Re: Bug#118996: ITP: guessnet -- Guess what network is connected to an ethernet device (can be used as a "script" for ifupdown)
On Tue, Nov 13, 2001 at 12:30:25PM +0100, Enrico Zini wrote:
> Then we have three packages with a wonderful network detection routine
> [1], but none of them can be used as that external command.
[...]
> [1] netenv does not, since it requires the user to specify the
> configuration profile, while whereami provide hooks for external scripts,
> but doesn't provide anything for automatic network detection besides dhcp.
Actually, whereami is maybe the most advanced in terms of net detection.
You can set the location based on dhcp, static IP with an IP ping or MAC
ping test, pppoe detection, or by hardware for things like docking stations.
Those are the example tests provided, just drop the appropriate script in
the detection directory and modify the paramters. You can run detection at
boot, on PCMCIA card events or APM suspend/resume. Once a location has been
determined, whereami will fire off commands you specifiy for your location.
There are some scripts provided to help with common tasks such as
reconfiguring your MTA for your different locations.
> For this reason, having a laptop and wanting to stay as close to the
> debian way as possible, I've just insulated their detection code and put
> it in a simple and small command that does the job, following the Unix
> tradition of doing things.
Rather than having its own code, whereami uses the arping utility to perform
the detection method in guessnet.
Probably the biggest problem with whereami at the moment for Debian is it's
lack of integration with ifupdown. This is, in part, due to the fact that
it does more than just reconfigure at the network level - it is just as
useful at the service level for doing things like reconfiguring or
starting/stopping network services. Due to its flexibility, it also needs
some shell scripting knowledge. Andrew (upstream author) and I are Debian
users, and have been discussing how to make the configuration easier. It
would be nice to have a level of integration with the Debian ifupdown
system, but we haven't succeeded yet since whereami deals with more than
just network interfaces. Maybe you have some suggestions?
To answer the people who are wondering why there are so many of these
packages, they all do similar things but in pretty different ways. I don't
think anyone has come up with the perfect solution yet, so there are
different approaches being tried out. Whereami is very flexible in its
tests and level of automation possible, but does not integrate with ifupdown
and needs the user to edit quite a few files to get it working.
-chris
--
Chris Halls | Frankfurt, Germany
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