Releases/FeatureMoreNetworkManager

= NetworkManager improvements =

Summary
Expand the situations in which NetworkManager can be used and make it more robust

Owner

 * Name: DanWilliams

Current status

 * Targeted release:  Fedora 9
 * Last updated: 2008-03-19
 * Percentage of completion: 100%

2008-03-19: connection sharing remains to be implemented but will be completed by F9 release.

Detailed Description
We've pushed hard to get a working svn snapshot of NetworkManager 0.7 into Fedora 8 that keeps feature parity with 0.6.5 that was shipped in F7. With the architectural improvements in 0.7, we are in a great position to improve the functionaliy far beyond what 0.6.5 offered. Some of these improvements will land in and F8 update (when 0.7.0 is released), others will appear in F9.

Some of these improvements have already been described on the Fedora 8 NetworkManager feature Releases/FeatureNetworkManager page :


 * Integrate the system-wide configuration daemon that Soeren has been working on. The goal here is to a) inject system-wide network configuration from /etc/sysconfig/networking into Network'Manager and b) to push configuration from nm-applet system-wide (under the control of Policy'Kit) (Done)


 * Multiple Device support: Allow multiple devices to be active at the same time (Done)


 * Implement ad-hoc support (Done)


 * Connection sharing (depends on multiple device support) (In-progress)


 * PPP support (to allow mobile broadband GSM/CDMA cards) (Done)


 * Bluetooth support (moved to F10)


 * Use Network'Manager'Dispatcher to start network-related services


 * Start NetworkManager much earlier in the boot process

Update: preliminary bits of the system settings daemon have been committed to SVN and read ethernet connections from /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-* files. (26 Nov 2007)

Update: system settings daemon has been enabled in rawhide, and the applet has been modified to support system connections. WPA support for system connections isn't yet available because the config file format doesn't support those options. The current priorities are multiple device support, WPA support for system connections, and PolicyKit integraiton for the connection editor. (11 Feb 2008)

Update: work on multiple device support is progressing well and still on-target for F9 (4 Mar 2008)

Benefit to Fedora
NetworkManager in Fedora will be the new Chuck Norris. It will expand the cases where NM can be used, supporting static IP addresses and more detailed device options.

Scope
Requires tracking upstream NetworkManager and kernel wireless development pretty closely.

Test Plan
Will acquire more network devices and use those to expose bugs in drivers and the kernel wireless stack. There are also quite a few people in the community with 3G data cards who are willing to test out those pieces. May be able to get together an automated driver test rig with a bunch of PCI and mini-PCI and USB wireless devices that get driven by wpa_supplicant, and retest each kernel build to ensure that drivers or wpa_supplicant doesn't regress, or that when it does we know about it.

User Experience
1. 3G mobile broadband cards will be supported as first-class devices in NetworkManager 2. It will be possible to use static IPs smoothly with NetworkManager 3. NM will enable easy internet connection sharing between wired & wifi, or wired and 3G, or 3G and wifi

Dependencies
Updates to wpa_supplicant are definitely required (for adhoc support) (Done). May require updates to HAL for more detailed detection of serial devices. (Done)

Contingency Plan
None needed; this feature is about incremental improvements to an existing feature. If they don't get completed, all we need to do is ensure that the parts that did get done are functional and can stand on their own.

Documentation
TBD

Release Notes
TBD