[Server-devel] Hidden SSID and Proxy settings

[James Cameron]

On Thu, Mar 03, 2011 at 09:55:26PM -0600, Jerry Vonau wrote:
> On Thu, 2011-03-03 at 14:47 +1100, James Cameron wrote:
> > On Wed, Mar 02, 2011 at 10:38:07PM -0500, Dr. Gerald Ardito wrote:
> > > Both methods work within a session.
> > > In GNOME, I can connect to the hidden network. And, if I change back
> > > to Sugar, the connection is intact.
> > 
> > Yes.  NetworkManager still has knowledge of the hidden network
> > connection request in memory, having been told about it by the GNOME
> > nm-applet.
> > 
> > (Restarting NetworkManager at this point causes the connection to drop
> > and not be re-established.)
> > 
> 
> Well sort of, if you restart MN in a terminal in GNOME, ...

I was specifically talking about when the user has switched back to
Sugar.  That was the context.

> the connection is re-established, switch over to sugar the AP icon has
> the ESSID populated. This works if "Available to all users" was ticked
> as NM sees this as a system connection under root's control. Now open
> terminal in SUGAR and restart NM, now the ESSID is set to "None".
> While un-ticked you will be prompted for the info, which is saved in
> connections.cfg.  The difference might be that in GNOME you have
> gnome-keyring running while in SUGAR it's not. There is the question
> of who owns the connection while setup as an ifcfg file, root or olpc? 

I don't see where you are going with this, and I don't see how it is
relevant to Gerald.  So I'll try explaining things in the hope that our
mutual cognitive disconnect will eventually show up.

Some D-Bus service must provide the NetworkManagerSettings interface
from which NetworkManager obtains the list of connections or a new
connection.  The interface specification shows this:

http://projects.gnome.org/NetworkManager/developers/spec.html#org.freedesktop.NetworkManagerSettings

When GNOME is active, this is done by the panel applet.

When Sugar is active, this is done by the Sugar shell, in the source
file jarabe/model/network.py

Upon restart, without a settings service, NetworkManager will not know
about the user request to join the hidden network.  This also happens on
boot.

Once Sugar is started, NetworkManager is informed (through the settings
service in Sugar), of the user's request to connect.

> > > When I reboot, however, while the Wireless Connections UI (iin either
> > > GNOME or Sugar using nm) shows the connection properly, it does not
> > > actually connect to the hidden ssid.
> > 
> > Yes, I agree.  After reboot, NetworkManager is restarted, and therefore
> > no longer knows about the hidden network connection request.
> > 
> 
> Agreed, I'll look for how "Connect to Hidden Wireless network" runs its
> re-scan for the hidden network in the code. 

It doesn't do a wireless scan for hidden networks.  It only offers a
hidden network in the "Connect to Hidden Wireless network" if one was
created by the user.  If that network is deleted from the settings
service using "Edit Connections...", then "Connect to Hidden Wireless
network" does not offer it.  Tested.

> > The ONBOOT setting doesn't appear to work either.
> > 
> 
> On an un-hidden network it does, or at least loaded as the UI becomes
> usable.

Why should it wait for the UI to become usable?  That sounds like it is
waiting for the settings service to register with D-Bus.  Therefore it
is not using ifcfg as such.

> Gerald, does your AP have any security or is it just hidden?   

For what it is worth, my test AP on which ONBOOT did not work, has no
security, it is just hidden.

I agree with Gerald, the issue is now one of persistence.

-- 
James Cameron
http://quozl.linux.org.au/