NetworkManager f13

Reprinted from 

Network Manager

Mobile Broadband

Network Manager in Fedora 13, uses the gnome-bluetooth plugin to help to configure your Mobile Broadband with the service provider.

If you have a Bluetooth adapter and a mobile phone (GPRS) that supports Bluetooth DUN,

Pair the phone with the computer, and let Network Manager recognize your mobile phone;

At the end of the pairing process you'll see a screen with checkbox that says Access the Internet using your mobile phone.

Checking that box, a progress indicator will appear and say Detecting phone configuration

Supported Mobile Broadband 

For a list of supported devices, look at NetworkManager - Mobile Broadband, on the gnome.org site. If your device is not supported, please contact us in the mailing list, with informations on your device.

Create a Mobile Broadband network connection

Right-click on the Network Manager applet Icon and select Edit Connections.... Then select the Mobile Broadbandtab, and click on the Add button. A wizard will open that will assist you in the configuration, questioning some information about your provider; specifically, you should know:

Broadband Provider's name

Broadband Billing Plan name

Broadband Billing Plan APN (Access Point Name)

The wizard displays:

An information page, that let you choose, if more than one, the Mobile device to configure.

A page where you select the Provider's Country

A page where you select your Provider

A summary page of your selections.

Then you need to setup your Mobile connection.

Setup a Mobile Broadband connection

Enter your information for the Mobile Broadband connection in following tabs.

Mobile Broadband Tab

Number: Number to dial when establishing a PPP data session with the GSM-based mobile broadband network. In most cases, leave the number blank and a number selecting the APN will be used automatically when required.

Username: Username used to authenticate with the network, if required. Note that many providers do not require a username or accept any username.

Password: Password used to authenticate with the network, if required. Note that many providers do not require a password or accept any password.

PPP-Settings Tab

(default values)

Mobile Broadband-IPv4

Automatic (PPP): Specifing this method, then the O.S. does it all for you (default)

Automatic (PPP) addresses only: Specifing this method, then only automatic DHCP is used and at least one IP address must be given in the DNS servers entry.

Manual: Specifing this method, static IP addressing is used and at least one IP address must be given in the DNS servers entry.

Access to Network Manager window

To acceed to Network Manager window for setup your network devices & connections:

Right-click on the Network Manage applet Icon

Select Edit Connections...

Be root to save your configurations

Before creating your new configuration, the O.S. pops up a window to confirm your operation, asking you the root password.

Some items in the Network Manager window

When editing, in the Network Manager window, you find this items:

Connection name: User-readable connection identifier/name

Connect automaticaly: If checked, Network Manager will activate this connection when its network resources are available. If unchecked, the connection must be manually activated by you.

Available to all users: If checked, Network Manager gets access to this network connection to all users

Setup a Wireless connection

Most common items you should fill in, when using a Wireless connection :

Wireless Tab

SSID: (this represents the ID of the wireless device) for security reason change this value from its default value

Mode: The available mode are: Infrastructure (default)

Wireless Security Tab

WEP 40/128-bit Key: (avoided for security reason)

WEP 128-bit Passphrase

LEAP:

Dynamic WEAP (802.1x)

WPA & WPA2 Personal: fill here your personal key

WPA & WPA2 Enterprise

IPv4-Settings Tab

View IPv4 Tab in the wired section.

References

Wireless Guide on Fedora Doc

Setup an xDSL connection

Here are the items generally used in the xDSL connections

xDSL Tab

Username: Username used to authenticate with the Service Provider.

Service: For most providers, this should be left blank.

Password: Password (if needed,) used to authenticate with the Service Provider.

Wired & PPP-Settings Tabs

PPP-Settings tab: default values.

Wired tab: View Wired Tab for a wired network connection.

xDSL-IPv4 Tab

Automatic (PPPoE): Specifing this method, then the O.S. does it all for you (default)

Automatic (PPPoE) addresses only: Specifing this method, then only automatic DHCP is used and at least one IP address must be given in the DNS servers entry.

Manual: Specifing this method, static IP addressing is used and at least one IP address must be given in the DNS servers entry.

References

 ?? xDSL

Setup a wired connection

In this section a common user, generally, doesn't need to do any configuration.

Wired Tab

Mac Address: The HW address of your network card. When the system boots, it recognizes the network card and its HW address. If you need to know the Mac Address of an interface, open a terminal and run ifconfig | grep HWaddr.

MTU (Maximun Transmission Unit): If non-zero, the card transmits packets of the specified size or smaller, breaking larger packets up into multiple Ethernet frames. You could set this to Automatic and the O.S. does it for you.

802.1x Tab

If you want cipher your Ethernet communications (defualt is unset)

IPv4 Tab

Automatic (DHCP): Specifing this method, then the O.S. does it all for you (default)

Automatic (DHCP) addresses only: Specifing this method, then only automatic DHCP is used and at least one IP address must be given in the DNS servers entry.

Manual:  Specifing this method, static IP addressing is used and at least one IP address must be given in the DNS servers entry.

Link-Local Only:  Specifing this method, a link-local address in the 169.254/16 range will be assigned to the interface.

Shared to other computers:  Specifing this method, (indicating that this connection will provide network access to other computers) then the interface is assigned an address in the 10.42.x.1/24 range and a DHCP and forwarding DNS server are started, and the interface is NAT-ed to the current default network connection.

DNS Servers:  List of DNS servers. For the Automatic (DHCP) method, these DNS servers are appended to those (if any) returned by automatic configuration. DNS servers cannot be used with the Shared to other computers or Link-Local Only methods as there is no usptream network. In Automatic (DHCP) addresses only and Manual methods, these DNS servers are used as the only DNS servers for this connection.

Search domains:  List of DNS search domains. For the Automatic (DHCP) method, these search domains are appended to those returned by automatic configuration. Search domains cannot be used with the Shared to other computers or Link-Local Only methods as there is no upstream network. In Automatic (DHCP) addresses only and Manual methods, these search domains are used as the only search domains for this connection.

Routes...:  Fowarding table or routing table. Each IPv4 route structure is composed of 4 32-bit values; the first, Address being the destination IPv4 network; the second, Netmask the destination network, the third, Gateway being the next-hop if any, and the fourth, Metric being the route metric. For the Automatic (DHCP) method, given IP routes are appended to those returned by automatic configuration. Routes cannot be used with the Shared to other computers or Link-Local Onlymethods as there is no upstream network.

DHCP client ID:  The local machine which the DHCP server may use to customize the DHCP lease and options.

References

 ?? Ethernet

Setup a VPN connection

Here are some items, depending on the VPN connection type, founded when configuring a VPN connection:

VPN Tab

Gateway

Type

Username

CA Certificate

VNP-IPv4 Settings Tab

Automatic (VPN): Specifing this method, then the O.S. does it all for you (default)

Automatic (VPN) addresses only: Specifing this method, then only automatic DHCP is used and at least one IP address must be given in the DNS servers entry.

References

 ?? VPN

References

For more information on Network Manager, you can refer to:

Project Web-Site

Network Manager FAQ

Fedora 13 Release Notes

nmcli: Network Manager in a CLI

nmcli, is the console command that makes Network Manager available in a console. nmcli has the following format:

nmcli [OPTIONS] OBJECT { COMMAND | help }.

OPTIONS: allows you to view the output in terse -t or pretty -p mode.

OBJECT: can be nm (NetworkManager status), con (NetworkManager connections) or dev (devices managed by NetworkManager)

COMMAND: is the action on OBJECT

Type nmcli OBJECT help to see a list of the available actions. For example for nm, the COMMAND are:

nmcli nm help

Usage: nmcli nm { COMMAND | help }

 COMMAND := { status | sleep | wakeup | wifi | wwan }

  status

  sleep

  wakeup

  wifi [on|off]

  wwan [on|off]

So, running nmcli nm status, we have:

NM running:               running

NM state:                 connected

NM wireless hardware:     enabled

NM wireless:              enabled

NM WWAN hardware:         enabled

NM WWAN:                  enabled

Refer to man NetwkorManager for more informations.

nm-tools

nm-tool utility provides information about Network Manager, device, and wireless networks. For example:

$ nm-tool

NetworkManager Tool

State: connected

- Device: eth0  [System eth0] --------------------------------------------------

  Type:              Wired

  Driver:            8139too

  State:             connected

  Default:           yes

  HW Address:        00:21:C0:C1:B3:29

  Capabilities:

    Carrier Detect:  yes

    Speed:           100 Mb/s

  Wired Properties

    Carrier:         on

  IPv4 Settings:

    Address:         192.137.1.2

    Prefix:          24 (255.255.255.0)

    Gateway:         192.137.1.1

    DNS:             192.137.1.1

$

To Access a Remote Server

In Fedora 13, the GNOME Desktop has a tool that allows you to access to a Remote Server using its file manager, Nautilus. In the menu-bar select Places -> Connect to Server... Once filled in the necessary connection informations, for quick selection, you can (Add) Bookmark the Server, in Nautilus and in the first section of your Places menu.