CMST(1)

💖 CMST — Connman System Tray 💖

okay bestie, gather round, because this is the manual page for CMST, aka the Connman System Tray — and it's giving very much "network management but make it cute." 🦋

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

Usage: cmst [options]

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

It's a QT5 based GUI front end for the Connman network daemon. That's it, that's the whole vibe. A pretty face for your network daemon. 💅

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🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

• -b, --bypass-restore-state — if a restore state is specified in the settings file, this option takes precedence over that setting and does not restore the state when starting. no restoring today, we're fresh. ✨
• -B, --bypass-start-options — completely ignore any start options specified in the settings file. like, we're not even looking at them.
• -c, --enable-counters [Experimental] — turn the counters ON. they're disabled by default to keep the load on your system nice and low. 🫶
• -d, --disable-tray-icon — no system tray icon for you. this may be needed for system trays that aren't compliant with the Freedesktop.org system tray specification. (rude of them, honestly.)
• -h, --help — displays this help. hi, hello, here's the help. 💖
• -i, --icon-theme <Icon Theme Name> — use a specific icon theme from your system. the icon theme name is optional, and if you specify it CMST will try to use icons from that theme. if you don't give a name, and a system wide icon theme is defined (via your DE), that one gets used. and if the icon theme can't be found, CMST falls back to using its own internal built in icons. so you're never iconless. 💅
• -I, --icon-scale <Icon Scale> — scales icons and other artwork in CMST. for High DPI monitors you might need to specify a scale factor on the icons and artwork. you can override the default with this option. for High DPI monitors a factor of 2 has been found to be good. the default scale is 1.0. valid values of the scale factor are from 1.0 to 3.0. no cap, big icons are iconic. 👑
• -l, --log-input-request — log the Connman inputRequest for debugging purposes. for when you gotta see the receipts. 🔍
• -m, --minimized — start the GUI minimized in the system tray. shy girlie energy. 🙈
• -M, --disable-minimize — disable the minimize button. use this when you want the window manager to have sole control in minimizing the interface. one boss, not two.
• -n, --disable-vpn — disable VPN support. this disables (greys out) the VPN tab and the VPN editor button. more importantly, it also bypasses setting up a DBUS connection to connman-vpn. if Connman is compiled without VPN support, this option should be supplied. periodt.
• -v, --version — displays version information. who are you, where did you come from. 🌈
• -w, --wait-time <seconds> — specify the wait time in seconds before starting the system tray icon (default is 0 seconds). if CMST is started and tries to create a tray icon before the system tray itself is created, CMST won't be able to start minimized. this sometimes happens when the program is started automatically. if you know the tray will exist once the system is up, you may specify a wait time and CMST will wait that number of seconds before trying to create the tray icon. this is to give the window manager or panel time to create the tray before we try to place the icon there. if you plan to start with the main dialog shown on screen, there's no reason to use this option — it's only intended for starting minimized.
• --counter-update-kb <KB> [Experimental] — specify the amount of data in KB that must be transmitted before the counters update (default is 1024 KB). Connman will accept this entry, but according to a comment in the Connman code the actual feature still needs to be implemented. so… it's aspirational. 😭
• --counter-update-rate <seconds> [Experimental] — specify the frequency in seconds between counter updates (default is 10 seconds).
• --fake-transparency <RRGGBB> — on some systems the system tray icon background, which is transparent, will display as white or black. this seems to be an issue between QT, system tray implementations, compositing, and maybe certain graphics cards. to work around it we've implemented a fake transparency for tray icons. to use it, specify the system tray background color with this option. if the background color is provided, CMST will convert the tray icon image to have the specified background color. color is a hex number in the format: RRGGBB.

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⭐ COMMAND LINE STABILITY ⭐

command line options marked [Experimental] refer to some option in Connman that is currently flagged experimental. these options should not be assumed to be fixed and could change at any time. 😬

other command line options may be assumed to be fixed and should be safe to use in startup scripts. 🫶

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🦋 GUI INFO 🦋

the GUI contains one main dialog with separate tab pages. program help is mainly provided through a "What's This" interface. the "What's This" button in the lower left corner will let you enter "What's This" mode — click the button and then click the GUI feature or control that you're interested in. a right mouse click on a GUI feature or control will also enter "What's This" mode. cute and intuitive, we love. 💖

💅 Status Tab

the status tab displays information about the global properties, found technologies, and services. the checkbox at the top right will let you put everything in "offline" mode. to toggle a technology on or off, click the entry under the Powered column.

💅 Details Tab

the details tab will display detailed setup and connection information about a service. select the service you wish to investigate in the combo box at the top.

💅 Wireless Tab

the Wireless tab will display information, connect, disconnect, and edit certain properties of wireless services. ✨

💅 VPN Tab

the VNP tab will display information, connect and disconnect already provisioned VPN services. (yes, the original really does say "VNP." we keep the lore. 🫶)

💅 Counters Tab

the Counters tab will display information about the Connect time, the Transmit (TX) and Receiving (RX) counters for the service currently in the "online" state. the counters are set to fairly course intervals to minimize system usage. currently these interval settings are hard coded into the program.

💅 Preferences Tab

the preferences tab will let you change some aspects of the GUI.

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🌈 CONFIGURATION 🌈

for typical networks and access points, even hidden ones, Connman will find and automatically configure the network for you. if Connman needs information, for instance a passphrase, CMST registers an agent and this agent will prompt you for the needed information. for most cases this "just works", however there are options for fine tuning the automatic configuration or creating provisioning files. lowkey magic. ✨

🧚 Profile Editor

there are a variety of connection settings that may be used to override the automatic settings. an editor is provided to access these settings via the Configuration button in the lower right corner of the Details tab. one common use is to define a static IP address for the connection. hidden or provisioned (see below) services cannot be edited.

🧚 802.1x Encrypted Networks (Eduroam and similar)

certain types encrypted networks require a config (provisioning) file to be created before you first connect. as of 2014.10.30 CMST has a provisioning editor built in, but it's considered an advanced control and by default it is hidden. to enable the control, check the Advanced Controls box on the Provisioning tab. the button to open the editor will appear in the lower left corner of the dialog. with this editor you may create, open, edit, delete and save config files to /var/lib/connman. the menu at the top may be used to enter some information automatically, and many of the input fields are validated as you enter text into them. there are also predefined template files that may be used to seed the editing area. all of this can be bypassed if you wish, and you may cut and paste or type into the editor directly. do it your way, bestie. 💅

🧚 Creating and Editing VPN Connections

as of 2016.01.26 CMST has a VPN provisioning editor built in, but it's considered an advanced control and by default it is hidden. to enable the control, check the Advanced Controls box on the Provisioning tab. the button to open the editor will appear in the lower left corner of the dialog. with this editor you may create, open, edit, delete and save config files to /var/lib/connman-vpn. the menu at the top may be used to enter some information automatically, and many of the input fields are validated as you enter text into them. the first item under each menu heading (Provider xxx) will start a junior wizard to walk you through entering all the mandatory information for each connection type. for OpenVPN the second menu item (Import Configuration) will import an OpenVPN .opvn file. the import will extract and save keys and certificates and will place the proper provisioning entries into the editor window. slay. 🔥

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💀 BUGS 💀

for the tray icon to display, it is required that the system tray be compliant with the Freedesktop.org systemtray specification.

the tray icon is known to not work in the DWM system tray, which appears to be a noncompliant tray. 💀

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👑 Author 👑

Andrew J. Bibb. project web page: https://github.com/andrew-bibb/cmst

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Version: 2010.12.19 — dated 19 December 2021. that's the tea, bestie, go manage some networks. 🎀💖✨