Is there any kind of network manager?

[Joel Newkirk]

On Sat, 22 Nov 2008 02:58:48 +0100, "Marco Trevisan (Treviño)"
<mail at 3v1n0.net> wrote:
> Alastair Johnson wrote:
>> Or you could follow 
>>   Joel Newkirk's simple lightweight configuration described at 
>> http://jthinks.com/better-freerunner-networking
> 
> About this... Have you tried it?
> Does it fix the most common network issues?
> 
> Thanks...

It's more of an 'anti-network-manager' - it's strictly intended as sane
defaults that let networking run more smoothly when various interfaces come
and go.  GPRS configuration/activation/deactivation is outside its scope,
same for WiFi. It utilizes resolvconf, and supports local DNS caching if
desired.  It consists of a few alterations and additions to ppp, udhcpc,
resolvconf, udev and general network config.  Manual network config needs
to work with resolvconf and observe appropriate route metrics, nothing
more.  (wifi 20, USB 30, GPRS 40)

What it's intended to do:

Prioritize default routes and DNS so that traffic will always use WiFi if
it's available, USBnet if there's no wifi but we're tethered, and gprs if
there's no usb.  Doesn't matter if more than one interface is up, they
don't change each other's DNS or gateway settings or anything.  (It also
should deal with usb-attached ethernet or wifi, prioritized between onboard
wifi and usb, but it knows nothing of VPN or Bluetooth - enfolding
Bluetooth and 3G/other usb-based devices is pretty simple, VPN potentially
less so)


Frameworkd already offers gprs up/down support, wifi is on the schedule. 
Once network status/control is more solid under frameworkd I suspect a
network manager may be rather straightforward to code.  Edje GUI with a
fairly thin middle layer talking to dbus.  Until then, I've installed my
netfix-j2.tar.gz fixes (plus resolvconf when not preinstalled - the tarball
includes missing files from resolvconf) on 2008.x, FSO, Raster, and SHR,
set up a desktop icon on each to toggle GPRS, another to toggle wifi
(ifup/ifdown in a simple script, with my prewritten wpa_supplicant.conf
that talks to my home WPA, work WPA, jobsites, and open public wifi in that
priority) and it 'just works'.

My opinion is that the only network manager-ish features we actually need
on the FreeRunner are status information, configuration and toggling of
GPRS and VPNs, and as full-featured wifi detecting/tracking/remembering as
we can get.  (I want to be able to query a list of previously-seen usable
wifi within 1/4 mile, for instance)  I tend to think purpose-built instead
of off-the-shelf for this.

j