2014-07-11.

Annoyance: in RedHat Enterprise 6 (Scientific Linux 6.5, specifically) there
is a funny mixture of RedHat/traditional network configuration tools and the 
NetworkManager (NM) thing.  

For example, it turns out that the NM toolbar applet run by a user will store 
connection details and passwords in that user's own directory (~/.gconf*/), 
and tries to use "secure" ways of doing so.
This leads to hassle about trying to use "gnome keyring" to store all the 
password details.  This is very annoying when one just wants a connection to 
work without repeatedly entering passwords, and without having to have it 
configured anew for each user (or stop working when logging out). 

The following has worked on the RHEL6.5 system (packages up to date as 
of 2014-07-10).  Its aim is to suit the installation to a laptop.

- The "network" service can be disabled entirely, if NetworkManager is to be used
	chkconfig --level 345 network off
  The "NetworkManager" service is the definitely needed:
	chkconfig --level 345 NetworkManager on

- Remove /etc/sysconfig/network*/   (NOT necessary, but might feel good).

- Set up   /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf  
to use its own method of storing connections (not the RH method):

	# see    man 5 NetworkManager.conf
	#
	[main]
	plugins=keyfile
	#no-auto-default=<MACADDR>
	#
	[keyfile]
	hostname=<HOSTNAME>
	#unmanaged-devices=<MACADDR>
	#
	[logging]
	level=INFO

Then it's ok to use the "applet" (nm-applet) as a normal user, 
for configuring connections, as long as the "available to all users"
option is ticked for each new connection ... that's because that 
phrase really means "make this a system connection".  
With the above NetworkManager configuration, a system connection 
will have all its details, including plaintext passwords, stored
in files under   /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/ 
Doing this will require the root password to be given by the user.
The user can still choose to put in transient connections (hotel, 
conference, plane, etc) without this option, so that the details 
are stored in their .gconf ... this even has the pleasing effect
that this junk can be wiped by rm -rf ~/.gcon* (for those who 
don't care about gnome things) while maintaining the serious 
connections.

Notes:
- Even if running the nm-connection-editor as root, the original 
settings still made it save to /root/.gconf*/ 


For a good server installation, one might care to do the opposite: 
disable "NetworkManager", enable "network", and keep (or make) the 
files under /etc/sysconfig/network*/




--

Some of the clues are from:
http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?t=1163023
Others are from the manual, 
man  5  NetworkManager.conf