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I'm using NetworkManager in GNOME DE. When logged in as non-root user, I'm unable to connect to a vpnc profile.
* As non-root, I am able to add/remove/alter/connect to WiFi network profiles with no trouble.
* As non-root, I am also able to add/remove/alter vpnc profiles.
* However, the VPN group key and VPN user password do not appear to store properly when adding/editing the profile as non-root. I can enter them, but when I bring the dialog back up, they are always blank. Even so, I can see an entry for vpnc in the Gnome keyring.
* When I slide the on/off switch to try to connect with the vpn profile, there is no prompt for the VPN group key or password. The switch just slides back to Off immediately and I can see the text 'authentication required' flash briefly where it shows the connection status. After that flashes, the connection status is back to 'Not connected'. No error message displays.
* If I sign in as root, there are no problems. The VPN 'secrets' will save properly in the dialog, and also if I leave them blank, I'm prompted for them when I activate the connection.
* Creating the connection as 'root' is not an option, as this doesn't appear in profile list when signing on as non-root.
Any ideas on where to look or what to check? As mentioned above, non-root can maintain WiFi connections through NetworkManager just fine, so the problem appears localized to VPN 'secrets'. Also other applications (i.e. Evolution) have no trouble in dealing with authentication.
I do have polkit installed:
extra/polkit 0.110-2 [installed]
Application development toolkit for controlling system-wide privileges
extra/polkit-kde 0.99.0-2
Daemon providing a polkit authentication UI for KDE
extra/polkit-qt 0.103.0-2
A library that allows developers to access PolicyKit API with a nice Qt-style API
community/polkit-gnome 0.105-1 [installed]
PolicyKit integration for the GNOME desktopOffline
Update/more information on this...
My typical/preferred setup for my VPNs is to save the VPN group key, but to be prompted for my VPN user password on each connect. So, this is how I was trying to setup in the applet. Interestingly, I have found that if I save BOTH of the 'secrets' to the keyring, then I can connect!
The behavior is still as above in the dialog -- both secrets are blank if I edit the connection, although they are present in the Gnome keyring. As long as they are BOTH there, I can connect fine. But, if I have either of them set to 'Always Ask', then I am not prompted for them and the connection fails.
Although I can work with this, I would certainly still like to figure out what is going on and fix it, as it does bother me that it works that way:
* Why can't the dialog redisplay my secrets when I edit a connection as non-root?
* Why doesn't Always Ask work to prompt me for secrets when running as non-root?
Any ideas? I've used the Gnome/NetworkManager/vpnc combination on other desktops (this is my first Arch), and I have never seen anything like this.
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Glad to see I'm not the only one who had no idea on this one. :-).
I eventually came to the conclusion that GNOME is fatally flawed these days. I ran into many more bugs beyond this one that were much worse, and I just couldn't use it. That's really disappointing for me, as I've always loved GNOME, and it's the only Linux desktop I've ever used extensively.
After much testing with other desktops, I settled on KDE. Took a little getting used to now, but I'm loving it -- rock solid and fast. And, surprise, surprise, the KDE NetworkManager applet works just fine.
Enjoying my perfect Arch desktop now!
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