enabling network access without desktop environment login

My desktop machine is a CUPS and SSH server for my other computers. It uses wireless (in order to eliminate very long, unsightly cables) and is not always left on (because it is VERY loud, and a more quiet case is not a budgetary priority). Prior to 11.1, when I needed to print something or access some files, I could just hit the power button on my way to another room, and would be able to shortly do whatever I needed to do.

But now, I find that I must actually log in to KDE before I am able to connect. I tried disabling the yast service “waitfornm” which seemed intuitively like it would help, and I also added the network module to the “load on boot” section of /etc/sysconfig.

Anyone have any suggestions (or even another thread- I didn’t find anything that seemed too relevant)?

Are you using networkmanager to acquire a network address? This requires a GUI login. Switch to ifup instead, which will set up the network at boot. YaST > Network Devices > Network Settings

I am using Network Manager rather than ifup. I could see switching it for this computer, since it doesn’t go anywhere or connect to other access points. It is more annoying for my laptop (which I occasionally connect to via SSH) but I suppose if it really bothered me I could set up SCPM. Thanks for the suggestion. Any idea what changed between 11.0 and 11.1 that caused this different behavior? Even using Network Manager it didn’t matter whether I was logged in or not. Although, it does seem that they have really changed the relationship of Network Manager to the rest of yast and network settings (as seen by the greying out of all options in yast).