NetworkManager: how to select wireless interface

Bill Davidsen davidsen at tmr.com
Mon Jun 9 19:40:13 UTC 2008


Mike C wrote:
> Andrea <mariofutire <at> googlemail.com> writes:
> 
>> I just would like to know if it is possible to choose which interface to
>> use, and in case NM wants to connect both, how do I choose the default
>> gateway? I've seen it chosen at random so far.
> 
> Equally at some point no doubt someone will want to have NM able to connect
> to either a wire or a wireless interface - and then it should be part of
> normal operation to be able to select wired or wireless.
> 
> One reason some people don't use NM is because it seems not obvious that
> NM can actually do this. If it can the documentation should be easily available
> so that users can get at it easily.
> 
NM has been around since FC6, people have had these complaints since 
FC6, nothing has gotten better since FC6. Actually, since some 
system-config tools have been removed, things have gotten worse. There 
is no good documentation, there is only a raft of incomplete and in some 
cases contradictory documents from various uncoordinated sources.

If you have anything as simple as a laptop with both cable and wireless 
NIC, good luck trying to define which to use where. If you add a modem, 
there seems to be some path by which NM will try to use it for PPP. And 
if you have multiple wireless networks available, I have no idea how NM 
picks which to use other that "not the same one in a deterministic manner."

What is needed is named configurations, which allow you to specify 
exactly what each NIC will do, masks, etc. Also WEP/WSA settings, not 
trying DHCP before WSA, only trying DHCP when to to, using static IP 
addresses.

I've given up on point-to-point, the whole concept is ignored.

NM seems to make the assumption that the user is a moron, and NM must 
make the decisions and not let the user change them. Either that or it 
assumes that the user has read the developer's mind and knows voodoo to 
make NM do anything beyond the simplest configuration.

-- 
Bill Davidsen <davidsen at tmr.com>
   "We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from
the machinations of the wicked."  - from Slashdot




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