Network manager + PPTP : "No agents were available for this request"

English Network/Internet
1

Hi folks,

I’ve been successfully using OpenSUSE 13.1 for a couple of days, and today I decided to set up a pptp VPN network.

So far, I was using Knetwork Manager, which was doing the job just fine on OpenSUSE 12.3.

So I clicked on network manager in the systray, manage connections, added a VPN connection, typed the gateway, login and password, no problem.
So the VPN was supposed to appear as an interface usable when I click on the Knetwork manager icon in the systray. But it doesn’t. And when I want to modify it in “manage connections”, a window pops up saying “No agents were available for this request”.
When I close this window, I can actually modify the VPN settings, but the password is never remembered.

I reckon the fact that the VPN does not appear in the network manager menu comes from the “No agents were available” error window. But maybe that’s unrelated …

From the research I’ve been doing to solve this, the problem doesn’t come from “plasmoid-networkmanagement”, which is installed. The tab “Other” in NetworkManager says I’m using Version 0.9.0.9 (nm09 20130615) and that the connection secrets are stored “in secure storage (encrypted)”.

Any thoughts on this ??

2

I have a PPTP VPN defined (for work use), and there needs to be a valid internet connection before the VPN icons are visible.

3

Thanks for the reply.

I’d say I have a valid internet connection, since I’m using it for writing this post ;)… and when I click on the network manager icon in the systray, it shows an “Network Interface”, connected (I’m using an ethernet wire, no wifi).

Did you mean something else that that ?

4

I’m not sure what to suggest next. Are you using kwallet to store the secrets? I assume the daemon is running.

The VPN profile is stored in /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/

For reference my work VPN has this ‘vpn’ section


[vpn]
service-type=org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.pptp
gateway=xx.yy.zz.uu
user=*****
password-flags=1

How does it compare to your definition?

5

Actually, from what I read, I suspect the problem come from KDEWallet, but I’m not sure.
I do have a wallet set up, with a password. But when I delete and create again my VPN, the network manager doesn’t ask for it. So I guess it’s not stored in my KDE Wallet.

And yes, I do have a vpn section in my /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/ file, which looks just like yours, except for a “require-mppe=yes” line. That’s perfectly normal, I set it up this way.

6

I agree that it does look like a kwallet issue, or the interaction between it and the pptp module.

I do have a wallet set up, with a password. But when I delete and create again my VPN, the network manager doesn’t ask for it. So I guess it’s not stored in my KDE Wallet.

That confuses me a little. If you have network manager configured to store connection secrets ‘In secure storage’ then kwallet is being used. If you want start over, open kwallet and delete the passwords, then try configuring the VPN connection again.

It may be that you’ve stumbled across a bug with ‘NetworkManager-pptp-kde4’ (or similar).

One temporary experiment or workaround that you might want to consider is setting up the PPTP tunnel manually as outlined here

https://forums.opensuse.org/english/get-technical-help-here/network-internet/483069-how-setting-vpn-pptp-opensuse-12-2-a.html#post2526506

It gets run manually (via CLI) too, but if you need this working , it might be useful…

7

That confuses me too, but even if network manager says it stores connections secrets “in secure storage”, kwallet doesn’t seem to pick up the password : when I open my wallet, in the “applications” tab, I’ve got two applications allowed to access the wallet (Kopete and the KDE configuration module). But in the tab “content”, subwindow “folders”, I have 5 folders, (Chrome form data, form data, Kopete, Network management and passwords), all ending with “(0)”, except Kopete. I suppose it means that kwallet has no registered data, except for Kopete… :frowning:

Thanks for the command line suggestion, I’ll try it until I can find a way to make network manager to work …