Password doesn't get saved in system-wide pptp connection

[Psy[H[]]

Binary package hint: network-manager-pptp

There are many bugs about vpn secrets in NM, but they appear to be about communicating with keyrings in user-level connections. And comments are cluttered with descriptions of different situations.

Let's try a fresh start with one specific situation:
 - system-wide pptp connection
 - password field get emptied on saving connection profile
 - when attempting to connect, it fails immediately, syslog shows 'No VPN secrets!' message (strictly with that spelling).

affects: latest NM in karmic and also packages from
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/network-manager/trunk/ubuntu karmic main
latest as of now. (network-manager-pptp 0.8~a~git.20091212t102930.0c78581-0ubuntu1~nmt1~karmic)

Identical user-level profile works fine

Where does system-wide vpn connection supposed to save password?
Is there a valid syntax to manually add it as a property to /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/vpn_profile_name ?

[stacktracer (stacktracer)]

I have the exact same problem.

Shot in the dark: GDM settings are now hidden away in the "gdm" user's gconf settings (grumble grumble). Maybe NetworkManager looks in root's keyring for system-connection passwords?

[stacktracer (stacktracer)]

Success! Well, a solid workaround, at least.

In /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/MyVPN, manually append:

  [vpn-secrets]
  password=blah

Alexander Sack says it sounds like a policy-kit bug.

[Psy[H[] (vovik-wfa)]

workaround works :)

When editing connection, password is there, but saving profile erases it again.

[Psy[H[] (vovik-wfa)]

now I've been able to open another bug about automatic connection (as it does not work) https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/network-manager-pptp/+bug/501811

a little offtop:
Is there a way to define 'loglevel=0' and 'nobuffer' options for pptp connection in system-level connection config?

[Pavlo Bohmat (bohm)]

Ubuntu ~11.04 Natty
network-manager-pptp-gnome_0.8.1+git.20110207t142407.7e1d989-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb: FAIL

Can not remember password VPN, permanent password reset. Can not connect...
In the console pptp works.

Architecture: amd64
Source: network-manager-pptp
Version: 0.8.1+git.20110207t142407.7e1d989-0ubuntu1
Replaces: network-manager-pptp
Depends: pptp-linux, ppp (>= 2.4.5~git), libc6 (>= 2.3.4), libglib2.0-0 (>= 2.18.0), libgnome-keyring0 (>= 2.20.3), libgtk2.0-0 (>= 2.18.0), libnm-glib2 (>= 0.8~a~git.20090917t210753.fdb5ef2), libnm-util1 (>= 0.7.1~20090213+gitf142e15), network-manager-pptp

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Christian Mertes (cmertes)]

When I try to save the VPN configuration, I get a gnome-keyring prompt that tells me that an application is trying to create a keyring called "Default". I get this dialog twice (user pass and group pass if I had to guess) each time I try to save those passwords again. It seems said application is not very successful in creating that default keyring. I'm using Lubuntu so gnome-keyring only got installed as some kind of dependency for another package. Maybe it's not properly initalized in some way but it's doing a lousy job telling me that.

[Christian Mertes (cmertes)]

Oh and BTW, I'm having this bug for network-manager-vpnc and there the workaround is:

[vpn]
.....
IPSec secret-flags=0
Xauth password-flags=0

[vpn-secrets]
Xauth password=........
IPSec secret=......