Bug#248071: Hot plugged devices shouldn't be marked "auto"
Per Olofsson is right. The "auto" statement in /e/n/i makes
S:S40networking bring up the interface referred to. This is
appropriate for interfaces on built-in hardware whose drivers
are loaded and fully initialized prior to S:S40networking and that
should be ifup'ped at boot and not ifdown'ed until shutdown.
(In practice, this means interfaces for which hotplug can't be used
or which are required in order for initscripts later in the boot
sequence to work. In the latter case only synchronous configuration
methods can be used. I think that all ifup methods are
synchronous other than ppp and wvdial.)
Interfaces that should be brought up only when connected to a live
network must be controlled in some other way and should not be
marked "auto".
Interfaces that are brought up by hotplug should not be marked "auto".
Interfaces that are brought up by cardmgr should not be marked "auto".
If an interface is not marked "auto" and is not to be left under
manual control then it needs to be configured by some other mechanism:
either by waproamd or by ifplugd; or by hotplug; or by waproamd
started by hotplug or by ifplugd started by hotplug; or by cardmgr.
All these mechanisms are enabled in different ways.
I'll ignore ifplugd and waproamd for now since they are optional
and only semi-maintained.
Currently the hotplug mechanism is disabled by default and the
cardmgr mechanism is enabled by default, but of course only for
16 bit PCMCIA cards.
In current kernels hotplug is called for 16 bit PCMCIA cards as
well as for 32 bit cards. Thus the default action of cardmgr's
helper script /etc/pcmcia/network, which is to run ifup/ifdown,
is not needed any more.
I think that pcmcia-cs should ship with an /etc/pcmcia/network
script that does nothing by default. The installer should enable
the hotplug mechanism for all interfaces on PCMCIA cards. That
means listing those interface names on "map" lines in the
"mapping hotplug\n\tscript grep" stanza.
All other interfaces should be marked "auto".
--
Thomas
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