Comment 33 for bug 82927

On my Edgy box, NM doesn't take control of any adapter interface **unless** that interface has the "auto" in front of it in /etc/networking/interfaces. I've statically configured the wifi card in my Edgy box, and NM ignores the entire interface as a result. Does removing the

auto eth0

from /etc/networking/interfaces file stop NM from controlling it? Does manually assigning the IP of an adapter in this file stop NM from attempting to control with it?

On a different note: Half of this problem is NM's faulty status report. NM displays connection information about adapter interfaces it controls; but if it controls none, than NM can only display "not connected" regardless of what non-NM-controlled adapter interface might be up and running. This is obviously misleading, and a number of things could be done to fix it. One solution to this would be for nm-applet to question whether or not it should continue to run based upon whether any interface in /etc/networking/interfaces is set to "auto" (and if there are no such interfaces, it should quietly exit from the tray). Another solution would be to have NM be able to _monitor_ all interfaces, but _control_ only those set to "auto" - so if one interface is statically configured (not under NM's control), NM can still report that it is "connected".

Obviously, its probably easier to have it exit if it does nothing. But that's just my non-programmer guess.