: Intel Corporation
> > capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical
> > wireless
> > configuration: broadcast=yes driver=iwlwifi driverversion=3.5.3-gentoo
> > firmware=17.168.5.2 build 35905 ip=160.124.48.9 latency=0 link=yes
> > multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bgn
> >
> > Everything more or less works fine, much better than when I was just
> > running wpa_supplicant with its own Gnome-2 GTK gui-interface.
> > There are some Gotcha's though.
> >
> > 1 - WPA-Supplicant would show all access points, giving SSID, Channel
> > (1-14), strength (just not BSSID). I found this behaviour *very* useful.
> > One had the opportunity to either have the same settings (PassPrase,
> > etc) for all AP's with the same SSID, or a setting per BSSID. I have
> > three different AP's at home, same SSID & PassPhrase. I still like to
> > choose which one I connect to, or if one is missing, clue as to which
> > one it i.
>
> NM supports "locking" a connection to a specific BSSID, which you do via
> the "BSSID" entry in nm-connection-editor. So you'd create three
> different connections, each named something different (My SSID 1, My
> SSID 2, etc), but set them all to the same SSID and passphrase, but lock
> each one to it's specific BSSID.
I understand...
> > $ nmcli dev wifi - will give me the info (except Frequency rather than
> > channel No.) but I'd like to see that in the GUI.
> > The ability to immediately 'see' was very useful at the last IGF meeting
> > in Baku, I could see that the conference SSID was on the same channel at
> > about the same strength - so I could see there was going to be an
> > interference problem. (The 2.4 Wifi issues in Baku is another story!)
>
> It might be reasonable to show this in nm-applet's "Connection
> information" menu (patches accepted), but it's unlikely we'll ever show
> it in the actual dropdown menu scan list for space reasons.
If its in "Connection information" - then have not we just connected to
that AP? I'd prefer to be able to see it *before* making a connection.
If its screen real-estate you are worried about - drive it via an option
setting. You only need to show the alternatives for the SSID the mouse
is on.
> > 2a - I was using a Hook in dhcpcd to send back a secured nsupdate of my
> > current IPv4 address. I've moved this code into
> > '/etc/NetworkManager/dispatcher.d'. Ethernet connections work fine but
> > wireless connections often do not have all the IPv4 variables set. I
> > think its because DHCPCD has not yet got an IP address. How do I get a
> > trigger sent to me after DHCP has finished?
> > IPv6: I use RA's. No dhcpv6 server yet. My Kernel also creates a random
> > IPv6 address for my laptop. I'd love for all IPv6 addresses to be
> > available as Variables so I can do some DHCP Hook magic.
>
> NetworkManager runs both in parallel, and the first one that finishes
> "wins" and the NetworkManager says it's online. It does this so that
> you don't block for 2 minutes or more waiting for an RA that will never
> come if the network isn't IPv6 enabled. In your case, IPv6 finishes
> first, but you should be able to use the "dhcp4-change" event to get the
> updated DHCP4 info. If that doesn't happen, then we should fix that.
> Even better, we should have an ip4-change/ip6-change event which handles
> these.
I like the idea of a "change event" driven handler. Makes the most
sense.
> > 2b - I have a 'dispatcher' script to re-write my resolv.conf:
> > cat /etc/resolv.conf{.head,,.tail} 2>/dev/null > /etc/resolv.conf.tmp
> > mv -f /etc/resolv.conf.tmp /etc/resolv.conf
> > This also doesn't work as expected. It seems NetworkManager re-writes
> > 'resolv.conf' once again after dhcpcd has done its work, after
> > dispatcher has run.
>
> What are you trying to add to resolv.conf? If you're trying to do local
> caching nameserver, NetworkManager has that functionality built-in via
> dnsmasq, including the ability to add custom dnsmasq configuration. If
> you're trying to add search domains, you could add this via "prepend"
> functionality to dhclient config files which get picked up by NM too.
>
> There is a need for more flexible DNS configuration though, and there
> we've got some plans there.
I've installed the latest (according to Gentoo) NM, 0.9.6.4. I've also
included the 'resolvconf' flag to the compile - which adds the necessary
control.
Gentoo speak: net-misc/networkmanager-0.9.6.4 USE="avahi bluetooth
connection-sharing dhcpcd doc gnutls introspection modemmanager ppp
resolvconf wext -dhclient -nss -systemd -vala -wimax"
> > 3 - Network Device priorities: in my 'NetBook', I have a GSM/3G sim
> > card. I'd like it that if I'm out of Access point coverage, the 3G
> > works, but once in 'known' AP range, 3G is switched off and WiFi runs,
> > and if I plug into a wired Ethernet, that takes over. I've been caught
> > more than once that when plugged in to Ethernet, data (a large, multi
> > Gig file for entertainment purposes) was being copied over the Wifi over
> > IPv6, where as I had my (dhcp-assigned) IPv4 (& IPv6) address on my
> > Ethernet.
> > The old WPA-Supplicant worked 'fine', ie switch off the Wifi when
> > plugged into the Ethernet.
>
> Not sure how that happened, since the supplicant doesn't do anything
> with wired. What likely happened here was that dhclient-script rewrote
> your default route to point to wired whenever it got a least. The
> problem is that in this scenario, you'd have two dhclients runing, one
> for ethernet and one for wifi, and whenever a renew happens, each one
> ovewrites the other one. Unless you have something like resolvconf
> enabled, in which case I'd assume you have priority rules for eth* and
> wlan*.
>
> In any case, this isn't possible with NetworkManager, though you can
> emulate it through the use of dispatcher scripts. For example, when
> NetworkManager signals that eth0 is "up", you could use 'nmcli nm wifi
> off' to kill wifi entirely. When NM signals that eth0 is "down", you
> can 'nmcli nm wifi on' to turn it back on. Same goes for wlan0 up/down.
> This doesn't cover all cases, but quite a few of them.
Thanks Dan but what I think one needs to do is to add a priority to
connections and when more than one connection is possible, always just
go for the 'best' (whatever that means - lowest number=highest
priority?). If there are two different types of connections available
with the same priority (and it makes sense) use both, ie - what happens
now.
--
. . ___. .__ Posix Systems - (South) Africa
/| /| / /__ mje posix co za - Mark J Elkins, Cisco CCIE
/ |/ |ARK \_/ /__ LKINS Tel: +27 12 807 0590 Cell: +27 82 601 0496
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