NetworkManager: A User's Review

[Dan]

Gene Heskett wrote:
> On Thursday 27 April 2006 02:12, Dan wrote:
>   
>> Gene Heskett wrote:
>>     
>>> On Wednesday 26 April 2006 20:00, Charles Curley wrote:
>>>       
>>>> On Wed, Apr 26, 2006 at 06:01:00PM -0500, Paul Johnson wrote:
>>>>         
>>>>> I asked about wireless support in this list a couple of days ago
>>>>> and people pointed me at NetworkManager.  It was not running on my
>>>>> system, perhaps because my system was installed with FC3 and then
>>>>> upgraded to FC4 and FC5, so new services were not activated as
>>>>> they would be in a fresh install.
>>>>>
>>>>> My experience is mixed.
>>>>>
>>>>> For the wired and non-encrypted wireless, it seems to be fine.
>>>>> HOwever, for the networks that require a WEP key, I can't log in
>>>>> with it. When I try with NM, it asks me for a WEP passphrase and
>>>>> it asks if I am in an "open network" or "shared network".   I
>>>>> don't know what those mean, but I've tried all combinations and it
>>>>> does not log in.
>>>>>
>>>>> On the other hand, with the key saved in
>>>>> /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts, the home network does come up,
>>>>> either from the command line:
>>>>>
>>>>> /sbin/ifup home
>>>>>
>>>>> or inside system-config-network.
>>>>>
>>>>> Can NetworkManager be made to read the WEP key as it is already
>>>>> set by system-config-network?
>>>>>           
>>>> This sounds suspiciouly like my experience until now. What I just
>>>> discovered is that NM does not like or play with 64 bit WEP keys.
>>>> You must use 128 bit WEP keys. You might check your AP for the size
>>>> of the keys.
>>>>         
>>> Mine are all 128 bit, it simply ignores them.
>>>       
>> You two seem to be having lots of trouble with NM, so I'd just like to
>> put it out there: works for me. No configuration in
>> system-config-network, any scripts, or anything, just a clean FC5
>> install, installed the ipw2200 driver, configured NM/NMDispatcher
>>     
>
> Unforch, it seems the ipw2200 driver is much more mature.  But does it 
> work with broadcom 4318 radio's
>
>   
>> services to start on start, and network to not, rebooted. Clicked the
>> nm-applet icon, connect to other network, entered WEP key (I've used
>> both 128 and 64 bit keys in both hex and ASCII versions, all work
>> fine), connect.
>>     
>
> NetworkManager has never asked me for a key.  Not once.
>
>   
>> The first time it took a long time but after that, 
>> what you'd expect, 5-10 seconds. I tried WPA once and it didnt work,
>> but I think that's not exactly a NM issue, I didn't have the
>> motivation to look into that. I usually just connect to my WEP router
>> with a wire anyway, and the wireless network i connect to just has a
>> VPN. This also works flawlessly by the way, with NetworkManager-vpnc.
>> NM doesn't read any keys set up for network, it stores them itself
>> when you enter them in its dialogs. It does however read settings for
>> static IP and such from network.
>>     
>
>   
>> Shared keys were originally intended to be a more secure way to
>> initiate connection with a WEP-protected access point, as the key
>> needs to be validated before a client can even connect, however this
>> actually makes it less secure, as the key can (theoretically) be
>> reverse engineered from the router's challenge broadcast. So open
>> authentication is recommended, and I believe it is the one NM is
>> intended to work with. There is definitely a lack of documentation
>> for NM, but thats probably because its a very simple GUI program
>> designed to "just work" and doesn't have a lot of advanced features
>> to document. I'm sure it will get better with time. I hope somehow
>> you two can get it working eventually, it's really very nice when it
>> works :).
>> -Dan
>>     
>
> This broadcom radio works well also, when set for fixed addresses, known 
> keys and matching ESSID's.  But the discovery of a lan out in the field 
> is very difficult when you've NDI what the key is.  Between that and no 
> dhcpd action when its configured to use it, its very damned 
> discouraging.  I did find some updated NetworkManager stuffs on 
> updates-testing and installed tonight them but it made no diff, it 
> still doesn't use the keys-wlan0 file thats there for it to use, nor 
> does it ask me for a key.
>
>
>   
To clarify: are you seeing the secured networks on the drop-down menu of 
the applet? If so, when you select them it doesn't prompt you for a key, 
and so isn't able to connect? If you select connect to other wireless 
network, it comes up with a prompt including the key. You're saying the 
issue is the you don't know what the SSID of the network you'd like to 
connect to is? In this, I agree, NM has never been consistent in showing 
me SSIDs of secured networks, in FC4 I had to "service NetworkManager 
restart" for my WEP router to show up in the list, very annoying.
-Dan