GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 752667
A sync feature for network manager?
Last modified: 2020-11-12 14:31:00 UTC
Hi all, Many of you might have faced a similar problem. You're reinstalling your system and suddenly lost all your previously existing network manager connections because you forgot to manually backup your connections stored in /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections. I am wondering what your opinion is on a built-in sync feature of Network Manager that is compatible with existing syncing solutions, e.g. Gnome Accounts, Google, or Firefox Sync. Would it be possible to allow syncing of connections across installations and devices? Thankfully, Robert
(In reply to Robert Orzanna from comment #0) > Hi all, > > Many of you might have faced a similar problem. You're reinstalling your > system and suddenly lost all your previously existing network manager > connections because you forgot to manually backup your connections stored in > /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections. If you use "keyfile" settings plugin (as you seem to do, mentioning system-connections directory), then all you need to copy your configuration is to backup /etc/NetworkManager. > I am wondering what your opinion is on a built-in sync feature of Network > Manager that is compatible with existing syncing solutions, e.g. Gnome > Accounts, Google, or Firefox Sync. Would it be possible to allow syncing of > connections across installations and devices? these sync mechanisms that you mention include some online storage where your data is uploaded. I think that is not advised security-wise. Maybe something that requires more manual interaction? There is the related bug 749363, with which we could implement some kind of import/export (or snapshot/restore) feature. I think these features should go hand-in-hand.
Hi Thomas, Sincere apologies for my late reply. > these sync mechanisms that you mention include some online storage where your data is uploaded. I think that is not advised security-wise. Maybe something that requires more manual interaction? I know that this is a sensitive area. I am wondering whether anyone in the Linux community is working on a 'trustworthy' sync interface. I feel this is something Linux is still weak at. It would be great if the Linux Foundation, for instance, would support such an centralised sync interface. So many applications could make great use of an automatic sync/backup feature to make it easier and more convenient for users to switch between different Linux ecosystems. Anyway, this goes far beyond this request, I feel... What is your personal opinion on this? Warmly, Robert
(In reply to Robert Orzanna from comment #2) > What is your personal opinion on this? I think, first we need to fix RFE bug 749363. That should bring a way to export/snapshot and import/restore the connection settings. Based on that, we should extend it to support a sync feature. We should have this special use-case in mind so that snapshots and sync work together. It should be possible to implement (e.g. ) Gnome-Accounts integration outside of NM -- using the snapshot/restore feature.
bugzilla.gnome.org is being shut down in favor of a GitLab instance. We are closing all old bug reports and feature requests in GNOME Bugzilla which have not seen updates for a long time. If you still use NetworkManager and if you still see this bug / want this feature in a recent and supported version of NetworkManager, then please feel free to report it at https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/NetworkManager/NetworkManager/-/issues/ Thank you for creating this report and we are sorry it could not be implemented (workforce and time is unfortunately limited).