Bug 298974

For performance reason I am really not willing to implement this.

Could you explain why more clearly ? Thanks.

This is a rarely used feature and to implement it I need to change the algorithm that filter connections to include this new criteria, so it affects all connections. Besides, I plan to implement a new way to select what network interface to use to activate a connection and I rely on the fact that all possible connections are listed, not only the ones marked as "Restrict to interface".

I don't think this is "rarely used feature". Not having that implemented is really annoying when for instance connecting phone via USB which shows up as ethernet interface, which is quite common. And it shows dead elements in UI - restricted connections displayed in other interfaces just do nothing when clicked, which is serious UX bug.

Did I understand it correctly - you plan to change interface to show all available connections just once, and if they can be applied to many interfaces, ask user which one he wants to use after click?

(In reply to comment #4)
> I don't think this is "rarely used feature". Not having that implemented is
> really annoying when for instance connecting phone via USB which shows up as
> ethernet interface, which is quite common. And it shows dead elements in UI
> - restricted connections displayed in other interfaces just do nothing when
> clicked, which is serious UX bug.

That ethernet connection for phones is problem in ModemManager, it did not used to do that.
 
> Did I understand it correctly - you plan to change interface to show all
> available connections just once, and if they can be applied to many
> interfaces, ask user which one he wants to use after click?

yes, except that I want to implement drag'n drop to choose the network interface to activate the connection. If you just click on the connection it will automatically select the last one used.

(In reply to comment #5)
> (In reply to comment #4)
> > I don't think this is "rarely used feature". Not having that implemented is
> > really annoying when for instance connecting phone via USB which shows up as
> > ethernet interface, which is quite common. And it shows dead elements in UI
> > - restricted connections displayed in other interfaces just do nothing when
> > clicked, which is serious UX bug.
> 
> That ethernet connection for phones is problem in ModemManager, it did not
> used to do that.

Actually, no. I didn't mean phones reporting as modem for internet connection, I thought about phones reporting as ethernet device to allow connection between phone and PC - like Openmoko phones do or like PC Suite mode works in Nokia N900 (probably in other models too, but I'm not 100% sure).

Looking at code, it seems like almost everything needed for filtering out unmatching connections is already in place. 

Function:
bool NetworkInterfaceActivatableProvider::hardwareAddressMatches(Knm::Connection * connection, Solid::Control::NetworkInterfaceNm09 * iface)
is called on each connection, but it always returns true due to lack of proper handling of reading MAC address from configuration. Code is there, but seems to be from KNetworkManager era, comment says that probably it was working in wrong way and now it is disabled with "#if 0" and "#endif" instructions.

It's in libs/service/networkinterfaceactivatableprovider.cpp at line 151.

So to fix this issue with current UI one just needs to implement hardwareAddressMatches method.

*** Bug 301762 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Is it really fixed? Two patches that I sent you few hours ago were for some different issue (displaying useless connections for unmanaged interfaces) and I can't find any other recent commit in git repo other than those two.

Just to keep track of bug for anyone interested: now it's really fixed in git.