FFe request: Unity greeter network indicator

[Michael Terry]

For 12.10, we're trying to add a remote login feature into the greeter. This involves lots of different packages and there is a separate FFe for that itself (bug 1040221). That feature will be opt-in by toggling a certain system gsettings key.

But in order to support remote logins in the greeter, we also wanted to have a network indicator in the greeter.

The code to enable it is very simple:
https://code.launchpad.net/~bikini-atoll-squad/unity-greeter/network-menu/+merge/119948

And the code to restrict it to not have any permissions is here:
http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-desktop/unity-greeter/ubuntu/revision/55

In the final analysis, it will need slightly more permission than that (as is now, it can only show state). It should also be allowed to start a connection that isn't automatically started. Security team does not want us to enable creating new connections.

There are a few UI warts in the applet, as it doesn't really expect to be run with so few permissions. But that's fixable and really is just it showing things that it shouldn't because the user can't use the controls anyway.

You can test the greeter with these changes here:
https://code.launchpad.net/~unity-greeter-team/+archive/daily

[Kate Stewart (kate.stewart)]

When can the code land?

[Michael Terry (mterry)]

With https://code.launchpad.net/~bikini-atoll-squad/unity-greeter/ubuntu.control-network-permission/+merge/121900 which I'm about to merge (this is the final piece of the permissions puzzle), it could land now.

The only outstanding issue is that connect/disconnect notifications have an ugly black border because there is no compositing. But that's a bug in notify-osd that I'm trying to track down. I don't think that should block the feature.

[Michael Terry (mterry)]

Oh and there are nm-applet-side changes to cope prettier with fewer permissions. Those would be nice to land too, hopefully tomorrow. But that's a prettiness issue, not a feature issue.

[Michael Terry (mterry)]

notify-osd bug is fixed.

[Robert Ancell (robert-ancell)]

Fixed in unity-greeter 12.10.1

[Michael Terry (mterry)]

unity-greeter 12.10.2-0ubuntu1 uploaded to quantal. Fixes the nits I mentioned. Has the code for nm-applet in it, but that's disabled via a distro patch for now.

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

I assume that Kate's question is because she considers this ok for FFe provided it lands at a reasonable point in the cycle. I think "immediately" certainly qualifies as a reasonable point. Please go ahead and upload.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package unity-greeter - 12.10.2-0ubuntu2

---------------
unity-greeter (12.10.2-0ubuntu2) quantal; urgency=low

  * Enable Network Manager support (LP: #1042757)
  * debian/copyright: update Format and syntax
 -- Michael Terry <email address hidden> Thu, 30 Aug 2012 16:10:27 -0400