Connection Manager: a new wireless manager

[compwiz18]

Connection Manager is now wicd.

See http://wicd.net for more details and downloads, as well as features and forums for troubleshooting.

A quick summary: support for wireless and wired networks, with individual settings for each network, autoconnect at boot, tray icons. See http://wicd.net/features.php for a more complete list.

We decided to move everything to the wicd website, so that we will have a single place for all communications regarding wicd.

I will leave the older info up for reference.


Connection Manager

Features

• New! - Ability to configure wired networks with DHCP...the ability to use static IPs will come soon
• New! - Only for Edgy: System tray applet, displays signal strength - works in any window manager
• Connect to WPA 1&2 enabled networks using WPA supplicant automatically (see note below)
• Connect to WEP enabled networks
• Remembers network keys
• Ability to change the driver WPA supplicant uses
• Connect at boot (automatically, without entering password)
• Connect at resume from suspend
• View signal strengths (works with ndiswrapper too)
• Sorts networks in strength order, with strongest at the top
• Allow you to set and change the interface used
• Use network profiles...
• Have different static or dynamic IP settings for each network you connect to
• Specify static DNS servers for each network
• Choose whether to connect automatically on a per-network basis

Screenshots

• Main Window
• Network Preference Window

Download
This .deb contains only Connection Manager, it does NOT contain the systray app. For that, please scroll down.

After you installation, a menu item will be in Applications / Internet / Connection Manager.

Download (.deb)

Systray Download - For Edgy Only
THE SYSTEM TRAY ICON MUST BE ENABLED BEFORE IT WILL APPEAR!

This can be done by adding it to your window manager's session

in GNOME: go to System -> Preferences -> Sessions, and clicking Startup Programs, and adding connection-manager-systray
in KDE: create a symlink of /opt/connection-manager/systray in this folder: ~/.kde/autostart/

Everyone else: figure it out for yourself, and then post directions on this thread, and I'll add them here.

Download (.deb)

Notes

WPA
Most WPA networks will work easily with Connection Manager, but some may require additional work. If you WPA network does not work with the default Connection Manager settings, edit /opt/connection-manager/data/wpa_supplicant.conf using normal wpa_supplicant syntax (see man wpa_supplicant.conf for more info). This is the configuration file Connection Manager will use to launch wpa_supplicant. If you need help, you can look at this tutorial: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=202834

Updates
The entire program will be updated constantly, so check back every once in a while for new updates.

Upcoming features:

• ability to connect to hidden networks

Versions

Current status: Beta
Current version: 1.3.2 (Bug fix)

All versions are on the server - if you want an old version, substitute the version number of the one you want with version-number in the link below.

http://compwiz18.blackhole.cx/connection-manager/get.php?file=connection-manager-version-number.deb

History:
1.3.1 - Bug fix
1.3.0 - Feature and bug fix
1.2.2 - Bug fix
1.2.1 - Bug fix
1.2.0 - Feature and bug fix
1.1.2 - Bug fix
1.1.1 - Bug fix
1.1.0 - Feature and bug fix
1.0.8 - Bug fix - click here for download
1.0.7 - Bug fix
1.0.6 - Bug fix
1.0.5 - Bug fix
1.0.4 - Bug fix
1.0.3 - Bug fix
1.0.2 - Bug fix
1.0.1 - Bug fix
1.0.0 - Original release

[alchimera]

I tried it...

(i) had to remove wi-fi radar + network-manager; used GDebi Package Installer; then

(ii) the panels on my desktop stopped working, nor would <alt>+<F2> give me a run dialog... so restarted gdm with <ctrl>+<alt>+<backspace> to find a dialog about "a panel is already open" and click ok to close when there were no panels! [just like one of those happy helpful Windows balloons!!!]
Had to go to tty1 and reboot the system.

(iii) came back up ok, everything working: wifi is up and running, and "Connection Manager" now appears in the Applications\Internet menu but nothing happens when i try to start it - either from the menu or the run dialog. System\Administration\Networking appears to be unchanged, but i haven't tried to use it to do anything yet.

[compwiz18]

I tried it...

(i) had to remove wi-fi radar + network-manager; used GDebi Package Installer; then

(ii) the panels on my desktop stopped working, nor would <alt>+<F2> give me a run dialog... so restarted gdm with <ctrl>+<alt>+<backspace> to find a dialog about "a panel is already open" and click ok to close when there were no panels! [just like one of those happy helpful Windows balloons!!!]
Had to go to tty1 and reboot the system.

(iii) came back up ok, everything working: wifi is up and running, and "Connection Manager" now appears in the Applications\Internet menu but nothing happens when i try to start it - either from the menu or the run dialog. System\Administration\Networking appears to be unchanged, but i haven't tried to use it to do anything yet.

Figure my next step is to remove the package and return the system to it's former state, is no good having something on board that won't talk to me!

Could you run it from a terminal by using the command sudo /opt/connection-manager/manager if you haven't uninstalled it already? I'd be interesting in seeing the output.

[wolfpakz]

I setup connection-manager on my machine and initially I had the same problem described by alchimera. When I ran /opt/connection-manager/manager I got the following output:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "./manager", line 3, in ?
import networking, ConfigParser, wx, math, threading, time, sys, thread, os, tempfile
ImportError: No module named wx


I figured the python module for wx wasn't installed, and after installing it, connection-manager does come up. At this point though it just sits there scanning. If I run manager from the cli I see this:

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "./manager", line 522, in ?
frame = Main(None)
File "./manager", line 70, in __init__
self.UpdateNetworkList()
File "./manager", line 154, in UpdateNetworkList
self.scan_data = self.wifi.scan()
File "/opt/connection-manager/networking.py", line 44, in scan
aps[ i ]['channel'] = channel
UnboundLocalError: local variable 'channel' referenced before assignment

I'm definitely interested in seeing if this will work. Get back to me and I'll be happy to guinea pig for you.

-WolfpakZ

[wolfpakz]

I noticed the package installed some init scripts, so I tried a reboot to see if that would help. No luck there.

I investigated the last traceback I posted, and it looks like running the command `iwlist wlan0 scan` is expecting an output it's not getting. When I run this I only get the output "wlan0 No scan results".

I'm getting the feeling my wireless setup isn't working. Actually that's part of what drew me to connection-manager in the first place. Anyhow, I'll see if I can work through getting my wireless setup working and check back when it's working.

-WolfpakZ

[desmondo]

Sounds nice, but any reason why you made a new application, rather than help fix NetworkManager?

Just curious.

[wolfpakz]

Okay, my wireless setup is fixed and working.

Going back to connection-manager, I'm still getting the python error regarding the 'channel' var. I tweak the regexp a bit to be capable of matching my iwlist output. I also had to change the hardcoded network device from wlan0 to ra0 in a couple of places. The regexp for signal strength wasn't working either. It generated the same error as 'channel'. So I hard coded the signal strength to '5', and that seems to have worked.

At this point I'm able to successfully configure my network and connect to it.

-WolfpakZ

[compwiz18]

Okay, my wireless setup is fixed and working.

Going back to connection-manager, I'm still getting the python error regarding the 'channel' var. I tweak the regexp a bit to be capable of matching my iwlist output. I also had to change the hardcoded network device from wlan0 to ra0 in a couple of places. The regexp for signal strength wasn't working either. It generated the same error as 'channel'. So I hard coded the signal strength to '5', and that seems to have worked.

At this point I'm able to successfully configure my network and connect to it.

-WolfpakZ

Could you post the regex you used? I'll change the main package.

And also, could you tell me how you fixed the "no wx module found" error? I'll edit the .deb dependencies to include the need library.

[wolfpakz]

Could you post the regex you used? I'll change the main package.

And also, could you tell me how you fixed the "no wx module found" error? I'll edit the .deb dependencies to include the need library.

I first had to install the libwxgtk2.6-0 package before I could actually install connection-manager, then to fix the "no wx module found" error, I installed the python-wxgtk2.6 package.

Here's the regexp I used to fix the channel error:

'.*Channel:(.*?)\n'

-WolfpakZ

[alchimera]

Could you run it from a terminal by using the command sudo /opt/connection-manager/manager if you haven't uninstalled it already? I'd be interesting in seeing the output.

This is the output:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/opt/connection-manager/manager", line 3, in ?
import networking, ConfigParser, wx, math, threading, time, sys, thread, os, tempfile
ImportError: No module named wx

After reading above posts, i checked to find libwxgtk2.6-0 already installed; installed python-wxgtk2.6 (&, neccessarily via synaptic, python-wxversion) and reinstalled your .deb...

...fired up connection-manager from the Applications\Internet menu: a "Python Warning" dialogue appeared with the following log file entry:
08:56:56: Mailcap file /etc/mailcap, line 67: incomplete entry ignored.
08:56:56: Mailcap file /etc/mailcap, line 68: incomplete entry ignored.
08:56:56: Mailcap file /etc/mailcap, line 113: incomplete entry ignored.
After pressing "OK", Connection Manager appeared stating "No Networks Found".

The output of "sudo /opt/connection-manager/manager" is now:
wlan0 Interface doesn't support scanning.

Rebooting did not change this behaviour.

Decided to keep it onboard for a while, happy to help!