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Connecting to the Internet

This page is a draft only
It is still under construction and content may change. Do not rely on the information on this page. This is the chapter Connecting to the Internet written for the UG. Fill free to suggest ideas, suggestions, improvements, corrections. TY

The Network Manager Applet Icon

Network Manager is the application that, since Fedora 11, the GNOME Desktop uses to handle a wide variety of network devices and connections, that allows you to access the Internet. Network Manager is used to configure all your network connections from wired to wireless network, mobile broadband to xDSL network and VPN, too. And if you don't know about DNS, DHCP or pppoe, Network Manager does it all for you. If you use your computer at home, and have an xDSL connection, it is already up, you dont need to configure anything. With a wireless or broadband connection, the steps needed to setup them are simple and easy to do, just a fiew clicks and fill in your personal informations.
Network Manager executes automatically when you start your session and it is visible as an applet Icon, on the top right of the desktop. If you move the mouse over it, it views the active connection. Left-clicking on it, appears a menu divided in three sections:

  • The first section regards the actual connection active which you can eventually Disconnect
  • The second section views the other available connections configured: you can switch to one of them by a simple click and the previous one closes automatically.
  • VPN Connections: this item allows to configure or disconnect a VPN connection.


Right clicking on the applet, appears another little menu, that allows to

  • Enable Networking
  • Enable Notifications
  • view the Connection Information: a window pops up with informations about the active connection.
  • Edit Connections...: it pops up the Network Manager window, in which you configure the network devices and connections.
  • About: it pops up the About Network Manager Applet, with information about the project and the people that created the application, with a link to the Project Web-Site.

Mobile Broadband

In Fedora 13, once inserted your card, you can easily create a Mobile Broadband connection, as indicated below. For many mobile broadband cards, Network Manager can visualize in NM applet icon, cellular signal strength and technology, and listen for signal strength changes, or poll modem-manager for such changes while connected. In this way, you are able to know when the device has a signal and if it is roaming or not.
Network Manager in Fedora 13, uses the gnome-bluetooth plugin to help to configure your Mobile Broadband with the service provider. Also, if you have a Bluetooth adapter and a mobile phone (GPRS) that supports Bluetooth DUN, you can pair the phone with the computer, and let Network Manager recognize your mobile phone; at the end of the pairing process you'll see a screen with checkbox that says Access the Internet using your mobile phone. Checking that box, a progress indicator will appear and say Detecting phone configuration

Supported Mobile Broadband
For a list of supported devices, look at NetworkManager - Mobile Broadband, on the gnome.org site. If your device is not supported, please contact us in the mailing list, with informations on your device.

Create a Mobile Broadband network connection

Right-click on the Network Manager applet Icon and select Edit Connections.... Then select the Mobile Broadbandtab, and click on the Add button. A wizard will open that will assist you in the configuration, questioning some information about your provider; specifically, you should know:

  • Broadband Provider's name
  • Broadband Billing Plan name
  • Broadband Billing Plan APN (Access Point Name)

The wizard displays:

  • An information page, that let you choose, if more than one, the Mobile device to configure.
  • A page where you select the Provider's Country
  • A page where you select your Provider
  • A summary page of your selections.

Then you need to setup your Mobile connection.

My Service Provider is not listed
If your Service Provider, or plan (ie, APN) is not listed, you can contact us in Bugzilla, or at Bugzilla Gnome and tell us your provider name, your country, the common name of your plan, and the APN you use, helping us to make the things work better.

Setup a Mobile Broadband connection

Enter your information for the Mobile Broadband connection in following tabs.

Mobile Broadband Tab

  • Number: Number to dial when establishing a PPP data session with the GSM-based mobile broadband network. In most cases, leave the number blank and a number selecting the APN will be used automatically when required.
  • Username: Username used to authenticate with the network, if required. Note that many providers do not require a username or accept any username.
  • Password: Password used to authenticate with the network, if required. Note that many providers do not require a password or accept any password.

PPP-Settings Tab

(default values)

Mobile Broadband-IPv4

  • Automatic (PPP): Specifing this method, then the O.S. does it all for you (default)
  • Automatic (PPP) addresses only: Specifing this method, then only automatic DHCP is used and at least one IP address must be given in the DNS servers entry.
  • Manual: Specifing this method, static IP addressing is used and at least one IP address must be given in the DNS servers entry.


Access to Network Manager window

To acceed to Network Manager window for setup your network devices & connections:

  • Right-click on the Network Manage applet Icon
  • Select Edit Connections...
Be root to save your configurations
Before creating your new configuration, the O.S. pops up a window to confirm your operation, asking you the root password.


Some items in the Network Manager window

When editing, in the Network Manager window, you find this items:

  • Connection name: User-readable connection identifier/name
  • Connect automaticaly: If checked, Network Manager will activate this connection when its network resources are available. If unchecked, the connection must be manually activated by you.
  • Available to all users: If checked, Network Manager gets access to this network connection to all users

Setup a wired connection

In this section a common user, generally, doesn't need to do any configuration.

Wired Tab

  • Mac Address: The HW address of your network card. When the system boots, it recognizes the network card and its HW address. If you need to know the Mac Address of an interface, open a terminal and run ifconfig | grep HWaddr.
ifconfig | grep HWaddr
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:21:D0:1F:C3:29
  • MTU (Maximun Transmission Unit): If non-zero, the card transmits packets of the specified size or smaller, breaking larger packets up into multiple Ethernet frames. You could set this to Automatic and the O.S. does it for you.

802.1x Tab

If you want cipher your Ethernet communications (defualt is unset)

IPv4 Tab

  • Automatic (DHCP): Specifing this method, then the O.S. does it all for you (default)
  • Automatic (DHCP) addresses only: Specifing this method, then only automatic DHCP is used and at least one IP address must be given in the DNS servers entry.
  • Manual: Specifing this method, static IP addressing is used and at least one IP address must be given in the DNS servers entry.
  • Link-Local Only: Specifing this method, a link-local address in the 169.254/16 range will be assigned to the interface.
  • Shared to other computers: Specifing this method, (indicating that this connection will provide network access to other computers) then the interface is assigned an address in the 10.42.x.1/24 range and a DHCP and forwarding DNS server are started, and the interface is NAT-ed to the current default network connection.
  • DNS Servers: List of DNS servers. For the Automatic (DHCP) method, these DNS servers are appended to those (if any) returned by automatic configuration. DNS servers cannot be used with the Shared to other computers or Link-Local Only methods as there is no usptream network. In Automatic (DHCP) addresses only and Manual methods, these DNS servers are used as the only DNS servers for this connection.
  • Search domains: List of DNS search domains. For the Automatic (DHCP) method, these search domains are appended to those returned by automatic configuration. Search domains cannot be used with the Shared to other computers or Link-Local Only methods as there is no upstream network. In Automatic (DHCP) addresses only and Manual methods, these search domains are used as the only search domains for this connection.
  • Routes...: Fowarding table or routing table. Each IPv4 route structure is composed of 4 32-bit values; the first, Address being the destination IPv4 network; the second, Netmask the destination network, the third, Gateway being the next-hop if any, and the fourth, Metric being the route metric. For the Automatic (DHCP) method, given IP routes are appended to those returned by automatic configuration. Routes cannot be used with the Shared to other computers or Link-Local Onlymethods as there is no upstream network.
  • DHCP client ID: The local machine which the DHCP server may use to customize the DHCP lease and options.


Setup a Wireless connection

Most common items you should fill in, when using a Wireless connection:

Wireless Tab

  • SSID: The SSID of the WiFi network
  • Mode: The available mode are: Infrastructure (default), Ad Hoc
  • BSSID: If specified, directs the device to only associate with the given access point. This capability is highly driver dependent and not supported by all devices.
    Note: this property does not control the BSSID used when creating an Ad Hoc network.

Wireless Security Tab

  • WEP 40/128-bit Key: Your WEP personal key
  • WEP 128-bit Passphrase: The passphrase to decipher your WEP
  • LEAP:
  • Dynamic WEAP (802.1x)
  • WPA & WPA2 Personal: Your WPA personal key
  • WPA & WPA2 Enterprise

IPv4-Settings Tab

View IPv4 Tab in the wired section.


Setup a VPN connection

Here are some items, depending on the VPN connection type, founded when configuring a VPN connections:

VPN Tab

  • Gateway
  • Type
  • Username
  • CA Certificate

VNP-IPv4 Settings Tab

  • Automatic (VPN): Specifing this method, then the O.S. does it all for you (default)
  • Automatic (VPN) addresses only: Specifing this method, then only automatic DHCP is used and at least one IP address must be given in the DNS servers entry.


Setup an xDSL connection

Here are the items generally used in the xDSL connections

xDSL Tab

  • Username: Username used to authenticate with the Service Provider.
  • Service: For most providers, this should be left blank.
  • Password: Password (if needed,) used to authenticate with the Service Provider.

Wired & PPP-Settings Tabs

  • PPP-Settings tab: default values.
  • Wired tab: View Wired Tab for a wired network connection.

xDSL-IPv4 Tab

  • Automatic (PPPoE): Specifing this method, then the O.S. does it all for you (default)
  • Automatic (PPPoE) addresses only: Specifing this method, then only automatic DHCP is used and at least one IP address must be given in the DNS servers entry.
  • Manual: Specifing this method, static IP addressing is used and at least one IP address must be given in the DNS servers entry.


References

For more information on Network Manager, you can refer to:


nmcli: Network Manager in a CLI

nmcli, is the console command that makes Network Manager available in a console. nmcli has the following format:
nmcli [OPTIONS] OBJECT { COMMAND | help }.

  • OPTIONS: allows you to view the output in terse -t or pretty -p mode.
  • OBJECT: can be nm (NetworkManager status), con (NetworkManager connections) or dev (devices managed by NetworkManager)
  • COMMAND: is the action on OBJECT

Type nmcli OBJECT help to see a list of the available actions. For example for nm, the COMMAND are: 

nmcli nm help
Usage: nmcli nm { COMMAND | help }

 COMMAND := { status | sleep | wakeup | wifi | wwan }

  status
  sleep
  wakeup
  wifi [on|off]
  wwan [on|off]

So, running nmcli nm status, we have: 

NM running:               running
NM state:                 connected
NM wireless hardware:     enabled
NM wireless:              enabled
NM WWAN hardware:         enabled
NM WWAN:                  enabled

Refer to man NetwkorManager for more informations.

nm-tools

nm-tool utility provides information about Network Manager, device, and wireless networks. For example: 

$ nm-tool
NetworkManager Tool

State: connected

- Device: eth0  [System eth0] --------------------------------------------------
  Type:              Wired
  Driver:            8139too
  State:             connected
  Default:           yes
  HW Address:        00:21:C0:C1:B3:29

  Capabilities:
    Carrier Detect:  yes
    Speed:           100 Mb/s

  Wired Properties

    Carrier:         on

  IPv4 Settings:
    Address:         192.137.1.2
    Prefix:          24 (255.255.255.0)
    Gateway:         192.137.1.1

    DNS:             192.137.1.1
$

Other Networking Tools

In Fedora 13, Network Manager is the default GUI of the GNOME Desktop, handling the network devices and connections. Though there is another tool, (system-config-network or System -> Administration -> Network) used to network setup. Probably in next releases of Fedora it will be removed. As seen, Network Manager is cool!

To Access a Remote Server

In Fedora 13, the GNOME Desktop has a tool that allows you to access to a Remote Server using its file manager, Nautilus. In the menu-bar select Places -> Connect to Server... Once filled in the necessary connection informations, for quick selection, you can (Add) Bookmark the Server, in Nautilus and in the first section of your Places menu.

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