gpk-update-viewer vs. yum

[Rick Stevens]

On 04/16/2010 01:44 PM, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
> On Fri, 2010-04-16 at 18:51 +0000, BeartoothHOS wrote:
>> 	Is it just me??
>>
>> 	I've noticed, on several machines (PC, laptop, netbook) that if
>> the machine has no connection, or thinks it has none, the gpk function
>> claims there are no updates; but if I doubt that and run yum update, it
>> may immediately get over a hundred -- or at least report a failure to
>> connect.
>>
>> 	Couldn't gpk do the same??
>
> Sounds like the old "interface not managed by NetworkManager" trick.
> Some Gnome apps rely on NM to tell them if the machine is connected. If
> the interface is not managed by NM, they don't realize the connection
> works. This happens to Evolution for example. Luckily yum is not a Gnome
> app and therefore is not confused.
>
> Solution: mark the interface as NM-managed (in system-control-network).

Hmmm, I'd call that a work-around, not a solution.  The solution is for
gpk (in fact, all GUI-based stuff) to query the NICs via something like

	ip link show up | egrep "(eth.:|wlan.:)"

and see if any network link is up.  Or scan /proc/net/dev (or one of
the /proc/net files).

The problem is if you have to authenticate using a network-based
mechanism (e.g. NIS/NIS+ or LDAP), then you have to use the classic
networking stuff since NM doesn't fire until you're logged in AND are
using a GUI.

Perhaps it'd be better if classic networking and NM would write a temp
file somewhere indicating that SOME network device is alive and all 
tools could look at it.
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- Rick Stevens, Systems Engineer, C2 Hosting          ricks at nerd.com -
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