NM 0.7 brings up all available connections that are marked "autoconnect".  So
it's normal that both wired and wireless should be up at the same time.  To
selectively disable this, you can turn off autoconnect on a
connection-by-connection basis.

What is likely a bug here is that since you have ONBOOT=no, that NM is
automatically bringing up those devices.  ONBOOT maps to autoconnect, so unless
you have previously defined user connections this shouldn't cause NM to connect.

Can you check in the connection editor whether you have user other connections
defined that could be causing the autoconnect behavior?  Right-click on the
applet, and choose "Edit connections...", and see in the wired and wireless tabs
if there are any connections that don't have "System" in front of them.  Try
deleting these connections, then reboot.

If I just left click nm-applet, I see "Auto Ethernet" (radio buttoned) and
"System eth0" (not radio buttoned) under Wired, and "ralii.com" (radio buttoned)
under Wireless.

If I right click nm-applet and choose Edit Connections..., I see "Auto Ethernet"
under Wired and "Auto ralii.com" and "Auto furguson" under Wireless.

So, now I am confused by your description as to how I make NM "choose" the best
connection to "auto connect" as it did in previous versions.

Scenario: basement has weak wireless (but visible), so I attach wire which it
uses. When allowed upstairs, I disconnect wire and while walking up the steps,
it switches to wireless.  At least this is what it "used to do".  Now, it
attaches to both wired and wireless while in basement.

Suggestions on what you want me to "change" to accomplish above?  Thanks!

I'm seeing the same (new) behavior - NM bringing up both the wired and wireless network - though in my case the wireless network is brought up at login because the wireless connections are defined per-user.  I see no way to be able to auto connect to both the wired and wireless network when the other is present but to only connect to the wired network when both are present.  How do I achieve that?

I'd like this functionality too -- autoconnect to wired ONLY when both wired and wireless present. When wired disconnected, switch to wireless automagically. When wired reappears, switch to wired and disconnect wireless. 

The real reason I prefer this behaviour is that when I'm connected to my VPN and also running BOTH eth0 and wlan0, DNS never seems to resolve properly. Turning off the wireless (right-click NetworkManager Applet 0.7.0 icon > [ ] Enable Wireless) fixes all DNS resolution issues immediately. 

(That might be a separate bug.)

My hardware is a Lenovo Thinkpad X200; I'm running Fedora 9.9.3 (2.6.27.4-68.fc10.i686) from http://spins.fedoraproject.org/torrents//Fedora-10-Snap3-i686-Live-XFCE.torrent w/ latest rawhide updates.

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Issue still exists in Fedora 10. Can you move this bug to "Version: 10" so it won't be automatically closed and ignored?

If the connections are 'autoconnect', then yes, NM will bring them up as the devices are available.  Unplug the ethernet cable, or disable wireless by flipping the rfkill switch, or turn autoconnect off on the connections, and NM won't connect that device until you explicitly tell it to do so.

It's expected behavior that, if you have autoconnect connections defined (or ONBOOT=yes in the ifcfg file) that the device will be brought up when it's able to be connected.

If this is "expected behavior", it is a regression.

NM "used to" prioritize wired over wireless and connect only one.

Is the idea of setting priorities for connections on the "drawing board"?

(In reply to comment #9)
> If this is "expected behavior", it is a regression.

no, it's not a regression; it's the same behavior that the network service has and that's what NetworkManager matches.

> NM "used to" prioritize wired over wireless and connect only one.

NM still does this; even if both are active, your wired interface is the "default" interface and traffic will flow through the wired interface.

> Is the idea of setting priorities for connections on the "drawing board"?

No, becuase they are already prioritized like they were before.

What *exactly* is your problem when both the wired and the wireless interfaces are up and active?  Is the traffic not going out the wired interface as you would expect?

Frankly speaking, i would like if wireless is disabled when wired is connected.
What is the logic is keeping both the interfaces up?

Minimizing latency of network switches when you disconnect or otherwise change the connections.  It's also necessary for multiple device support.  If you don't want multiple connections up and running at the same time, you're free to mark all your connections with autoconnect=false and control them manually just like ifup/ifdown, or to clean out access points you no longer connect to so that NM won't try to connect to them automatically.  There is no loss of functionality from having both interfaces up at the same time, and if you don't want wireless and wired up at the same time you can simply flip the killswitch or uncheck "Enable Wireless" from the menu.

There are three usability issues i see here:

1. If you have any wep encrypted wireless networks you have previously connected to, after logging, nm prompts the key ring password. As it tried to connect to those networks again.

2. Will it be safe to connect to unknown wireless networks at all. NM will try to connect to all available networks, We dont want to connect to hostile networks.

3. Would be a good idea to have a gui which will allow us to clear unused access points from gconf. The current method of using gconftool is anything but user friendly.

(In reply to comment #13)
> There are three usability issues i see here:
> 
> 1. If you have any wep encrypted wireless networks you have previously
> connected to, after logging, nm prompts the key ring password. As it tried to
> connect to those networks again.

pam_keyring; make sure your login password is the same as your keyring password, by using 'seahorse' to change the keyring password if you have updated your login password since you set your machine up.  Your keyring will be automatically unlocked when you log in.

> 2. Will it be safe to connect to unknown wireless networks at all. NM will try
> to connect to all available networks, We dont want to connect to hostile
> networks.

NM will *only ever* connect to a network that you have previously connected to.  It will never connect to random networks.  Thus, some user action is necessary before NM will connect to an unsecured network.  We can make this better in the future by defaulting to 'autoconnect=false' for unsecured networks and putting a notification bubble up saying "this network is insecure, please click here if you really want to automatically connect to it".

> 3. Would be a good idea to have a gui which will allow us to clear unused
> access points from gconf. The current method of using gconftool is anything but
> user friendly.

/usr/bin/nm-connection-editor, or right-click on the applet icon and choose "Edit connections...".

I think the situation has been adequately explained by Dan Williams and there is no real bug here.  Closing.  FC8 is also EOL, so if you believe the functionality isn't working as Dan described, please open a new bug on a currently supported Fedora version.  Thanks.

(In reply to comment #10)
> What *exactly* is your problem when both the wired and the wireless interfaces
> are up and active?  Is the traffic not going out the wired interface as you
> would expect?

Yes it does. I am sorry to come back to a two year old issue, but I find this behaviour strange. The main problem I see is:

the nm-applet icon indicates it tries to connect (to the wireless) while network is already up and running (through wired). Because of this I am waiting before launching my network app even though I have connectivity.

At the very least, the icon "connected through wired" should be prioritary over "trying to connect thorugh wireless".

By the way, once the useless wireless is configured, is there some extra power 
drawn to the wifi card compared to the situation where wireless is disabled ?
If so, it is an extra reason why nm-applet should'nt connect to both.

FYI, this has been brought up again in bug #970293
I was thinking about closing that as a duplicate and reopening this, but ... those interested, please follow the new bug

Icon/display issues are bugs for the UI applets, not NM core though, so that  means either the gnome-shell or network-manager-applet packages.