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#1 2013-02-08 10:06:41

taylorchu
Member
Registered: 2010-08-09
Posts: 405

connman_dmenu: netcfg(netctl) alternative!

recently I tried all network manager, but eventually settled down to connman.
interestingly, connman is such a powerful tool because it provides proper abstraction on top of wpa_supplicant.

Pro:
+ super lightweight (dmenu + connman)
+ faster scan and connection (vs netcfg) (this is around 1~2 secs while netcfg can take up to 15 secs)
+ automatically connection after first connection is made (wifi or ethernet)
+ supported wifi security: wep, wpa2 peap, wpa psk, none (these 4 are the most common)
+ 2014/1/14 add vpn pptp support (pptp is the most common one.)

Con:
- dmenu cannot support all configuration, but for most people we dont have complicated wifi configuration

This works nicely if you use i3 or some other random tiling wm.

wiWyx1h.png
install
https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/connman_dmenu-git/

Last edited by taylorchu (2014-01-16 05:17:36)


"After you do enough distro research, you will choose Arch."

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#2 2013-02-08 10:09:36

theGunslinger
Member
Registered: 2011-05-20
Posts: 300

Re: connman_dmenu: netcfg(netctl) alternative!

That looks great, does connman offer automatic connection to a network?

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#3 2013-03-09 23:38:11

taylorchu
Member
Registered: 2010-08-09
Posts: 405

Re: connman_dmenu: netcfg(netctl) alternative!

@theGunslinger
yes


"After you do enough distro research, you will choose Arch."

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#4 2013-03-26 04:29:31

taylorchu
Member
Registered: 2010-08-09
Posts: 405

Re: connman_dmenu: netcfg(netctl) alternative!

changelog
1. add more info for wifi like signal, encryption method
2. skip connection, if it is already connected
3. add error message if failed (or succeeeded)


"After you do enough distro research, you will choose Arch."

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#5 2013-03-26 05:12:06

WonderWoofy
Member
From: Los Gatos, CA
Registered: 2012-05-19
Posts: 8,414

Re: connman_dmenu: netcfg(netctl) alternative!

Wow, I never noticed this little project of your before taylorchu. 

Unfortunately openresolv and connman are in conflict, so this can't live side by side with netctl.  But I will say that this is (so far) awesome enough to justify not having netctl on my machine.

Thanks man!  I was able to get connman working in the past, but it was not practical.  This makes it more than practical, it makes it freaking awesome!  Now my network management matches everything else in my system.


Oh, for anyone who is trying this, start the connman service, then just run connman_dmenu as root.  In order to automatically connect on boot, enable connman as well.  I am not sure how this will handle roaming, but since connman is apparently designed for mobile devices, I would imagine that it either must handle this to some degree, or will gain it at some point.

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#6 2013-03-26 11:46:00

nierro
Member
From: Milan, Italy
Registered: 2011-09-02
Posts: 849

Re: connman_dmenu: netcfg(netctl) alternative!

Found this, voted for this! Great work! NetworkManager took 7s on my pc to start. Connman takes 1s. Great!!! I'm loving it!

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#7 2013-03-26 21:09:40

WonderWoofy
Member
From: Los Gatos, CA
Registered: 2012-05-19
Posts: 8,414

Re: connman_dmenu: netcfg(netctl) alternative!

connman starts in 118ms!  And it definitely resolves an address much faster than anything else.  Thanks again!

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#8 2013-03-26 21:21:22

nierro
Member
From: Milan, Italy
Registered: 2011-09-02
Posts: 849

Re: connman_dmenu: netcfg(netctl) alternative!

@wonderwoofy: ssd? On my hdd networkmanager took 8s to start, now connman takes 1s!!Great!

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#9 2013-03-26 22:38:26

WonderWoofy
Member
From: Los Gatos, CA
Registered: 2012-05-19
Posts: 8,414

Re: connman_dmenu: netcfg(netctl) alternative!

@nierro, yeah its actually two SSDs striped with LVM.

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#10 2013-03-27 08:04:14

ron9
Member
From: Norway
Registered: 2011-02-02
Posts: 119

Re: connman_dmenu: netcfg(netctl) alternative!

Great work taylorchu. q;-)

ConnMan is very fast.
I alternate between i3 and OpenBox. It had to be great to get this to work in a OpenBox pipemenu.
There is a script wifi-pipe for netctl which unfortunately is out of date. Maybe someone with abilities can be nice to rewrite this for connman?

Perhaps our Connman wiki should have been updated as well...


lenovo w500 - huawei matebook 14 | archlinux | swaywm | alacritty | falkon

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#11 2013-03-27 19:00:52

Hspasta
Member
Registered: 2011-12-24
Posts: 189
Website

Re: connman_dmenu: netcfg(netctl) alternative!

I like this very much.

There's a few minor bugs I've ran into though.
- There are some cut errors sometimes when it is parsing for the list of wifi's.
- It prematurely displays Could not connect.... when the network does connect with a longer delay.
- This might be a weird PEAP/connman issue, but I can't seem too connect to another wifi if I am already connected to one.

Since this doesn't prompt for a ca_cert and my universities wifi requires one, I just manually put it in the config files and worked flawlessly.

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#12 2013-03-27 22:45:30

taylorchu
Member
Registered: 2010-08-09
Posts: 405

Re: connman_dmenu: netcfg(netctl) alternative!

@Hspasta
1. can you show some examples that it might fail to parse the list of wifi?
2. this problem is observed by me. so I am going to fix it soon. (it is good to see connman does async connection tongue)
3. can you show some examples of what you did? (i can imagine it would conflict if they have the exact same ssid.)


"After you do enough distro research, you will choose Arch."

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#13 2013-03-27 23:17:14

Hspasta
Member
Registered: 2011-12-24
Posts: 189
Website

Re: connman_dmenu: netcfg(netctl) alternative!

@taylorchu
1. I see this every first run.

cut: invalid byte, character or field list
Try 'cut --help' for more information.
cut: fields and positions are numbered from 1
Try 'cut --help' for more information.

3. I don't do anything. After about 10-30 minutes, I just lose connection and I have to reboot to be able to connect to wifi again (with any tool). Strangely, NetworkManager does this too, at least on my university's network. The only one that is able to keep a steady connection is netctl.

I have no idea how my uni has their wifi setup. When you do a search, often I see 2 results for the same SSID. I feel like this is just a problem of how the wifi is setup here especially since NetworkManager has the same problem.

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#14 2013-03-28 00:55:09

taylorchu
Member
Registered: 2010-08-09
Posts: 405

Re: connman_dmenu: netcfg(netctl) alternative!

1. so before you run connman_dmenu
can you run:
connmanctl scan wifi
connmanctl services
and post the output

3. this might have something to do with dbus. dbus sometimes crashes without reason.


"After you do enough distro research, you will choose Arch."

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#15 2013-03-28 02:03:48

Hspasta
Member
Registered: 2011-12-24
Posts: 189
Website

Re: connman_dmenu: netcfg(netctl) alternative!

Here's the output you requested.

connmanctl> scan wifi
Scan completed
connmanctl> services
*A  PAL2.0               { wifi_a088b45b697c_50414c322e30_managed_ieee8021x }
*A  PAL3.0               { wifi_a088b45b697c_50414c332e30_managed_ieee8021x }
    PAL Setup            { wifi_a088b45b697c_50414c205365747570_managed_none }
    Purdue Guest Network { wifi_a088b45b697c_507572647565204775657374204e6574776f726b_managed_none }
    Purdue Guest Network { wifi_a088b45b697c_hidden_managed_ieee8021x }
    attwifi              { wifi_a088b45b697c_61747477696669_managed_none }
    attwifi              { wifi_a088b45b697c_hidden_managed_none }
    NETGEAR38            { wifi_a088b45b697c_4e4554474541523338_managed_psk }
    PFRPZD8923YOHP       { wifi_a088b45b697c_504652505a4438393233594f4850_managed_ieee8021x }
    default              { wifi_a088b45b697c_64656661756c74_managed_none }

...

 └➤ sudo connman_dmenu 
cut: invalid byte, character or field list
Try 'cut --help' for more information.
cut: fields and positions are numbered from 1
Try 'cut --help' for more information.

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#16 2013-03-28 23:37:56

taylorchu
Member
Registered: 2010-08-09
Posts: 405

Re: connman_dmenu: netcfg(netctl) alternative!

changelog
1. improved error message: now every failed connection gets explanation.
2. robust parsing: ...you should not care. but those who have seen bugs should.
Please rebuild and upgrade


"After you do enough distro research, you will choose Arch."

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#17 2013-03-30 23:39:42

WonderWoofy
Member
From: Los Gatos, CA
Registered: 2012-05-19
Posts: 8,414

Re: connman_dmenu: netcfg(netctl) alternative!

Shouldn't this package be called connman_dmenu-git?

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#18 2013-03-31 05:06:16

taylorchu
Member
Registered: 2010-08-09
Posts: 405

Re: connman_dmenu: netcfg(netctl) alternative!

@WonderWoofy
that's right according to aur guideline. However, the reasons behind this:
1. i dont want to maintain 2 pkgbuild
2. this package is not really popular
3. pkgbuild version bump is too much work for me
4. some excitement for people who still remember this project and read the commit log occasionally

@everyone
changelog
1. fix ap name conflicts
2. add disconnect feature


"After you do enough distro research, you will choose Arch."

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#19 2013-03-31 11:28:37

Unia
Member
From: Stockholm, Sweden
Registered: 2010-03-30
Posts: 2,486
Website

Re: connman_dmenu: netcfg(netctl) alternative!

taylorchu wrote:

@WonderWoofy
that's right according to aur guideline. However, the reasons behind this:
1. i dont want to maintain 2 pkgbuild
2. this package is not really popular
3. pkgbuild version bump is too much work for me
4. some excitement for people who still remember this project and read the commit log occasionally

Guidelines are guidelines, no matter if your package is popular or not. If a version bump is too much work for you, you shouldn't be maintaining packages in the first place.

Just my two cents..


If you can't sit by a cozy fire with your code in hand enjoying its simplicity and clarity, it needs more work. --Carlos Torres

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#20 2013-03-31 13:58:14

WonderWoofy
Member
From: Los Gatos, CA
Registered: 2012-05-19
Posts: 8,414

Re: connman_dmenu: netcfg(netctl) alternative!

Why not just have the git version as the only version? Doing that would ensure that it is never "out of date" since it will just pull from git everytime and get the latest version.

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#21 2013-04-18 16:54:21

OK100
Member
From: [U==]
Registered: 2010-04-26
Posts: 455

Re: connman_dmenu: netcfg(netctl) alternative!

Every time I try to connect to wpa-protected network, I get the following error message:

cannot connect to <ssid> (Not registered) (press enter)

Unencrypted networks works fine.
Any idea?

Last edited by OK100 (2013-04-18 16:54:49)

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#22 2013-04-18 21:24:03

taylorchu
Member
Registered: 2010-08-09
Posts: 405

Re: connman_dmenu: netcfg(netctl) alternative!

@OK
the latest connman_dmenu requires connman-git.
what type of wpa is it?


"After you do enough distro research, you will choose Arch."

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#23 2013-04-29 01:54:40

Thme
Member
From: Raleigh NC
Registered: 2012-01-22
Posts: 105

Re: connman_dmenu: netcfg(netctl) alternative!

Just Updated the wiki and mentioned connman_dmenu with a note on requiring connman-git. And for ron9.  I am currently writting an pipemenu from scratch that uses connmanctl. Will post a separate thread once I've got a working beta in git and submit my first PKGBUILD for it  to the AUR. This Is great work. After switching to ConnMan I really think it needs a little help in the area of frontends/clients. It truly is an awesome network manager. Great work taylorchu, I don't personally use dmenu but anything providing integration with ConnMan is a move forward. Your post was how I even found out about it in the first place, Never heard of it till now.

Last edited by Thme (2013-04-29 01:58:30)


"Hidden are the ways for those who pass by, for light is perished and darkness comes into being." Nephthys:
Ancient Egyptian Coffin Texts

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#24 2013-04-29 08:48:32

OK100
Member
From: [U==]
Registered: 2010-04-26
Posts: 455

Re: connman_dmenu: netcfg(netctl) alternative!

taylorchu wrote:

@OK
the latest connman_dmenu requires connman-git.
what type of wpa is it?

I'm using connman-git, but it was the same also with previous version of connman_dmenu and connman from community. The encryption is wpa2-psk.

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#25 2013-04-30 07:56:43

nierro
Member
From: Milan, Italy
Registered: 2011-09-02
Posts: 849

Re: connman_dmenu: netcfg(netctl) alternative!

@taylorchu: experiencing same troubles as OK100. It used to work fine...i'm using connman-git now but nothing changed. Well, i cannot really say, on my netbook it is working fine (at least, it connects during bootup, while on my laptop it worked until about a week ago, but then it stopped auto connecting, and i couldn't use my wpa2 wifi anymore. I'm now using an unencrypted wireless.)
The only differences is that netbook is i686 while notebook is x86_64. But i guess this really doesn't matter...

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