Status

• Created: by JohanKiviniemi, MarioDanic

• Priority: LowPriority

• Maintainers: JohanKiviniemi, MarioDanic

• Contributors: AdamConrad, LukaRenko

• Interested:

• Status: Building packages, DapperGoal

• Branch:
• Malone Bug:
• Packages:
• Depends:

• UduSessions:

• Current needs: As much testers as possible

Dapper Network Manager

NetworkManager aims for Network Connectivity which "Just Works". The computer should use the wired network connection when its plugged in, but automatically switch to a wireless connection when the user unplugs it and walks away from the desk. Likewise, when the user plugs the computer back in, the computer should switch back to the wired connection. The user should, most times, not even notice that their connection has has been managed for them; they should simply see uninterrupted network connectivity.

NetworkManager that "has the chance" of being integrated into Dapper will feature support for WPA and 802.1x as well. We will also provide l-r-m packages with updated wifi drivers.

There is GNOME (nm-applet) and KDE ([:KNetworkmanager:knetworkmanager]) front-end that runs in sys tray and provides control over NetworkManager.

More information about NetworkManager is available [http://www.gnome.org/projects/NetworkManager/ here] .

NetworkManager is beta software.

Installation

• Add the following to /etc/apt/sources.list:

  deb     http://kubuntu.no-ip.org/kubuntu dapper main
  deb-src http://kubuntu.no-ip.org/kubuntu dapper main

• Run sudo apt-get update

• Run sudo apt-get install network-manager nm-applet

Note: If you are running Kubuntu/KDE, then you should be installing [:DapperKNetworkmanager:KNetworkManager].

The repository contains the following packages:

• network-manager, nm-applet (by us)

• libnl, a dependency of n-m 0.6 (by TomParker)

• libnl-dev (patched by us and the [:DapperKNetworkmanager] maintainers)

• wpasupplicant 0.4 with the required feature for n-m backported from 0.5 (by ReinhardTartler)

And also:

• knetworkmanager (by AnthonyMercatante, a patch from LukaRenko)

• linux-restricted-modules (patched so that madwifi users can use WPA networks with n-m)

  • (built by AdamConrad)

Notes

Network-manager doesn't manage interfaces with manual configuration defined in /etc/network/interfaces. To get n-m to manage all the interfaces properly, backup /etc/network/interfaces and remove everything except the lines concerning the lo interface. You can leave your wired/wireless interfaces only if they are set to auto and dhcp (and no other options!) - the only allowed config for NM is the following two lines (replace eth1 with your interface):

•   auto eth1
    iface eth1 inet dhcp

WPA users: you need to set "ENABLED=0" in /etc/default/wpasupplicant and ensure than wpasupplicant is not running. NM will take care for controlling wpasupplicant.

Discussion about these packages is also going on in this [http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=147249 forum thread]. There is also older [http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=145230 thread].where you may find useful info.

If it does not work for you, you may get more info from messages reported by NM processes - see this [http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=843493&postcount=31 forum post] for instructions.

New kernel builds are on the way, and once that happens, a new linux-restricted-modules will replace our patched package. Once the new kernel builds are out, we will work hard to rebuild the package, so that it works for the new kernel build as well. When that happens, you can just upgrade the system.

Issues

• NM tries to connect WEP instead of WPA - removing key from keyring helps - see [http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=838801&postcount=22 forum post] and [http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=843585&postcount=32 forum post]

• madwifi driver does not support bacground scan, causing disconnects due to NM network scanning - see [http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=841815&postcount=37 forum post]

  • can NM network scan be disabled/limited when connection is established (only done on disconnect or when user opens applet menu)?

  • can bacground scan feature be backported from madwifi-ng driver back to Ubuntu madwifi - see [http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=841872&postcount=38 forum post]

• madwifi doesn't report status in percentages, but rather in [wiki:WikiPedia/Rssi RSSI]

Comments

Please do not edit this page directly, place your comments here. Thanks.

* Please consider this patch (http://mail.gnome.org/archives/networkmanager-list/2006-January/msg00141.html) to NM to get the best functionality from madwifi seeing as the madwifi project are hesitant to change anything. Robert Love is including it to Redhat/Fedora (I believe) and Dan refuses to commit it to upstream (fair enough).