Re: Testing netapplet
Thomas Hood <jdthood@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> On Mon, 06 Sep 2004 21:10:12 +0200, Matthew Garrett wrote:
>> One
>> instance of netapplet is used to switch between which network interface
>> is currently active, and perform some small amount of runtime
>> configuration such as switching wireless networks.
>
>
> I am not sure what you mean. A host can have multiple interfaces, all
> active at the same time. Each physical interface can be independently
> controlled, so I don't know what you mean by "switch between which network
> interface is currently active".
Yes. Netapplet is not designed to deal with the rare case of requiring
multiple interfaces to be active. It is designed to deal with the common
case of laptop users having multiple physical interfaces present, but
only wanting to use one of them at any time. With hindsight, the
description could be somewhat clearer in this respect.
> Changing the configuration of a wireless card with ifupdown is a matter of
> ifdowning the interface and ifupping it as another logical interface with
> different wireless options. My description of what netapplet should do
> (in my previous message) fits this case.
No. In a situation where you have multiple wireless networks available,
you do not want to have to put an entry in /etc/network/interfaces for
each of them. If I'm in the airport, I should not have to hack
/etc/network/interfaces in order to ensure that I pick up the public
access network rather than the closed internal network.
> Instead of placing these restrictions on the administrator I suggest
> using a special option in the logical interface definition which specifies
> the name of the physical interface that gets created by that logical
> interface's pre-up. netapplet can use this field in order to compile
> a list of emergent physical interfaces and the logical interfaces
> with which they are associated.
Ok, that sounds like it makes a lot of sense. Have you any preferences
for how this information should be presented?
--
Matthew Garrett | mjg59-chiark.mail.debian.devel@srcf.ucam.org
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