Using 'Network Manager' for Wireless & VPN Management

Question

I am new to RP & have been searching for 24 hours for this.

I have a 'ThePiHut' USB wifi dongle. It seemed to install its own drivers when I plugged it in and I used the wpa_gui to successfully connect to a wireless network.

I now need to use an OpenVPN. My provider uses 'Network Manager'.

I have installed this and the gnome gui:

sudo apt-get install network-manager
sudo apt-get install network-manager-openvpn 
sudo apt-get install network-manager-openvpn-gnome

The gnome gui works, and I get a tray icon, and can click Add for VPN and Wireless. However - the windows that come up have every textbox greyed out.

Wifi/internet is still working. I have tried rebooting many times.

I'm sure I'm missing some crucial step or binding or something.

Primarily I'd like to get VPN working through a GUI. Perhaps I also need to get wireless working through the 'Network Manager' GUI too (both would be nice for easy of configuration'.

How can I do this? Is 'Network Manager' the best tool? Thanks.

Answer 1

I'm also fairly new to using the RP. I ran into the same problem using a wired network connection. I edited my /etc/network/interfaces file and removed the line "iface eth0 inet dhcp" and rebooted, this gave Network Manager control of the network interface.

A thorough description of Network Manager can be found here https://wiki.debian.org/NetworkManager

Answer 2

If using XFCE you can create a Desktop Launcher which has the command

sudo nm-connection-editor

You can choose to move this new Desktop Launcher to any Panel by right clicking on the Launcher and selecting 'Create Launcher on A Panel'. If you remove the Desktop Launcher the Panel Item you've just created will remain there.

I would assume that if one is not using XFCE that a similar solution can be used on the RPi's default desktop.

Answer 3

I've read that Network Manager won't work if you're not root. Before starting LXDE, type sudo su-. That will give you root privileges. Then type startx. Then try to run Network Manager again, and the options should no longer be greyed out.

Answer 4

For once Network Manager has to be enabled or started via SystemD on Debian8 and many other Distributions from terminal (as root):

systemctl enable NetworkManager

Second in the config file /etc/network/interfaces you have to comment all entries after the "loopback interface" lo with a hash #

For example auto wlan0 should be changed to this: #auto wlan0 Then restart NetworkManager or reboot if this does not help. To rebstart the service type thins in terminal or console (as root):

systemctl restart NetworkManager