NM: the usual rant

[Robert L Cochran]

>> Part of the problem here is understanding the difference between the
>> network service and the NetworkManager service. The network service
>> will connect before you log in, while the NetworkManager service
>> connects after you log in. You normally want to run only one of
>> these services. I like the network service for servers and desktops,
>> and the NetworkManager service for laptops. (I need to be able to
>> connect to my desktop even if nobody is logged in.) You can have
>> both services running at the same time, but you have to make sure
>> you have the interfaces that you do not want NetworkManager to
>> control marked as such.
>>
>>     
> To add to the discussion, NM doesn't connect to the network without a
> gui. That seems a rather shortsighted design. I found this the hard
> way today when my gui got screwed after an update and some ill
> considered tinkering.
>   
What you and Mikkel say make me realize I'm the one who is the dummy
here. I was assuming that NetWorkManager will automatically connect to
my hidden wireless network after I did the setup work after choosing
System --> Administration --> Network, and supplying my network details.
Maybe that GUI has nothing to do with NetworkManager. But I didn't think
of this at the time. I saved the settings in that GUI, got a message
indicating I may want to restart my network, and without thinking that
the 'network' service is turned off in chkconfig for all runlevels
anyhow, I merrily typed away 'service network restart'. Ouch.

It looks like I have to click the gui icon on the top right of my
desktop showing two computer monitors and then select either a visible
network name, or 'Connect to hidden network...' for the first time one
does a wireless connection. I'll reboot soon to see if it connects
automatically from here on.

Apparently there is a settings file in
/etc/NetworkManager/nm-system-settings.conf that one can work with, but
mine only has the text

[main]
plugins=ifcfg-fedora

and there seems very little NetworkManager documentation to start with.
Maybe it is all in the wiki.

Bob

>> Mikkel
>> --
>>
>> A:  Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
>> Q:  Why is top-posting a bad thing?
>>     
>
> nice sig :P
>
>