Hi, I'm trying to configure NetworkManager via the command line (headless
box) and I'm a bit confused as to the "model of the universe" I'm dealing
with here, which as far as I've Googled is not documented anywhere.
The NetworkManager/nmcli man pages reference terms like Connection without
defining or distinguishing them. FWIW, I'm coming from the perspective of
someone who understands basic "raw" network configuration with e.g. "ip
addr add 192.168.0.1/24 dev eth0" for static IP addresses, but doesn't
understand what's going on in NetworkManager.
For starters, I'm mainly wonder what Connections are. I see:
$ nmcli con list
NAME UUID TYPE
TIMESTAMP-REAL
RestrictedAccess 2 ce91d821-8bb7-4de2-8736-c5a7b650ff76
802-11-wireless Wed 15 Aug 2012 01:50:08 PM PDT
RestrictedAccess 3 3d6c98dd-30b8-49f7-9bc7-b27fae098ffd
802-11-wireless Sat 13 Oct 2012 04:11:13 PM PDT
RestrictedAccess 1 05a86600-2ceb-488f-9aed-588a3ae8de79
802-11-wireless Wed 15 Aug 2012 01:40:24 PM PDT
Wired connection 2 a22d184d-ab1f-44d7-bb94-f272b6b400a8
802-3-ethernet Thu 11 Oct 2012 06:25:16 PM PDT
RestrictedAccess 51402c11-6f32-4c9f-9654-0a997657556c
802-11-wireless Tue 14 Aug 2012 11:19:07 PM PDT
Wired connection 1 ccb39d93-6391-436b-846c-d9f0c4623c06
802-3-ethernet Sat 13 Oct 2012 04:11:13 PM PDT
I see a "RestrictedAccess" WiFi network I've connected to (via the
NetworkManager GUI) which is showing up multiple times. Then there are
"Wired connection" 1 & 2, which suggests a mapping to interfaces (eth0 and
eth1). So what are the Connections? Are they implicitly created per wired
interface and per WiFi network (per distinct AP MAC address) that I've
connected to? Yet I've never really used "Wire connection 2" (eth1) - and
also there exists no corresponding file in
/etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/:
$ l /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/
RestrictedAccess RestrictedAccess 2 Wired connection 1
RestrictedAccess 1 RestrictedAccess 3
Then there's `nmcli con down` and `nmcli dev disconnect` - I'm trying to
understand the man pages on these, which say:
- "Deactivate a connection." (will help to understand what Connections are)
- "Disconnect a device and prevent the device from automatically activating
further connections without user/manual intervention."
I'm guessing the latter corresponds to the "Disconnect" menu items in the
NetworkManager GUI. What GUI interaction does the former correspond to?
And which one of these corresponds to the "Enable Networking" or "Enable
Wireless" check menu items?
And how would I go about editing Connections without going through the GUI
(e.g. to set static IP addresses, routes, and other options available via
the GUI dialogs)? I can find various bits and pieces from blog/list posts
like http://blog.cone.be/2012/01/11/ubuntu-networkmanager/ and
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-installer/2011-May/000770.html but
is there any sort of reference or documentation to consult about how to
create and edit these Connection configuration files (which presumably is
what I'd need to do)? If this documentation doesn't exist today is any in
the works? Or are there any suggestions of alternative tools that may
currently be better suited for GUI-less environments?
Thanks in advance for any explanations or pointers to resources I may have
missed.
--
Yang Zhang
http://yz.mit.edu/
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