NetworkManager Is Driving Me Crazy!

[Rick Bilonick]

On Fri, 2008-03-21 at 11:30 -0500, Paul Johnson wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 20, 2008 at 2:13 PM, Rick Bilonick <rab at nauticom.net> wrote:
> > When I first set up Fedora 8, I had some problems getting wlan0 (via
> >  ndiswrapper) working. Now I can prevent wlan0 from being activated, even
> >  when I'm using a wired connection via eth0.
> >
> 
> Step back from the details a minute. This post reminded me of a debate
> we had here last week about wireless. I think some extra services are
> running on your laptop.  Also, I think there is some miscommunication
> about what it means to have wireless "on".
> 
> You say you have to kill wpa_supplicant manually, and I think that is
> a sign of the first mis-configuration.  The wpa_supplicant service
> should be turned off in system-config-services.  In there you should

wpa_supplicant is not turned on by system-config-services. (If I would
try to enable it via system-config-services, it would always fail to
start at boot - I could see this in the boot up display. But I never
have it enabled yet it always starts at some point.)


> also have the network service turned off.   

network is enabled to start at boot (I'm at home using my wireless
connection) and here is the status:

Configured devices:
lo eth0 wlan0
Currently active devices:
lo wlan0


I was afraid to turn this off for fear of screwing up ALL network
connections. So you are saying that this should NOT be used with
NetworkManager?

> NetworkManager can start a
> wpa_supplicant process if it needs one, and it will turn it off for
> you when  you stop the NetworkManager.
> 
> If you turn off NetworkManager and NetworkManagerDispatcher as well,
> then it is absolutely impossible for  the laptop to automatically
> bring up a wireless connection.  It just can't happen.
> 
> Now, if you run "/sbin/ifconfig" you should see no devices.  Do you see devices?

I will try this at the office on Monday.

> 
> My situation is like yours. I have wireless various places, and also a
> static IP at the office.
> 
> I leave NetworkManager turned on. (network is off, wpa_supplicant is
> off). When I go to the office and start up, NM tries to search for
> wireless networks and join them, but always fails.  It searches for
> wired DHCP as well.  As soon as the network icon appears in the panel,
> then I click on that icon (nm-applet is the program it comes from) and
> turn off networking.  Note I mean turn off all networking, not just
> wireless.
> 
> Then I open a terminal and manually turn on my configured wired
> device, either with system-config-network or "/sbin/ifup eth0"  (were
> I did the configuration before with s-c-n).
> 
> After turning on the wire, I read the contents of "/etc/resolv.conf"
> to make sure the DNS server is correct.  It is almost never correct,
> because without DHCP running, I have the last valid name server.
> Sometimes it is correct, and I think that is because, before I stopped
> NetworkManager, it scanned the environment and found a server that was
> willing to tell it the DNS.  But that doesn't always happen.
> 
> Even after going through this exercise, I still generally see the
> wlan0 device listed in /sbin/ifconfig output.  IT is listed, but it is
> not associated, it has not obtained an IP number, and it does not
> cause trouble (yet).
> 
> PJ
> 
> -- 
> Paul E. Johnson
> Professor, Political Science
> 1541 Lilac Lane, Room 504
> University of Kansas
> 

Well I go through the process I described and always have to type in the
DNS info every time I use a wired connection at the office. So in the
end what I've been doing isn't any more work than what you're doing.

I thought the whole idea of NetworkManager was to make connecting to
networks transparent but if it doesn't work with wired connections with
fixed IP's it cannot be that usable for many people. It appears to be a
major design flaw. (I'm not saying I won't continue to use it - it does
make connecting to wireless networks easier and it's the only way I've
found to connect to networks using WPA.)

Rick B.