Author: anonym Date: To: The Tails public development discussion list Subject: Re: [Tails-dev] Please review and merge
feature/persistent_NM_connections [was: tails-persistence-setup releases
vs. Tails 0.14]
02/10/12 16:08, Ague Mill wrote: >> Since live-persist is the glue that fixes all the quirks we have
>> with live-boot's vanilla persistence, this seems like a perfect fit.
>> This is done in commits 77c3261 and 4db38e9.
>
> Looks nicer this way.
>
> The function `fix_gconf_dirs` might benefit from some more quoting of
> the variables. Maybe filesystem corruption could put a space
> somewhere bad...
Thanks!. I'm not sure why I dropped the quoting which was in the
original code... fixed now (commit d439558).
>> * "Connect automatically" checkbox gets unchecked on each boot: IMHO
>> this bug is good :). Hence we can ignore this for now and just
>> mention it as a known issue (commit 0f7f652).
>
> We have to rule this as either a bug or a feature. In my views, it is a
> feature and we just have to state it that way: Tails do not connect
> automatically to networks it was previously connected to.
>
> So I'd rather remove the addition to known issues, and document that
> behaviour better on `doc/first_steps/persistence/configure`.
I feel uncomfortable with describing this as a feature, because the way
it's currently "implemented" is highly coincidental, even accidental.
And it's fragile -- the autoconnect option *is* saved to file
persistently, but it's just not working due to the lack of timestamp in
nm-applet's settings. And it's imperfect -- "Connect automatically" is
still enabled for new connections, and remain set for the remainder of
the session, so if a user moves out of the network's range, and then
back in some time later without rebooting Tails, it will re-connect.
Although an edge case, it's confusing. I don't like it.
IMHO, if we want to describe this as a feature we need to patch
nm-applet to hide the "Connect automatically" checkbox and make it
always disable the corresponding NM connection property. I.e. do it
properly. Besides, when we move to Wheezy I have strong reasons to
believe that we won't get this "feature" for free any more since NM
connections are stored in a completely different way (see my other
post). Then we'd definitely need to patch nm-applet to keep this
functionality.
So, with the current state of things it still looks like a bug to me,
although with nice side-effects. Making it into a proper feature (i.e.
patching nm-applet) is definitely desirable, but not something I'm
willing to take on for the 0.14 release.
