KubuntuFeistyNetworking

Revision 6 as of 2006-11-10 19:23:25

Clear message

Please check the status of this specification in Launchpad before editing it. If it is Approved, contact the Assignee or another knowledgeable person before making changes.

Summary

Kubuntu is lacking static configuration for WPA networks (knetworkconf), better handling of network availability by key applications (kopete, kmail...) and have to reduce some duplication (knetworkmanager, wlassistant).

Rationale

Good networking support is critical, particularly for mobile people.

Use cases

  • John is a mobile user. He needs to connect to different wireless networks when traveling. He can use network-manager tray icon to get list of different wireless network and can easily connect with any of supported security modes (WEP, WPA, RADIUS...). He would also like to detect network services in the environment, like network printer.
  • Nancy does a lots of meetings during the day, switching meeting rooms and plugging/unplugging network several times. She would like that her mail and chat client detect network state and would automatically and gracefully disconnect/reconnect when network state change.

Scope

Reconsider Kubuntu network configuration applications after inclusion of network-manager and avahi in default Feisty install. Make key applications network aware.

Design

  • Switch to knetworkmanager as default application for wire/wireless network management (see NetworkRoaming)

  • Remove configuration options for Zeroconf networking to ensure just-works experience (see ZeroConfNetworking)

  • Improve mail/chat/IRC clients to gracefully handle network disconnects/reconnects.

Implementation

  • Install knetworkmanager by default and drop wlassistant from default install and CD.

  • Remove "Zeroconf Service Discovery" from System settings as it is not needed anymore (avahi should just work).
  • Incorporate Kmail/Kopete/Konversation patches to gracefully handle network disconnects/reconnects
    • Kopete/Konversation: automatically reconnect, no error if network is unavailable
    • KMail: go to offline mode if not connected, no (or less invasive) errors if network is down

    • SuSE includes [http://developer.kde.org/~binner/distributor-patches/SUSE some patches in OpenSuse 10.1] and they should be evaluated for inclusion in Kubuntu

Unresolved issues

  • Static IP configuration with WPA: knetworkconf does only WEP - user will need to edit config files if WPA is needed with static IP config. Guidance network configuration module would be nice replacement for knetworkconf, but it would require quite some work to implement

CategorySpec