NetworkManager Web Authentication

Name of Project

NetworkManager Web Authentication

Description

NetworkManager knows how to connect to many different types of networks, both wired and wireless, and can auto-authenticate to WEP and WPA networks. However, it can't auto-authenticate to networks that require a web-based login, which includes many wired and wireless networks such as SeneNET and AirYork.

Modify NetworkManager so that it talks (though dbus) to a Firefox extension for automatic login to a web-authenticated network.

Resources: ctyler, (roc, callion for dbus)

Leader(s)

• Jason Tarka

Project Contributor(s)

• Scott Lunel, Patrick Lam, Tony Lai - network login page screenshot and HTML

Contribution Opportunities

• Test on different web-authenticated networks (0.3 or 0.4 release)
• Network authentication web pages (ie: SeneNET, AirYork, etc)
  • HTML
  • Screenshot
  • URL to login (ie: https://net1.senecac.on.ca) (optional)
• Keeping directory structures intact when exporting files during build (see this blog post for more details)

Project Details

Releases

0.1 - October 18, 2008

• XPCOM objects & extension that communicates with DBus
• Proof-of-concept of having an external program talking with an extension
• Source & compiled files can be found here
• More detailed blog entry on the release

0.2 - November 15, 2008

• DBus listener put into background thread, no longer ties up Firefox
• Split into 2 extensions in case anybody else wants to try it out
• Direction gathered from NetworkManager mailing list for the 0.3
• More organized codebase and terminal output
• Source & compiled files can be found here
• More detailed blog entry on the release

Project News / Updates

12/01/2008 -

• Daemon is essentially done. There is more to be done for this in the future, but for this 0.3, it is done
  • Picks up connected to network
  • Pulls out SSID from selected wifi network
  • Sends "network connect" signal to FF, followed by the SSID of the network
• One thing needs to be fixed in Firefox, and I will consider myself done my 0.3 release

11/29/2008 -

• Some sort of blog post about britches (this is what happens when I feel silly, but am making a blog post)
• The daemon part of the 0.3 release is nearly complete
  • Listens for when NM connects to a network
  • Does a bunch of black magic and spits out the active network's SSID

11/23/2008 -

• Spoke with Dan Williams on IRC about NM and DBus. A lot of questions answered, and some good documentation provided
• Started work on nmAutoLogin daemon

11/19/2008 -

• Contributions by Patrick Lam and Tony Lai

11/15/2008 -

• All files packaged, and releasing 0.2

11/14/2008 -

• All modifications to 0.1 for 0.2 have been completed. I will package it all and upload it tomorrow, along with the usual blog post to explain it

11/12/2008-

• Scott Lunel provided a contribution of information
• Extension now listens in background for a signal, rather than holding up the browser
• Main components of 0.3 have been decided upon
  • External app to act as an in-between for Firefox and NetworkManager

11/10/2008 -

• Contribution from Scott Lunel

11/3/2008 -

• Posted updated ideas to the NetworkManager Mailing list

10/17/2008 -

• Near-complete 0.1 release ready. A few small fixes would be nice, but seems good to go
• Added some major events to wiki

10/14/2008 -

• The XPCOM objects compile, and have DBus support in them

10/09/2008 -

• I now know I need XPCOM objects too talk with the D-Bus bus
• Almost have the components compiled, then can add functionality
• I am now using C++ rather than Python--easier to understand

09/28/2008 -

• Signed up for the NetworkManager mailing list
• Asked for ideas for project, general dislike of using Firefox, suggestion of libraries to use
  • Would still need a Javascript engine

09/23/2008 -

• Started looking into Python for DBus communication

09/18/2008 -

• Met with David and Chris to talk about how this will be done
• 0.1 release will be a small extension in Firefox and a second program to talk back & forth via dbus

09/16/2008 -

• Created Project page for this project.

NetworkManager Bugs

• NM spews too many messages if system settings service can't start
• nm-applet crashes when selecting a WiFi network
• NetworkManager fails access to keyring