On Tue, Nov 03, 2009 at 08:02:31PM +0100, martin f krafft wrote: > also sprach Wouter Verhelst <w@uter.be> [2009.11.03.1915 +0100]: > > As such, I'd like to propose the addition of a virtual package > > name, "network-config-tool", that would be used for any package > > which provides "/sbin/ifup" and "/sbin/ifdown" binaries. > > You'll need to be a lot more specific on the interface definition. > Do they have to be binaries? Do they have to take the same flags, > e.g. --force and --all? With 'binaries', I meant 'executables'. Whether they're scripts or compiled programs doesn't actually matter to me. Sorry for the confusion. The goal is indeed for ipcfg to become command-line compatible with ifupdown, though I'm not there yet. > What about /etc/network/interfaces and /etc/network/if-*.d/*? Since to me the point of this exercise is so that I can usefully put ipcfg into the archive, and since ipcfg does not actually support /etc/network/interfaces, I'd say that should not be part of the interface. I do have code to support /etc/network/if-*.d/*, though I consider that a temporary hack so that the code would be useful sooner rather than later. It also doesn't work yet ;-) (occasionally, that's the only reason why it's not been uploaded yet) > Especially the hooks are integral to a lot of other packages that > depend on ifupdown. I'd say that's part of any Debian > "network-config-tool" interface. Basically, the interface that I'd like to see is "tool that can bring up a given interface as configured by the user". E.g., if ifplugd calls "ifup eth0", it should not care which implementation of ifup is being called to actually bring the interface up. However, it should also be sensible to change the Depends: line in isc-dhcp-client from Depends: (...), ifupdown (>= 0.6.8+nmu3), (...) to Depends: (...), ifupdown (>= 0.6.8+nmu3) | network-config-tool, (...) because this is a matter of "we need at least this version of ifupdown to work properly" rather than "we absolutely need ifupdown"; after all, it's ifupdown or ipcfg that calls dhclient, not the other way around. Of course there are some packages that just don't make sense without ifupdown, and there it's fine to not add the "network-config-tool" alternative. One example of this is guessnet; ipcfg has a much more flexible way of doing what guessnet does (in fact it's a design goal), and therefore does not have support for ifupdown's "mapping scripts" that guessnet uses. -- The biometric identification system at the gates of the CIA headquarters works because there's a guard with a large gun making sure no one is trying to fool the system. http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/01/biometrics.html
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