Public SourceMage Discussion List

[nealbirch <nealbirch AT attbi.com>]

jack AT jbertram.net wrote:
> * nealbirch <nealbirch AT attbi.com> [021021 00:38]:
>
> > jack AT jbertram.net wrote:
> >
> > > Help would certainly help.  I didn't understand the paradigm you were
> > > using - that there was one file which called a number of "card" files
> > > from a different directory.  Not sure what the difference between
> > > Install and Update is either. 
> >
> > The cards files are for those who have more than one nic
>
>
> Wasn't complaining about the method you chose, just pointing out that
> it's not necessarily obvious to someone who doesn't know how the script
> works.  You could say up front something like: "We're now going to
> configure your networking.  This involves installing a base script and
> then adding a number of cards to the base script.  Choose 'Install' if
> you're replacing an old, ad hoc script.  Choose 'Upgrade' if you want to
> upgrade an earlier version of this script.  Choose 'Add' to add a card,
> or 'Remove' to remove a card."

Ok, that sounds good. I'll be working on that this week. Did the update 
today and enough time had passed since I wrote it that my objectivity 
returned and I have to agree: it needs a help option. I'll be adding 
that in as I redo it for the net-tools spell.

> > > Didn't know what "Mode" was (turned out
> > > to be dynamic/static, but I had no clue).  It would be great to have a
> > > little more surrounding info to explain how the networking scripts
> > > operate, if you see what i mean.  The options make perfect sense, but
> > > only in context.
> >
> > Ok, help with the context if you could. What would be a more 
> > understandable phrase for this different things? Dialog has a nice help 
> > feature that I am going to add in as I get the text for it, but I think 
> > that it's obvious that what is obvious to me may not be so to you, don't 
> > you think? =)
>
>
> Absolutely.  Well, instead of saying "Mode" (which to me, by the way,
> generally means 'promiscuous' or not, you could say "Is your network
> card dynamic or static". 

hee... haven't heard the term "promiscuous" in this sense in a while... 
how old are you?

> That, plus the introduction (or similar) I
> mentioned earlier, would be fine.  Or instead of the intro, add a "Help"
> option to the dialog in the first menu which displays that text.  A
> similar paragraph of help for the very first dialog, when you're
> choosing scripts, would be useful too:
>
> "This init.d spell replaces your ad-hoc init scripts with a collection
> of init scripts managed by a spell.  At present four scripts are
> included in the spell, and you can choose each time you cast the spell
> which scripts you want included.  The spell will back up your old init
> scripts before adding its own, and will automatically add links to the
> appropriate run levels where they don't already exist."

ok, great... Do you want to help writing the documentation in your spare 
time? You do it well. And we need someone who writes clearly to do it.

> > > Ooh - something else as well.  You assume that every network will have a
> > > default gateway set for it.  In my home network, my computer dials up
> > > ADSL using PPPoA, and so the route is set by ppp automatically.  When
> > > (if) ADSL is not active, I don't want a gateway set - so you could
> > > probably check for $GATEWAY before issuing the route add default gw
> > > command.
> >
> > Okay, you leave the GATEWAY option blank and it will check for it after 
> > the update takes effect. I would have done it already if you had used 
> > bugzilla, you know... =) matter of fact, could you put that in bugzilla?
>
>
> Done.  Is there a way of submitting bugzilla stuff from the command
> line?  It's a real pain to have to fire up a web browser.

Not that I know of. are you a straight command line kind of guy?

It's fixed (in perforce anyway, although I did get some strange error 
emailed to me after I submitted the changes) so that it checks for the 
existance of data in $GATEWAY; if blank it skips the "route add" command 
if that is so.

> > > Great job on the init.d spell though - much prefer it to the previous
> > > setup.  Am feeling a lot happier about the important init scripts now.
> >
> > Thanks! Still some work to do. I'm going to put the networking script 
> > back in net-tools, so things will be a bit more consistant, but it will 
> > still have the part that lets you update the network cards
>
> Sounds good - just let us all know if we have to change our configs to
> get this right...

Shouldn't have to unless I misunderstand what you mean or I really screw 
it up; I do need to know if it's buggy though. I think that the only 
thing that will happen is the spell init.d won't have it as a component 
and net-tools will check for the version of the script before changing 
anything, and since it's going to be the same script or a newer one, it 
shouldn't make any unwanted changes.

In addition, I have implemented a new option in the lib_runlevel script 
that checks for custom scripts, if the sysadmin has had the forsight to 
add one commented line to set SGL-script-version=custom.

neal

--
"You can fool some of the people all of the time
--and those are the ones you have to concentrate on!"
GW Bush-- from the N.Y. Times