Re: Bug#594672: ITP: dhcpcd5 -- a DHCP client

[Roy Marples <roy@marples.name>]

On Sat, 2010-08-28 at 13:13 +0200, Mehdi Dogguy wrote:
> On 08/28/2010 12:44 PM, Julien Cristau wrote:
> > On Sat, Aug 28, 2010 at 09:35:29 +0100, Roy Marples wrote:
> > 
> >> * Package name    : dhcpcd5
> >>   Version         : 5.2.7
> >>   Upstream Author : Roy Marples <roy@marples.name>
> >> * URL             : http://roy.marples.name/projects/dhcpcd
> >> * License         : BSD-2
> >>   Programming Lang: C, Shell
> >>   Description     : dhcpcd5 - a DHCP client
> >>
> > What's the difference with the existing dhcpcd package?
> > 
> 
> It's the same project (according to [1]).

It's essentially an upgrade, however it's not 100% compatible with the
commandline from dhcpcd3 and it uses a method similar to dhclient for
configuring the system - aside from IP and routing which is managed
internally. However, it's a new package. See bug #551034.

Also, dhcpcd5 is designed to be run as a system daemon instead of per
interface. This is so it can react to kernel level events and manage
routing on a multi interface system a lot better (esp important for BSD
system as they lack route metrics). Essentially it's like NetworkManager
in this respect but a lot lot smaller. However unlike NetworkManager
dhcpcd does not handle link setup and relies on something else to
configure wpa_supplicant, ppp, etc.

You can also configure an interface based on ARPping a host, wireless
SSID. By this, I mean choose to run DHCP or a static IP, or override key
DHCP values.

Lastly, it works fine on BSD based systems which finally gives them an
alternative. Infact, dhcpcd has been merged into the NetBSD base system
since 5.0. I only mention this as Debian has kFreeBSD.

I'm sure I missed some features out that maybe important to someone :)

There are also related side projects which will find their way into
Debian also - dhcpcd-dbus and dhcpcd-ui (GTK+ systray moniter/interface)
and openresolv (resolvconf alternative, doesn't appear to suffer from
the Debian resolvconf reported bugs). dhcpcd-dbus also talks to
wpa_supplicant so that dhcpcd-ui can attempt to configure it.

Thanks

Roy