Bug 679316

Summary:	Network Manager incorrectly reports no connection even if there is one
Product:	[Fedora] Fedora	Reporter:	Cameron <bugzilla>
Component:	NetworkManager	Assignee:	Dan Williams <dcbw>
Status:	CLOSED NOTABUG	QA Contact:	Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
Severity:	medium	Docs Contact:
Priority:	unspecified
Version:	14	CC:	dcbw, harald, jmoskovc, jpopelka
Target Milestone:	---
Target Release:	---
Hardware:	All
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version:		Doc Type:	Bug Fix
Doc Text:		Story Points:	---
Clone Of:		Environment:
Last Closed:	2011-03-21 05:46:11 UTC	Type:	---
Regression:	---	Mount Type:	---
Documentation:	---	CRM:
Verified Versions:		Category:	---
oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team:	---	Target Upstream Version:

Description Cameron 2011-02-22 08:28:20 UTC

Description of problem:
When all network interfaces are listed as "not controlled by Network Manager" Network Manager reports no network connection even if there is one or more other network connection. This causes Firefox to start as "Offline." This "feature" is particularly annoying if you use the Firefox feature to save multiple open tabs and wish to re-start Firefox with the tabs opened where you left off. None will load due to the offline startup state of Firefox.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
1.6.2

How reproducible:
100%

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Mark all network interfaces as "not controlled by Network Manager"
2. Mark at least one as "activate device at computer start" (note bug 522203 may cause the interface to NOT start so a workaround may be needed to get it to start at boot or optionally start it manually after reboot)
3. Reboot
4. Log in as a user
5. Start Firefox

Actual results:
4. Network Manager will report no network connection (even though there is one)
5. Firefox starts in "Work Offline" mode

Expected results:
4. Network Manager should show network connection(s) that are active even if it doesn't "control" it.
5. Firefox should start in online mode (since there really is active network connection)

Additional info:
Also noted on Fedora 13 but NOT noted in Fedora 6.

Bottom line - Just because Network Manager doesn't "manage" a connection doesn't mean it shouldn't detect and use active connections that are on the system.

Comment 1 Cameron 2011-02-23 17:26:46 UTC

A workaround is to stop the NetworkManager service, but then when you need it (like to connect to a Wifi source) you'd have to manually start it first.  You can probably set this to Low severity now that there's a workaround.

Comment 2 Dan Williams 2011-02-25 06:25:33 UTC

That's correct.  If the device is not managed by NetworkManager, then clearly NetworkManager does not know that the device is connected or disconnected.  Period.

"detecting and using active connections" is complex enough in itself (addressing, routing, DNS, etc) that by the time you've done that, you've done 90% of the work of making NM support that configuration natively.  So why not do that?

Could you describe the networking situation that's not able to be managed by NM so that we can investigate adding native support for it?

Comment 3 Cameron 2011-02-27 08:03:06 UTC

Now that you ask, I can't really think of one.  I found out if I disable NetworkManager at boot everything works fine.  This system is both a server and a desktop so the network connections (2 of them) need to be up at boot and there's no real need for NetworkManager for this configuration.  As far as I'm concerned you can close the bug.  Thanks for looking at this so quickly!