Re: keyfile plugin initialization and wireless at boot

[Daniel Gnoutcheff <daniel gnoutcheff name>]

Whoa ... I think I've reproduced at least part of the problem. Yep, we 
may have a regression on our hands.

On my system, /etc/network/interfaces contained only:
> auto lo
> iface lo inet loopback

But then I decided to edit it to make it mimic your configuration, adding:
> allow-hotplug eth0
> iface eth0 inet dhcp

And once I do that, I too see that N-M is no longer reading anything 
from /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/, as verified by strace.

However, if I replace "managed=false" with "managed=true" in the 
[ifupdown] section of nm-system-settings.conf, or if I disable the 
ifupdown plugin altogether, then the problem goes away again.

So it looks like when we use ifupdown to ask N-M to keep its hands off 
of an interface, keyfile gets messed up somehow.

However, this doesn't yet explain why "Available to all users" is greyed 
out. Despite the fact that the system settings service is definitely 
messed up here, that checkbox is still clickable. It looks like that may 
be a separate issue.

Thanks very much for the report and the info, Brian!


Some more things to try:

- Could you confirm my observations? I.e. does N-M at least start 
looking at /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections after doing one of (1) 
removing eth0 related lines from /etc/network/interfaces, (2) setting 
"managed=true", or (3) disabling ifupdown?

- If you manage to get N-M to start looking at 
/etc/NetworkManager/system-connections, does "Available to all users" 
start to work?

- If not ... hmm ... an adventure into D-Bus and PolicyKit may await us. 
:( Hopefully, this is just a matter of the relevant policy config files 
not being installed. Try this smoke-test:
  dbus-send --print-reply --system \
    --dest=org.freedesktop.NetworkManagerSystemSettings \
    /org/freedesktop/NetworkManagerSettings \
    org.freedesktop.NetworkManagerSettings.ListConnections


Last I heard, the keyfile plugin doesn't do a great job of error 
reporting, so writing keyfile configs by hand could be a PITA. Getting 
DBus and PolicyKit to cooperate with us is probably the best approach.

Thanks again, and good luck!

Later,
Daniel