Re: does/can networkmanager ever set rfkill?

[Paul Fox <pgf laptop org>]

dan wrote:
 > On Thu, 2010-02-25 at 15:42 -0500, Paul Fox wrote:
 > > i'm revisiting our ability to kill power to the wireless device
 > > for the XO-1.5 laptop.  this time around, we're using rfkill to
 > > do so.  (the XO-1 used a private mechanism.) since there's no
 > > dedicated rfkill button, we need to invoke rfkill from a UI.
 > > 
 > > i was sort of expecting/hoping that NetworkManager could be used
 > > to invoke rfkill, since that would be portable, and provide
 > > persistence for the setting all at once.  but all i can find are
 > > lots of ways in which NM reacts to rfkill events, and nothing
 > > regarding it actually doing an rfkill block/unblock itself.
 > > 
 > > is this correct?  or have i overlooked something?  can NM, and the
 > > applet, be used as a soft rfkill switch?
 > 
 > Is XO 1.5 rfkill implemented via the rfkill subsystem?  If not, it

yes, it is.

 > should be.  The NM enable/disable wireless mechanism can probably
 > finally be updated to take advantage of /dev/rfkill too, which would
 > then fix your issue.  It's something we need to do anyway.

that would be great.

 > 
 > Currently when told to "disable wireless" NM just take the wifi device
 > down, in which state it is assumed that the driver will place the devce
 > into low-power mode.  NM does *listen* for rfkill events, and changes
 > various D-Bus properties (WirelessEnabled, WirelessHardwareEnabled)
 > based on the rfkill state.

yes -- all of that's what got my hopes up. :-)  i assume this
means that if we implement a UI that manipulates rfkill, we don't
actually need to communicate with NM directly, correct?  from
experimentation it seems to do all the right stuff based on the rfkill
event. 

thanks,
paul
=---------------------
 paul fox, pgf laptop org