Ubuntu
network-manager package

Please provide a way to make NetworkManager poll its connectivity URI on demand

Bug #1072675 reported by Stuart Langridge on 2012-10-29

26

This bug affects 5 people

Affects		Status	Importance	Assigned to	Milestone
	network-manager (Ubuntu)	Triaged	Wishlist	Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre

Bug Description

NetworkManager can poll a URI to confirm that it can really see the internet (rather than a captive portal such as a hotel login page). This is useful. However, it does not seem to be possible to tell NM "poll your URI now, please"; you have to wait for the poll interval to time-out first. If I know that it's worth checking now (for example, that I've popped up a browser to allow signing in and that signing in is complete) then it would be useful to be able to poke NM to say "poll now (that is: pretend that the poll interval has just timed out)".

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.10
Package: network-manager 0.9.6.0-0ubuntu7
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.5.0-17.28-generic 3.5.5
Uname: Linux 3.5.0-17-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.6.1-0ubuntu6
Architecture: amd64
CRDA: Error: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: 'iw'
CheckboxSubmission: 4d186c1dd89d3ba4cb89f5ee55713686
CheckboxSystem: bb422ca46d02494cdbc459927a98bc2f
Date: Mon Oct 29 12:23:29 2012
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
IfupdownConfig:
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback
InstallationDate: Installed on 2011-12-11 (322 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin" - Alpha amd64 (20111211)
IpRoute:
default via 10.155.0.1 dev wlan0 proto static
10.0.3.0/24 dev lxcbr0 proto kernel scope link src 10.0.3.1
10.155.0.0/19 dev wlan0 proto kernel scope link src 10.155.8.36 metric 9
169.254.0.0/16 dev wlan0 scope link metric 1000
192.168.122.0/24 dev virbr0 proto kernel scope link src 192.168.122.1
MarkForUpload: True
NetworkManager.state:
[main]
NetworkingEnabled=true
WirelessEnabled=true
WWANEnabled=true
WimaxEnabled=true
SourcePackage: network-manager
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to quantal on 2012-10-20 (8 days ago)
mtime.conffile..etc.NetworkManager.NetworkManager.conf: 2012-10-29T12:13:12.889514
nmcli-dev:
DEVICE TYPE STATE DBUS-PATH
wlan0 802-11-wireless connected /org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/Devices/0
nmcli-nm:
RUNNING VERSION STATE NET-ENABLED WIFI-HARDWARE WIFI WWAN-HARDWARE WWAN
running 0.9.6.0 connected enabled enabled enabled enabled disabled

Tags:

Revision history for this message

Stuart Langridge (sil) wrote on 2012-10-29:

#1

Dependencies.txt Edit (7.7 KiB, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
IpAddr.txt Edit (1.0 KiB, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
IwConfig.txt Edit (543 bytes, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
NetDevice.lo.txt Edit (205 bytes, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
NetDevice.lxcbr0.txt Edit (235 bytes, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
NetDevice.virbr0.txt Edit (235 bytes, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
NetDevice.wlan0.txt Edit (486 bytes, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
NetworkManager.conf.txt Edit (167 bytes, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
PciNetwork.txt Edit (602 bytes, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
ProcEnviron.txt Edit (106 bytes, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
RfKill.txt Edit (247 bytes, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
WifiSyslog.txt Edit (315.7 KiB, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
modified.conffile..etc.NetworkManager.NetworkManager.conf.txt Edit (168 bytes, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
nmcli-con.txt Edit (5.5 KiB, text/plain; charset="utf-8")

Revision history for this message

Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre (cyphermox) wrote on 2012-10-29:

#2

Should be trivial. Bitesize in case someone wants to implement it; it might even already be in git master...

Changed in network-manager (Ubuntu):
status:	New → Triaged
importance:	Undecided → Medium
assignee:	nobody → Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre (mathieu-tl)
importance:	Medium → Wishlist
tags:	added: bitesize

Revision history for this message

Marius B. Kotsbak (mariusko) wrote on 2012-10-29:

#3

Does that mean the connectivity check actually works? I could not see that it is working, just by adding this to /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf:

[connectivity]
uri=http://start.ubuntu.com/connectivity-check.html
response=Lorem ipsum

Did you do anything else? How do you verify that it is working?

Revision history for this message

Stuart Langridge (sil) wrote on 2012-10-29:

#4

Marius: I set the connection poll interval to ten seconds, pointed the URL at a site I control, and then changed the response from something correct to something wrong, and observed that NM fires a state-changed signal.

Revision history for this message

Marius B. Kotsbak (mariusko) wrote on 2012-10-29:

#5

Sorry for discussing it here, but how does it behave when that signal is signalled? Does it trigger a reconnect of the wifi, or change to another available network?

Thomas Hood (jdthood) on 2012-10-30

summary:

- No way to make NetworkManager poll its connectivity URI on-demand
+ Please provide a way to make NetworkManager poll its connectivity URI on
+ demand

Revision history for this message

Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt) wrote on 2013-01-27:

#6

In <https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Networking#settings-connections> I suggest that there should be a "Prompt whenever a new connection requires Web login" checkbox, and that one of the occasions for prompting should be immediately after checking the checkbox. So even if it was already checked, unchecking then re-checking it would be a moderately guessable way of polling on demand.

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