Re: Testing netapplet
On Tue, 07 Sep 2004 18:40:08 +0200, Matthew Garrett wrote:
>> Well, _if_ you want to use ifupdown to adjust wireless parameters
>> then the way to do this is define different logical interfaces with
>> different wireless-* options and to bring up the wireless physical
>> interface as one of them.
>
> Indeed. That's not what you want to do in most cases, though - doing it
> at runtime through iwconfig (or accessing the wireless APIs directly)
> makes more sense.
If the reason one has to run iwconfig is that he has moved from
one wireless network to another then in general he has to
reconfigure the network interface too. However, I agree with
you that these two kinds of reconfiguration are best kept
separate. First reconfigure the wireless card with iwconfig,
then reconfigure the network interface with ifdown and ifup.
> Ok, that basically does what I want it to do. I've modified netapplet so
> it looks at the kernel's idea of the available interfaces, and then also
> makes available interfaces with create options.
Sounds good.
> That ought to cope with
> the majority of cases in use at the moment. In the long run, it should
> be a multiple level list - rather than an eth0 box, it should present
> eth0 with a list of all available configurations.
Or, in the terminology of the ifupdown documentation: it should present
eth0 along with a list of all logical interfaces as which eth0 could
be configured.
The simplest approach may be for one instance of netapplet to control
one physical interface. Then to control multiple physical interfaces
one puts multiple instances of netapplet on the toolbar. This is how
I use the "modem lights" applet: I have two instances of the applet,
one that creates interface ppp0 and uses my laptop's built-in modem
and one that creates ppp1 and uses my PCMCIA modem.
> That'll take a little longer to code up. How does that sound?
Sounds good.
If netapplet is going to look for the "creates" option then this
should be documented somewhere and ifupdown should be modified so
that it enforces the option. (That is, ifup should refuse to
configure as the logical interface in question any physical
interface other than the one named in the argument of the "creates"
option.) This can be arranged, I think, but we should discuss
this first on debian-devel; maybe others have better ideas. I
will post a new message under a different subject heading.
--
Thomas
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