Ubuntu

How to configure dbus & Network Manager to NOT report network status

Asked by lsw

Hardy Heron Network Manager uses dbus to communicate the state of network connection to some other applications, notably firefox and evolution. Unfortunately Network Manager is ignorant of ppp connections. When a working ppp network connection is in effect, firefox, evolution, and certain other applications start in offline mode. In the case of firefox this is an inconvenience to say the least. For evolution, it is more serious, as there is no way to have it automatically check for email without manually opening the program and changing to online mode.

My question is, what changes can I make to change this to more reasonable behavior? Can dbus configuration be changed so that it always reports an active network to these applications? Can Network Manager be configured to always report that a network is active? Can a script be added to ppp to advertise a valid network connection via dbus that firefox etc can recognize?

Thanks

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Tang (robertmcgreg) said : 		#1

Wouldn' t installing firestarter easily solve your problem? It's already in the repositories.

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Sharar Ravitz (jewfro-macabbi) said : 		#2

You can remove network-manager, and network-manager-gnome. They aren't necessary. It may remove ubuntu-desktop as well, but don't panic - it's not a necessary package either.

I know you can have ppp start on boot via /etc/network/interfaces. Not sure about scripts for dbus.

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lsw (lwasserm-sdf) said : 		#3

Tang, I looked at your suggestion of firestarter, it is a firewall program. I don't see how it is applicable to my question. Please elaborate.

Yeshara, thanks for your suggestion. I have considered removing NM, in fact I did remove it for a while but reinstalled it. I use a laptop and connect to several wired and wireless networks at different locations. WIth a previous installation of dapper I used the /etc/network/interfaces configuration and ifplugd to handle wired nets, and wifi-radar for wireless. I may go back to that solution, perhaps using wicd instead of wifi-radar.

I'm hoping that someone who is familiar with Network Manager and/or dbus can tell me how to configure these programs so that dbus is aware of a ppp connection, and programs that check dbus for network state, like firefox and evolution, can query that information in the same way they do for Network Manager. I do not yet have enough knowledge to do so myself.

In a forum post, I saw some edits that could be made to the file /etc/dbus-1/system/NetworkManager.conf that did indeed prevent NetworkManager from reporting that no network was available. Unfortunately they also prevented Network Manager from seeing available ethernet or wifi nets, thus making it somewhat useless. I don't know enough myself to configure dbus for what I want it to do.

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Tang (robertmcgreg) said : 		#4

Hi, lsw
Confess I jumped in here way too deep for any expertise I may have. Then, I chose to lurk and allow more informed opinion to prevail.

However, as your question has been idle anyway, I'll answer your question to me, then lurk, to leave your question open again.

My reason for suggesting firestarter is presumption its in direct line with ppp access, and white and black lists can be determined and enforced from there.

Hope that explains, if not helps

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joe pellouchoud (llepeoj) said : 		#5

To get firefox to stop starting in the offline mode:

1.Start firefox
2.Type “about:config” in the address bar (without the quotes)
3.acknowledge that you promise to be careful
4.Type “toolkit” in the filter bar that comes up
5.Look for the line that says “toolkit.networkmanager.disable”
6.Double click on this line to toggle it to “TRUE”
7.Exit firefox
8.On the next restart the “work Offline” box should be unchecked.

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Tim Richardson (tim-richardson) said : 		#6

It is a good question. I'm a debian user with the same question. wvdial probably allows scripts to be run after a successful ppp connection, and it's possible to send dbus messages with scripts, so perhaps an answer is not too far away. I think the current version of network-manager has some support for ppp so for ubuntu users maybe that's the real answer.

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lrkwz (luca-orlandi) said : 		#7

If you resolve the firefox problem with “toolkit.networkmanager.disable” = true you will face the same problem with other program such as Empathy or Pidgin :-(

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