GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 567537
list interfaces not managed by NetworkManager on org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.Devices
Last modified: 2009-01-14 19:54:32 UTC
Several programs use NetworkManager (exclusively) to get a list of network interfaces on the system (to determine whether there's any connection to the internet). As NetworkManager stops managing _and_ listing interfaces that the user does any kind of manual configuration on (e.g. custom "up"-rule to enable Wake-on-LAN), these programs will stop working (see [1,2] for examples). Instead of having to add code to all of these programs (=> opportunity for bugs) to determine interfaces that are not managed by NetworkManager, it would be much better if NetworkManager provided a _complete_ list of interfaces (it already has the info and only needs to provide it). [1] http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=511495 [2] http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=511439
NetworkManager 0.7 can be used in many more situations than 0.6.6, and thus there are quite a lot fewer cases where "manual" control of the device is necessary with 0.7. I'd suggest using 0.7 instead of 0.6.6. That notwithstanding, the reason NM doesn't provide a list of devices that it does not control is that you simply woulnd't be able to get any information out of these devices, precisely becuase NetworkManager wouldn't be aware of their characteristics or settings, precisely because you've told NM not to manage them. Thus, it's pretty useless to add devices that NM doesn't control to the list, because for those devices, 90% of the D-Bus API that NetworkManager provides would be useless for them. NetworkManager is intended to control the primary internet connection. If that is not possible, then NetworkManager should be turned off.