2

For specific reasons, I have to use the network manager as an alternative to Cisco AnyConnect. My problem is that after installing the needed packages, no Icon appears at the top bar.

I followed the instructions of a university:

sudo apt install openconnect network-manager-openconnect network-manager-openconnect-gnome
sudo service network-manager restart

After that, the network manager should be installed and the next step would be to open it via the top bar. However there is no Network Manager appearing. I have the possibility to execute certain commands like "openconnect" and "nmcli" but the GUI does not seem to boot up. I tried to restart the service, restarting the PC many times and did even install a whole load of more packages like:

sudo apt-get install network-manager-openvpn network-manager-openvpn-gnome network-manager-pptp network-manager-pptp-gnome network-manager-vpnc network-manager-vpnc-gnome network-manager-openconnect network-manager-openconnect-gnome

(From: https://wiki.ubuntuusers.de/NetworkManager/VPN_Plugins/)

Other command fixes that I found did not work either. Does anyone know how to get this to work?

Pixelated Fish
  • 634
ljonja
  • 53

2 Answers2

1

Network manager in itself is a service, not a gui for its settings, so it really depends on what are you ACTUALLY trying to achieve...

A) I don't really need the icon, I just want to change some settings or connect to a network (assuming network-manager is running)

  • Ubuntu system GUIs often have an application called something like "System settings" - I found it in Unity and Cinnamon (so I expect Gnome has one too) - run that application and in there search for "Network" - there you can usually make some basic WiFi settings & connect
  • more "hardcore" terminal "GUI" but very capable: nmtui or sudo nmtui
  • for simple gui settings nm-connection-editor - only rich settings, no connect (except auto)

B) I need the icon to be there

You may encounter a situation when you're doing this for a basic user therefore going somewhere further than 2 clicks is beyond their PC skills... so you really NEED the icon #thisreallyhappens or you just love it.
The "icon" is usually there through an "applet" which may crashed or something, we will try to revive it through terminal:

  1. Try to kill all instances of the applet and re-run it: killall nm-applet; nm-applet &
  2. Exit the terminal with CTRL+D (you may have to press it 2x, it will exit the terminal without killing the nm-applet), alternativelly just nohup nm-applet & for the run should work without this
  3. The icon is still not there? Or does it disappear after the restart?
    1. Try to fix your special nm-applet.desktop file as described here: https://askubuntu.com/a/529287/277898
    2. It may be a problem of the System tray applet missing in general (or maybe just the network one) - for that you need to open the "Applets" application and fix it there as described here: https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/280807/223991

C) Get the network-manager service working in the first place

  1. Make sure it's installed sudo apt install network-manager on gnome and gnome-based GUIs like cinnamon or MATE you will probably also need the *-gnome versions of packagessudo apt install network-manager-gnome (similarly for all plugin packages you're installing for the network-manager (like the ones OP tried to install))
  2. Check whether or not the service is running sudo service network-manager status

    1. Not running?

      1. Start it => sudo service network-manager start
      2. Errors? => fix the startup errors first
      3. Check the status again sudo service network-manager status

    2. Already running?

      1. sudo service network-manager stop - wait till it finishes!
      2. sudo service network-manager start - wait till it finishes!
      3. and check the status again sudo service network-manager status
      4. Is it running? (if not, fix errors first), but still no icons? Try to reboot/restart PC, if still no icon is there, but the service IS running, you can continue with B)

And finally, what OP mentioned: sudo apt-get install network-manager-openvpn network-manager-openvpn-gnome network-manager-pptp network-manager-pptp-gnome network-manager-vpnc network-manager-vpnc-gnome network-manager-openconnect network-manager-openconnect-gnome - those are just common PLUGINS for network-manager to allow you to set-up a VPN connection with some security & certificates settings, they're useful for THAT, but they actually have nothing to do with the network-manager itself nor its icon ;)

jave.web
  • 432
0

Here is how I added nmtui:

$ sudo pico /etc/netplan/networkmanager.yaml

Put this in the file:

network:
  version: 2
  renderer: NetworkManager

Then perform these commands:

$ sudo netplan generate

$ sudo netplan apply


$ sudo reboot

For details please see Ubuntu ethernet became unmanaged after update

user8128167
  • 250