Public SourceMage Discussion List

[Mads Laursen <dossen+sgl AT daimi.au.dk>]

On 14/04/04 12.08, Treeve Jelbert wrote:
> the latest version of hotplug has a new script, net.agent, which attempts 
> to 
> bring up the network, but our network script has already run, so I see 
> messages such as 'eth0 already up', and  various failures during closedown.
> 
> 
> should the hotplug spell disable the smgl network script, or disable the 
> net.agent, or modify net.agent in some way?

Just to further complicate the matter, there is ifplugd, which
configures the network on plug/unplug.

The following is just me thinking out loud, and if there are points
which have been addressed since I messed with it last, have always
worked, are already under development, etc. then this should be read
as a "thank you" to whoever is responsible.

I'm not sure what is the best way to do it, but IMHO the desirable way
for this to work would be something like:
  - All network devices should be configured like ethX are today:
    - /etc/sysconfig/*.dev files
    - netconf (which edits the files)
  - Ethernet and WiFi should be configurable to hotplug:
    - On a stationary machine it should be possible to just have the
      device come 'up' on boot.
    - On mobile machines (laptops, desktops that are moved around,
      etc.) the device should be configured on boot, and then brought
      up/down as connection becomes available. This could be done
      with hotplug, ifplugd, or some combination. I think there is
      also something called waproamd or something like that, which
      allows WiFi gear to handle different nets.
    - It would be nice if something like 'telinit run network stop
      eth0' just works (in this larger picture). 
    - It should also be possible to handle pccard nics gracefully.
  - If it is possible under our current init system, then it would be
    nice if services were restarted/stopped/started/reconfigured when
    network configurations changed:
    - If there is some way to identify accessable networks, it would be
      nice if a network-specific list of of mounts was brought
      up/down, e.g. on network 'foo' (however that might be definable)
      the mounts in /etc/sysconfig/netmounts/foo.fstab should be
      available (I don't know if it is doable, but it would be very
      neat).
    - If e.g. sshd is listening on eth0, eth1, and ppp0, then it would
      probably be nice to do a restart on sshd when one of these
      interfaces is reconfigured. One way to do this could be to have
      a 'network_reconfig <dev>' or something in the init-scripts, and
      then having it do the relevant thing (check config for use of
      <dev>, check current state of the service, do relevant service
      reconfig).
    - It might be possible to extend the the custom functions
      supported in the network scripts to something like the
      hotplug-helper scripts, maybe even have a default script that
      that calls something like '~/.network_reconfig <dev> <change>'
      or whatever for any user that is logged in (that way I could get
      a dialog/write/whatever notification when I get WiFi connection,
      I could have the script check if I'm connected to my home
      network ans syncronize stuff (I have most of my homedir in
      cvs)).
  - Maybe tunnels and that sort could be handled in the network
    script. I have a small init-script that sets up IPv6 tunnels (it's
    rather rough around the edges, but I would be happy to contribute
    it, if it could help).
  - I looked at some network config on a Gentoo system the other day,
    and they do something with sub-interfaces (or whatever they are
    called). I'm not saying we should do it just because Gentoo does,
    but maybe it would be a nice feature. One use is to have more than
    one IPv4 subnet on the samme network, then you need the gateway to
    have an IP on each (think DHCP together with configured IPs, or
    running virtual servers).

I've messed around a bit with ifplugd, and it is quite nice, except
that I seem to recall that it requires the nic-driver to be compiled
in, since ifdown rmmods it. It's been a while, so I can't recall if
I've bugged it, but I think it was the same issue that made my server
act wierd on reboots, since it went away when I compiled the driver
into the kernel.

If there are/will be bug(s) for this, I would be happy to add
comments, try out code (but the only machine I can really mess with is
my laptop, which has only got a built in eth0), and generally help
out. The only relevant bug I found was the one about adding custom
functions to the .dev files.

/dossen
-- 
Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.
                -- Albert Einstein

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