[Bug 279642] [NEW] Provide Retry option for Network Manager

[Martin von Gagern]

Public bug reported:

Binary package hint: network-manager-kde

I observedthis on Intrepid beta, but I think it's probably going to
become a wishlist item targeted at a later release.

I had just plugged in my LAN network cable, and the kde network manager
applet displayed the usual turning gear while trying to negotiate IP
settings. However, there seemed to be problems, perhaps due to the fact
that my lan link here is rather weak, only 10Base-T, and might well
cause high packet drop rates. So after a while, network manager gave up,
and displayed the link as "Disconnected". I checked the connection,
removed the cable, plugged it back in, but I couldn't get network
manager to try again. I had a look at the device using wireshark, there
were even broadcast packets arriving, but no outgoing DHCP requests. So
in the end I invoked dhclient3 via sudo, which got my NIC configured.
Downside of this approach is that e.g. firefox still thinks I'm offline.

Things would be much easier if there was an option labeled "Retry" or
"Repair network connection" or whatever in the network manager applet
that told it to treat the interface as newly connected.

This would also be of advantage in cases where the ethernet link to the
next switch works all right, but the dhcp server is down or unreachable
for any other reason. When it comes back up, you want to reactivate your
connection with a single click, instead of waiting, unplugging cables
and so on.

When you start adding user commands to the network manager frontends,
you might also implement a command to abort the current connection. This
is especially important in wireless networks, where you are not sure of
the encryption password. When you are trying one possibility after the
other, you don't want to wait for the connection to time out in between,
but abort it after a couple of seconds. Perhaps this should be a
separate bug report; if so, please tell me.

** Affects: knetworkmanager (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: New

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Provide Retry option for Network Manager
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/279642
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