I have tried multiple combinations of settings in network manager / network settings in openSUSE 11. I now have my wireless set to “started manually” and wired set to “started automatically at boot” - yet wireless seems to always try to connect.
I also noticed the “Edit Connections” option in Network Manager where the wireless connections are set to auto - which is fine as I want them to connect when wired isn’t available.
**How do I make sure wired takes 100% priority over wireless and that wireless doesn’t attempt to connect when there is a wired connection (as it currently does on login or network settings reset)?
I don’t have a direct solution here… but in gnome, you can right click on the little network icon and disable wireless.
My motherboard supports something called Intel LAN/WLAN switching. Under windows, if you plug in a network cable, the wireless shuts off. I’d really like to see this work under openSUSE… I had to disable the motherboard setting to get wireless working.
For now, I’ve set wireless to never automatically start, but it still does. So, I had to go into the wireless networks and disable the wireless network at my workplace so it doesn’t auto-connect. What a pain.
I wished it would work like that for me, no matter if i have autoconnect or not my wireless refuse to do anything. I have to manually try to connect each time and it’s rarely working, it’s not unusual that i have to manually try to connect around 20-40 times before it actually does connect. Well at least wireless works sometimes in KDE4, in gnome it just don’t work at all.
(i have intel 3945 card with wpa2 network)
Yast settings have little effect if you have NetworkManager enabled.
The network interfaces in openSUSE are independent of each other, with or without NM running. They will activate when a connection is available (and the interface is enabled to), whether wired or wireless.
However, NM (and Yast without NM, for that matter) will always prefer a wired connection over wireless.
Previously, the old version of NM would not permit more than one interface to be active at the same time. The new version, included with 11.0, does allow multiple interfaces. So it will enable both wifi and wired, if both are available, and if the particular AP’s in NM have the auto-connect setting enabled. I actually find it a killer feature, since I have some test boxes at work that aren’t on the main network but accessed through a private AP. I can now be connected to our main network at the office, but still access that “test” subnet through wifi at work, automatically through NM. Used to require manual Yast config in 10.3, though Windows handles that sort of thing automatically.
So from a routing POV, the wired interface will always take precedence. Even if you have wifi activating a connection, your wired port will always be your default external interface. If there’s a reason you don’t want your wifi connecting automatically, even though it won’t interfere with your wired traffic, you’ll need to disable it through the knetworkmanager app.
That’s interesting - makes complete sense. So, at work if I have auto-connect enabled for the wireless network and am plugged into wired, it will connect to both. Which I think I remember it doing - it told me I was connected to the wireless network yet displayed the “wired” network icon in the sys tray.
This could be really nice if it does work as you say and route via wired network by default when both are connected. Another great use for this is Pidgin - xferring between wired and wireless is a nightmare as Pidgin doesn’t detect the change and hangs for a while. With this feature, I’m wondering if that won’t happen since both will be available.