gnome-network-manager (applet): Nuisance? [question & rant]

[Derek Broughton]

Chanchao wrote:

> Is this applet really more nuisance than it's worth?   Whenever it sees
> a wireless network (ANY network) that's open, it immediately connects to
> it, trashing any configured DNS information for my eth0 wired LAN
> connection in the process.

I've never seen that happen, and particularly it is supposed to always
choose a wired connection over a wireless one.  Do you have one of those
not-well-implemented wireless NICs that tells HAL it's wired?

> And more generally, while I'm ranting anyway, WHY is DNS a global thingy
> anyway across all networks?  Surely DNS settings are relative to the
> connection used, so if I'm using eth0 LAN at the office then I have a
> DNS server there, and then I'm at home on WiFi ADSL then I have a
> different DNS there.

Yeah?  So????  :-) Generally, your DHCP server sends the DNS information
when it sends the IP address, so you _should_ always have different DNS
settings at different locations.  network-manager sends plenty of
information to syslog about that.

I love network-manager.  If only my wireless NIC was reliable, because nm
has made the rest of network management completely painless.
-- 
derek