[Pkg-utopia-maintainers] Bug#888946: network-manager-gnome: Can't establish VPN connection using GNOME UI

[Andrey Skvortsov]

Package: network-manager-gnome
Version: 1.8.10-2
Severity: normal

Dear Maintainer,

- login to GNOME (I've tried GNOME on X11 and on Wayland),
- go to network manager UI and try to establish VPN connection
- VPN icon appears and immediately disappers

Here is log from journal:

Jan 31 15:14:43 new-nest NetworkManager[8842]: <info>  [1517400883.8650] audit:
op="connection-activate" uuid="b2919892-9619-46a0-91c2-4c499b02b8fe" name="ST"
pid=18013 uid=1001 result="success"
Jan 31 15:14:43 new-nest NetworkManager[8842]: <info>  [1517400883.8675] vpn-
connection[0x55a425bce680,b2919892-9619-46a0-91c2-4c499b02b8fe,"ST",0]: Started
the VPN service, PID 19381
Jan 31 15:14:43 new-nest NetworkManager[8842]: <info>  [1517400883.8745] vpn-
connection[0x55a425bce680,b2919892-9619-46a0-91c2-4c499b02b8fe,"ST",0]: Saw the
service appear; activating connection
Jan 31 15:14:43 new-nest gnome-shell[18013]: Invalid VPN service type (cannot
find authentication binary)
Jan 31 15:14:43 new-nest gnome-shell[18013]: Invalid VPN service type (cannot
find authentication binary)
Jan 31 15:14:43 new-nest NetworkManager[8842]: <error> [1517400883.9090] vpn-
connection[0x55a425bce680,b2919892-9619-46a0-91c2-4c499b02b8fe,"ST",0]: Failed
to request VPN secrets #3: No agents were available for this request.
Jan 31 15:14:43 new-nest NetworkManager[8842]: <info>  [1517400883.9097] vpn-
connection[0x55a425bce680,b2919892-9619-46a0-91c2-4c499b02b8fe,"ST",0]: VPN
plugin: state changed: stopped (6)

If I start nm-applet manually, then VPN connection can be established without
any issue.
`ps -A | grep nm-applet` run just after GNOME login doesn't show nm-applet
running.

As man page for nm-applet says, it should start automatically during login.
But apparently it's not.

There is similar bug report for Ubuntu:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/network-manager-pptp/+bug/1725779



-- System Information:
Debian Release: buster/sid
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (500, 'testing'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: i386

Kernel: Linux 4.14.0-3-amd64 (SMP w/8 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)
LSM: AppArmor: enabled

Versions of packages network-manager-gnome depends on:
ii  dbus-user-session [default-dbus-session-bus]  1.12.2-1
ii  dbus-x11 [dbus-session-bus]                   1.12.2-1
ii  dconf-gsettings-backend [gsettings-backend]   0.26.1-3
ii  gnome-flashback [polkit-1-auth-agent]         3.26.0-2
ii  gnome-shell [polkit-1-auth-agent]             3.26.2-3
ii  libatk1.0-0                                   2.26.1-3
ii  libc6                                         2.26-4
ii  libcairo2                                     1.15.8-3
ii  libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0                            2.36.11-1
ii  libglib2.0-0                                  2.54.3-2
ii  libgtk-3-0                                    3.22.26-2
ii  libjansson4                                   2.10-1
ii  libmm-glib0                                   1.6.8-2
ii  libnm0                                        1.10.2-4
ii  libnma0                                       1.8.10-2
ii  libnotify4                                    0.7.7-3
ii  libpango-1.0-0                                1.40.14-1
ii  libpangocairo-1.0-0                           1.40.14-1
ii  libsecret-1-0                                 0.18.5-5
ii  libselinux1                                   2.7-2
ii  mate-polkit [polkit-1-auth-agent]             1.18.2-2
ii  network-manager                               1.10.2-4
ii  policykit-1-gnome [polkit-1-auth-agent]       0.105-6

Versions of packages network-manager-gnome recommends:
ii  gnome-flashback [notification-daemon]           3.26.0-2
ii  gnome-keyring                                   3.20.1-2
ii  gnome-shell [notification-daemon]               3.26.2-3
ii  iso-codes                                       3.77-1
ii  mate-notification-daemon [notification-daemon]  1.18.1-1
ii  mobile-broadband-provider-info                  20170903-1
ii  notification-daemon                             3.20.0-2

Versions of packages network-manager-gnome suggests:
pn  network-manager-openconnect-gnome  <none>
ii  network-manager-openvpn-gnome      1.8.0-2
pn  network-manager-pptp-gnome         <none>
ii  network-manager-vpnc-gnome         1.2.4-6

-- no debconf information