Ubuntu
network-manager package

  1. Bug #157993
  2. Comment #5

Comment 5 for bug 157993

Revision history for this message
marianne (marianne-promberger) wrote : :

I, too, experienced similar problems, but I suspect it may not be a bug in nm-applet as such but rather caused by pppoeconf writing to /etc/network/interfaces.

Xubuntu 7.10 Gutsy, nm-applet 0.6.5

My sister has DSL pay-per-minute, so I used pppoeconf to set up a connection. Then, I could connect using "pon dsl-provider" or alternatively when I clicked on the nm-applet in the Xfce panel I had a new item "Dial-up connections" from which I could connect and disconnect.

Back at my parents' house with DSL flatrate and behind a modem/router, plugging in the cable no longer got me an IP address from the DHCP server (router); neither did checking and unchecking "Enable Networking" with the cable plugged in. I was, however, able to get an IP address by just saying "sudo dhclient eth0". The nm-applet "Wired connection" was missing.

First, I removed the config file that pppoeconf creates (/etc/ppp/peers/dsl-provider); this didn't help.

Then, I looked into /etc/network/interfaces, which looked like this:
---interfaces file start -----
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

iface dsl-provider inet ppp
pre-up /sbin/ifconfig eth0 up # line maintained by pppoeconf
provider dsl-provider

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet manual

---interfaces file end ---

I removed everything except the first two lines:
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

At first, clicking on nm-applet after doing this completely froze the machine. I had to force-shutdown by holding the power button. But after reboot, everything is fine and I can again select "Wired Network" in nm-applet, and nm-applet gets an IP address from the router.

Of course, it's a bit of a pain if I have to manually reset all this every time I move between my parents' and my sister's place. Is there a way to set up dialup dsl connections from within nm-applet, without going through pppoeconf? Or, could I now just move back the /etc/ppp/peers/dsl-provider file (I made a backup), without using pppoeconf, and would "pon dsl-provider" then work without the extra stuff in /etc/network/interfaces?