I have a laptop with a wired Ethernet connection and also a Wi-Fi connection.
I’m running OpenSUSE 11.4, 64-bit. Both Ethernet and Wi-Fi have good drivers and get successfully online.
In the network setup, I’m given a choice between Traditional and NetworkManager. Traditional is great for making sure things get started without having to log in, such as network services. NetworkManager is great for being flexible when actively using the laptop.
Problem is, I would like to have the best of both. I’d love it if I could have the wired Ethernet be managed by Traditional, because I’d like it to always get online, without having to be nudged along. I often access my laptop remotely, so it’s important for it to be up and reachable remotely, without having to log in first. However, that limits me to a single Wi-Fi network. It’s awkward to change to somebody else’s network, such as transferring between work and home. Ideally, I’d have a way for the Wi-Fi to be ran by NetworkManager, but leaving the wired Ethernet untouched by NetworkManager, so it’s free to be managed by Traditional.
openSUSE 11.4 went past its end-of-life on 5 Nov 2012 http://en.opensuse.org/Lifetime and therefore has received
none of the (several) security patches and updates released since that
date to rectify known (and publically available) security
vulnerabilities…
therefore, you should do one of these things as soon as possible:
cease connecting to any potentially insecure network (such as the
internet)
move up to a currently supported operating system such as openSUSE
12.1 or 12.2
join your fully patched openSUSE 11.4 to project Evergreen http://tinyurl.com/4aflkpy which will continue to provide
security patches/updates until July 2014.
of course, the sufficiency and capacity of security measures external to
the operating system itself (such as an external NATing router, external
firewall hardware, etc etc) may give you level of security you are
happy with…but, be careful because there are black hats who know how
to exploit known weak points.
sorry, i have no input on the actual problem/symptoms you describe…
Good advice to upgrade for better network security. I’m behind several layers of firewalls, so while prudent to upgrade, it isn’t urgent for me yet. I’m sticking with OpenSUSE 11.4, because I rather like GNOME 2 and really don’t like GNOME 3.
Do you know if it’s possible to designate a particular interface (such as wired Ethernet) so that it is capable of getting itself up and running without waiting for a user to log in? NetworkManager seems to require this, so I’ve had to set it to Traditional in order to get Ethernet up and running for my network services at boot. Is there a fix for this in OpenSUSE 12.2? That would give a reason to upgrade.
On 2012-11-29 22:16, Krellan wrote:
>
> Good advice to upgrade for better network security. I’m behind several
> layers of firewalls, so while prudent to upgrade, it isn’t urgent for me
> yet. I’m sticking with OpenSUSE 11.4, because I rather like GNOME 2 and
> really don’t like GNOME 3.
Then make sure that you switch to evergreen repos.
In 11.4 you can use system profiles with scpm. You install it, then
create a profile for “fixed” networking, and another for “wifi”
networking. You switch using the command:
scpm switch fixed
and then go to yast network module and define the correct settings for
your wired connection. When you have it working, switch to “wifi”
profile and go to yast again, say you want networkmanager, and configure
it completely.
You can go from one profile to the other, and you will see how it saves
all modified configuration files, restores the backup of the new
profile, and restarts the appropriate services with changed
configuration files.
That is what I do with my laptop, and it is one reason I do not upgrade
from 11.4 on that machine. I have not tried scpm in 12.1, but I very
much doubt that it can work with systemd.
Notice that having both wired and wifi network makes no sense, and that
you can not have both ifup and networkmanager at the same time.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 12.1 x86_64 “Asparagus” at Telcontar)
Interesting idea to switch profiles, however, I was looking for a solution that would minimize having to manually administer things whenever switching back and forth between wired and wireless. Glad to know about the profile switcher, though. I didn’t know such a program existed.
Probably the best long-term solution is to upgrade to 12.2 and pick up the fixes to NetworkManager in there. However, that would mean giving up GNOME 2. I’ll have to see which is the lesser pain…
On 2012-11-30 03:56, Krellan wrote:
>
> Nice, just set up the Evergreen repository now.
>
> Interesting idea to switch profiles, however, I was looking for a
> solution that would minimize having to manually administer things
> whenever switching back and forth between wired and wireless. Glad to
> know about the profile switcher, though. I didn’t know such a program
> existed.
Yes, and it had a yast module that I think was abandoned. There was
support to choose profile on boot, but I don’t know if it works and how.
It is not only about network, it detects many configuration files, like
for example postfix.
It is what I use in my laptop.
> Probably the best long-term solution is to upgrade to 12.2 and pick up
> the fixes to NetworkManager in there. However, that would mean giving
> up GNOME 2. I’ll have to see which is the lesser pain…
In my desktop I had to ditch 11.4 and I have 12.1 with xfce. I also can
not stand gnome 3, and not happy about systemd either…
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 12.1 x86_64 “Asparagus” at Telcontar)