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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
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ljonja
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  • Is this a laptop or desktop? Do you connect via an ethernet cable to the university network now? Has the university given you a connection script, or the details and certs so you can enter them manually? – heynnema Nov 15 '20 at 23:04
  • It is a laptop, beeing used at home (due to the coronavirus pandemic). The university seems to have this instruction page, including those two commands I posted and then an instruction to connect to their networks. But this next steps requires the network manager to work properly. Since no Network-Manager Icon appears, the functionality of this program rather seems to be the problem than the internet connection of the university – ljonja Nov 16 '20 at 11:01
  • Those aren't actually network-manager(but it should have gotten installed when you ran those commands because they depend on it)... did you specifically remove it in the first place? If not, did you every see the icon...ever? And just because there is no icon, does not mean there is no network-manager... systemctl status network-manager ...is it active? are their errors? have you looked at the logs or dmesg? have you tried running the applet nm-applet? I can only assume you are using the default desktop, but if you are using a panel is the entire indicator applet even there? – WU-TANG Nov 16 '20 at 13:40
  • @ljonja How are you connecting now, via wireless? Don't you see a wireless icon in the top panel when connected? Tell me the university's web URL for the VPN configuration so I can take a look. – heynnema Nov 16 '20 at 14:50
  • sorry, I did not answer. was asking this whole thing for a another person, and this person uses windows now .. – ljonja Dec 02 '20 at 18:02
  • This actually helped me for missing VPN settings, aparently you need to install the -gnome versions of packages not only on gnome, but on all gnome-based GUIs, like cinnamon* :) – jave.web Dec 30 '20 at 21:45
  • I had the same problem. Check this link – Angel Ivanov Jun 01 '21 at 21:20
  • I had the same issue. Follow this link to check my solution. – Angel Ivanov Jun 01 '21 at 21:21

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
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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
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