debian network-manager

Tommo · 01-10-2010, 02:29 PM

Hi.

I have been trying to get network-manager up and running in order to connect to my work's VPN easily, but it is proving to be a real pain. I am using Debian Lenny.

I have it installed:

Code:

# aptitude search network-manager
i   network-manager                                        - network management framework daemon                                            
i A network-manager-gnome                                  - network management framework (GNOME frontend)                         
i A network-manager-openvpn                                - network management framework (OpenVPN plugin core)              
i A network-manager-openvpn-gnome                          - network management framework (OpenVPN plugin GNOME GUI)         
i   network-manager-pptp                                   - network management framework (PPTP plugin)                      
i A network-manager-pptp-gnome                             - network management framework (PPTP plugin)                      
i A network-manager-vpnc                                   - network management framework (VPNC plugin core)                 
i A network-manager-vpnc-gnome                             - network management framework (VPNC plugin GNOME GUI)

I then added myself to the group netdev and rebooted but it is still not running. What's more, when installing network-manager, aptitude has also installed resolvconf which screwed up my /etc/resolv.conf. It decided to make a symlink of resolv.conf to '/etc/resolvconf/run/resolv.conf' which doesn't exist and 'run' is itself a symlink to '/lib/init/rw/resolvconf' which doesn't exist! Talk about simplicity. So I just manually created and altered a new resolv.conf.

If anyone knows what is going on with network manager then any help would be much appreciated.

One last thing: I read that I need to comment out any configuration of eth0 from /etc/network/interfaces in order for network-manager to manage said interface. I previously had eth0 setup with a static IP. I trust network-manager will allow me to do this once it starts behaving?

Thanks

andywebsdale · 01-10-2010, 04:33 PM

If it behaves itself, NM works pretty well - I'm running squeeze & VPNs work fine & my eth0 is a static address. I'm not used to aptitude - does it install all the dependencies when you select a package like network-manager?
nm-applet is the app that should appear in your system tray, so you should have that,for example. Any clue in syslog etc as to what the error(s) are?
If you run nm-tool it'll tell you the status of NM.
It didn't used to work though, and for a long time I wouldn't go near it - it relies on d-bus, which is outside my knowledge comfort zone.It won't stand being fiddled with

Certainly worth reading the READMEs in /usr/share/doc/network-manager - explains about the /etc/network/interfaces thing - you can say if an interface is managed or not, so commenting out may not be necessary(though all mine are)
Maybe a backport (if there is one) of a newer version might work better?
The resolvconf thing is strange - my resolv.conf was generated by Network manager - not a symlink in sight

Tommo · 01-11-2010, 02:21 PM

Thanks Andy. Strangely, I uninstalled everything last night and tried again tonight and it is working fine. Perhaps it was the order in which I did things last time, who knows. For those who have found this through searching, I just did:

Code:

# adduser tommo netdev
# cat /etc/network/interfaces
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback
# aptitude install network-manager network-manager-gnome

This time resolvconf didn't mess things up. Also, I had to add 'Notification Area' to my panel in order to actually see nm-applet.

Quote:

I'm not used to aptitude - does it install all the dependencies when you select a package like network-manager?

It does yes. I have been using it for a while now as it was recommended over apt-get for various reasons. I've forgotten most of the reasons, but I believe it is better at resolving dependencies.

Quote:

I'm running squeeze & VPNs work fine & my eth0 is a static address

I've not been able to find out how to configure a static IP from network-manager yet. I have even read that it cannot be done.

andywebsdale · 01-11-2010, 04:54 PM

What I meant by "static address" is that I'm connecting to the internet through a router using NAT. I've got my wired connection(eth0) set to a fixed address (192.168.1.100) - the VPN connection only exists when its connected - that's ppp0. That address shouldn't be an issue - when the VPN's connected eth0 still has the same address & is routed to the internet still. ppp0 is just used for traffic to & from my work server.
I've got eth0 set to automatic, because the router is set to always hand out the same address, because it seems easier to configure the router this way. However, I thought you could set up a static IP by selecting 'Manual' from the drop-down under the 'IPv4 settings' tab. If I'm wrong about this, then if you've got a router that'll reserve addresses then it amounts to the same thing
Good Luck with things
Regards Andy

Tommo · 01-11-2010, 05:14 PM

My router is set to use DHCP and hands out address in the range 192.168.1.64-255. So to configure a static IP on my LAN, I just set it to an IP which resides outside of this range:

/etc/network/interfaces:

Code:

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
	address 192.168.1.2
	netmask 255.255.255.0
	gateway 192.168.1.1

But since I have to remove this from /etc/network/interfaces in order for network-manager to manage eth0, I no longer have the freedom to configure my IP as static. This is all I meant, I wasn't talking about VPN.

It doesn't really matter since I have no services running on my box, but it is sometimes nice to have a static IP for servers on your LAN. Incidentally, I have another computer under my desk which I use as a file/print server and for running torrents. I gave that a static IP.

Anyway, all is fine. Thanks Andy.

PS: FWIW, If you try to configure eth0 as static through System>Administration>Network, then network-manager will just ignore these settings.

Edit: Of course, I could just set a static IP through /etc/network/interfaces and then network-manager should leave eth0 alone.
Edit again: Apparently not - "NetworkManager only allows VPN connections if it is currently managing a connection"

bmeyer71 · 01-13-2010, 02:52 PM

Hi all.

This is a bit of a change in topic.
I am trying to set up a wireless connection using certificates and a radius server to make my wireless connection a bit more secure. The problem I am having is that on my client (Debian Squeeze) I am unable to configure a connection using the network-manager. I am unsure of what is supposed to be in all the fields for one, and secondly it doesn't seem to save the location to the certificates when I save and exit.

Does anyone know how I should be going about this or know of a good howto on setting up WPA-Enterprise and Network-Manager?

Thanks
Bjorn

andywebsdale · 01-13-2010, 05:09 PM

Here's an example of something similar maybe http://old.nabble.com/Clemson-tigern...d16123515.html
I do know from my past experiences with certificates that they're a steep learning curve