HOWTO: NetworkManager with LEAP support

[navsx]

Well, nm-applet is not part of the NetworkManager svn repository anymore. It needs to be checked out seperately:

svn co http://svn.gnome.org/svn/network-manager-applet/trunk network-manager-applet

Unfortunately, the latest code doesn't support wireless yet. While NetworkManager itself seems to work fine, the applet doesn't have code to get wireless working.

I tried a few older revisions (Feb 1st cvs and then the binaries by misha) on feisty, but just couldn't get LEAP working. I guess I'll wait for the cvs code to support wireless.

[misha680]

Well, nm-applet is not part of the NetworkManager svn repository anymore. It needs to be checked out seperately:

svn co http://svn.gnome.org/svn/network-manager-applet/trunk network-manager-applet

Unfortunately, the latest code doesn't support wireless yet. While NetworkManager itself seems to work fine, the applet doesn't have code to get wireless working.

I tried a few older revisions (Feb 1st cvs and then the binaries by misha) on feisty, but just couldn't get LEAP working. I guess I'll wait for the cvs code to support wireless.

I am sorry you are having trouble. I am not switching to Feisty yet but when I do (not 100% sure when that will be as I remember having a fair number of problems switching from Dapper -> Edgy Beta) when I do will figure out how to get LEAP+NM to work and post here.

Misha

[rasputin84]

there is package for feisty? i can use same tar of edgy?

[misha680]

there is package for feisty? i can use same tar of edgy?

I woulds strongly encourage everyone to sign on here:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...er/+bug/108369

requesting an update of Feisty's NetworkManager to 0.6.5. 0.6.5
includes LEAP, but packaging it is not straightforward as the applet
is separated from the rest of networkmanager unlike in previous version.

For now you can use wpa_supplicant. Just make a wpa_supplicant.conf file somewhere (I like in /etc and make it read-write for root, no read or write for everyone else since it will contain your network password in cleartext):

ap_scan=2

network={
        ssid="your ssid"
        scan_ssid=1
        auth_alg=OPEN
        key_mgmt=IEEE8021X
        eap=LEAP
        identity="username"
        password="pass"
}

And then start the connection with the following commands (using your interface name instead of eth0):

sudo wpa_supplicant -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -ieth0 -Dwext -B
sudo dhclient eth0

Sorry I don't have more at the moment.

Misha

[robbie75]

Hi Misha,
I was just managing to build Feisty package of nm-0.7 from svn,
everything seems fine except for the fact that I don't know how to get
separeted debs for lib-nm, nm, nm applet... actually all I get is one big
package for nm/libnm-glib/libnm-utils and one for the applet....

Hints?

thank you
Rob

[misha680]

Hi Misha,
I was just managing to build Feisty package of nm-0.7 from svn,
everything seems fine except for the fact that I don't know how to get
separeted debs for lib-nm, nm, nm applet... actually all I get is one big
package for nm/libnm-glib/libnm-utils and one for the applet....

Hints?

thank you
Rob

hmm... well are you using checkinstall to build these debs or how are you doing it?

Usually for a "proper" deb, you need a debian directory with all sorts of things like a rules file that tells debian (or Ubuntu) how to build the package. An easy way to do this, and how I did this for my CVS packages, is simply to get the source for the existing package:

apt-get source network-manager

(note this is done _without_ using sudo, as it just retrieves the source code and unpacks it into a directory). Then, you can copy the whole debian directory to the network manager SVN directory, tweak the rules file (mainly in terms of patches applied as most of the patches in the package won't apply to SVN, and some of the file names changed too like some of the manual pages). However, for this new split applet approach that network manager 0.6.5 and svn are using, much more tweaking is needed of the debian/rules files, and although I have figured out a lot of things about these files I have not yet delved in deeply enough to make these significant changes yet (and plus since LEAP support is now in an "official" release 0.6.5 it is only a matter of time before this version becomes the Ubuntu "official" version anyhow, and I would rather have someone who is a MOTU and really knows what they are doing package it anyhow).

But in any case, once you are done tweaking debian/rules and other files in the debian directory, you can compile with the dpkg-buildpackage utility, usually the following command is used:

dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot -us -uc

Hope that helped and was not things you already knew. Let me know if you have any more questions and I'll try to answer them if I am able to.

Misha

[robbie75]

Hi misha!
Thank you for you detailed info!

hmm... well are you using checkinstall to build these debs or how are you doing it?

I'm using dh_make along with dpkg-buildpackage as explained in the first post of this thread and
in another guide about debian packaging I've found in this forum.

Usually for a "proper" deb, you need a debian directory with all sorts of things like a rules file that tells debian (or Ubuntu) how to build the package. An easy way to do this, and how I did this for my CVS packages, is simply to get the source for the existing package:

apt-get source network-manager

great hint!
I'll try that asap

(note this is done _without_ using sudo, as it just retrieves the source code and unpacks it into a directory). Then, you can copy the whole debian directory to the network manager SVN directory, tweak the rules file (mainly in terms of patches applied as most of the patches in the package won't apply to SVN, and some of the file names changed too like some of the manual pages). However, for this new split applet approach that network manager 0.6.5 and svn are using, much more tweaking is needed of the debian/rules files, and although I have figured out a lot of things about these files I have not yet delved in deeply enough to make these significant changes yet (and plus since LEAP support is now in an "official" release 0.6.5 it is only a matter of time before this version becomes the Ubuntu "official" version anyhow, and I would rather have someone who is a MOTU and really knows what they are doing package it anyhow).

I'd really like to have the latest nm-0.7 as an official package since in that version seems to be full
support for dial-up connections which I use very often...

But in any case, once you are done tweaking debian/rules and other files in the debian directory, you can compile with the dpkg-buildpackage utility, usually the following command is used:

dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot -us -uc

Hope that helped and was not things you already knew. Let me know if you have any more questions and I'll try to answer them if I am able to.

Misha

Your hints are very useful to me and now I think it should be easier building the package:
I'll let you know
thank you again!
Rob

[misha680]

New packages with all the patches from the 0.6.4 included except 10, 12, 13, 14, and 16, which don't seem to apply cleanly b/c of actualy changes in the underlying code b/w 0.6.4 & 0.6.5.

Feisty debs.

Ok, here y'all go. These are feisty debs for 0.6.5 that I made after seeing so much demand, works for me with LEAP.

The debs are in the file nm-0.6.5-feisty.tar.bz2. The rest of the files are source debs for ppl who need to recompile.

Misha

p.s. You might have to do

sudo dpkg -i *.deb

twice as I had to move some stuff from network-manager-gnome in 0.6.4 to network-manager in 0.6.5 (now network-manager-gnome is just the applet).

[robbie75]

Great job Misha

Apart from leap, have you tried to connect via dial-up?
With nm-0.6.4 I was able to do that but nm did not inform
dbus about the dial-up connection so several apps stayed
in disconnected mode.

On launchpad, bug 108369 I've found a nm-0.7 package
http://librarian.launchpad.net/76524...061010.tar.bz2
which seems a little bit more recent than the one I'm using now;
I think I'll give it a try and let you know

Best
Robert

[misha680]

Great job Misha

Apart from leap, have you tried to connect via dial-up?
With nm-0.6.4 I was able to do that but nm did not inform
dbus about the dial-up connection so several apps stayed
in disconnected mode.

On launchpad, bug 108369 I've found a nm-0.7 package
http://librarian.launchpad.net/76524...061010.tar.bz2
which seems a little bit more recent than the one I'm using now;
I think I'll give it a try and let you know

Best
Robert

I think the one on launchpad is my edge debs from the very top of this thread. Don't use dialup so I'm not sure, sorry.

Misha

p.s. Just to save anyone else time, I first tried making debs of the current svn version, but that version of the applet currently doesn't
allow any connections to wireless networks (and prints a FIXME message to let you know that functionality is not implemented yet).