GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 615702
NetworkManager reports some connections as active when they're offline
Last modified: 2010-12-17 05:00:35 UTC
Using cnetworkmanager (which is a nice little tool that talks to NetworkManager through dbus) I can see that NetworkManager has two connections marked active: ~ $ cnetworkmanager -s # system connections Active | Name | Type -------+-------------------+---------------- | Auto eth0 | 802-3-ethernet | Auto vboxnet0 | 802-3-ethernet | Auto <friend> | 802-11-wireless * | Auto <home> | 802-11-wireless ~ $ cnetworkmanager -u # user connections Active | Name | Type -------+-----------------+---------------- * | Auto <school> | 802-11-wireless | <school> | vpn (I replaced names with <aliases>.) In my mind, if my school network connection is offline, it should be marked inactive. The reason I noticed this is because I have a VPN auto-connect script which specifically asks for the status of network "Auto <school>" and then starts my VPN whenever that's active. Needless to say, it usually always connects to VPN because it's usually always marked as active. Interestingly enough, nm-applet seems to know stuff NetworkManager doesn't, because its Connection Info dialog only has the "Auto <home>" tab.
Created attachment 158669 [details] VPN auto-connect script Fwiw, here is the script I use, with the same configuration as noted in my first comment. I got the script from another bug report, and unfortunately I never noted the author name.
Authors deserve their credit, so since I found the original author, I'll put a link to his post here: http://mail.gnome.org/archives/networkmanager-list/2009-February/msg00098.html
When you see this situation, can you run 'nm-tool' and provide that output as well? It could be that cnetworkmanager isn't getting it quite right.
Created attachment 158989 [details] nm-tool output
Don't know why it's NEEDINFO? I provided the information as requested. Please change it back.
There are two issues here. First is that cnetworkmanager has a bug showing connections active that are not active. nm-tool does not show those connections active. Second, you're using the binary Broadcom driver (wl) which has known issues reporting the current active wifi AP. Some of those Broadcom driver issues have been fixed as shown here: http://cgit.freedesktop.org/NetworkManager/NetworkManager/commit/?h=NM_0_8&id=4880cc68b2e1a6580f30318c660c2f669b8f5708 Updating to NetworkManager 0.8.1 should fix the issues with Broadcom wl.o proprietary driver active access point reporting.