Unify the service configuration files for Dhclient (ISC DHCP) and Dhcpcd

[willimm]

This ticket came as an offshoot of GNOME Bugzilla ticket 624299 (​https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=624299), specifally, our (Millan, the lead Gnome System Tools developer, and me) plans to fix the currently broken networking support. One of the ideas was to unify the service configuration files for dhclient and dhcpcd, but that would require some changes to the book.

And so, this ticket was made. This should be a trival change to the book, and it would make life easier for us. Just use /etc/sysconfig/network-devices/ifconfig.#iface#/dhcp as the configuration file for both services.

This will make it so that dhclient and dhcpcd can no longer be installed together, but I don't really think that you should normally install them both.

[willimm]

Replying to willimm:

This will make it so that dhclient and dhcpcd can no longer be installed together, but I don't really think that you should normally install them both.

I really meant that you shouldn't normally install them both at the same time.

[DJ Lucas]

When completed, there should be nothing keeping you from _installing_ both, you simply cannot use both at the same time. There are cases, although they can be argued to death, for which having both dhcp clients available makes sense IMO.

The network service scripts (or script as the proposal indicates) can be updated to account for a single file, however, *we* will have to make NM aware of it. If Milan would like to assist, his support would be much appreciated. Keep in mind that there is still the proposal of LSB bootscripts, so perhaps we should take a serious look at other LSB compliant distros' examples. Maybe something that is already in place would make a good fit, or at least minimize the changes needed to NM. Keep in mind that I'm not suggesting that you abort your current path, just to look at all options.

Do you have an example of changes required for the existing scripts?

[willimm]

Replying to dj@…:

Do you have an example of changes required for the existing scripts?

Nothing really has to change, except the network script configuration file should point to /etc/sysconfig/network-devices/ifconfig.eth0/dhcp instead of dhclient or dhcpcd.

[DJ Lucas]

There is a little more to it than that. That is why I was asking specifically what you had in mind. What do we do with the ONBOOT parameter? I'm not familiar with NM, can it be started before before the GUI, or do we need to handle it in CLI and wait until the GUI is brought up to pass control? Can it be built without the GUI and the GUI components built after X? What about the proposed link state checks? /sys/class/net/${DEVICE}/carrier? If NM can handle that for us and can run from CLI without user interaction, then that would be perfect as we can just eliminate all of my questions and let NM do its job.

[willimm]

Replying to dj@…:

There is a little more to it than that. That is why I was asking specifically what you had in mind. What do we do with the ONBOOT parameter? I'm not familiar with NM, can it be started before before the GUI, or do we need to handle it in CLI and wait until the GUI is brought up to pass control? Can it be built without the GUI and the GUI components built after X? What about the proposed link state checks? /sys/class/net/${DEVICE}/carrier? If NM can handle that for us and can run from CLI without user interaction, then that would be perfect as we can just eliminate all of my questions and let NM do its job.

What we could do with the ONBOOT parmater, due to the modularity of the network scripts, we can use it to control which script starts up at boot time. That would be the most idea way without radical changes to the LFS initscript system.

[DJ Lucas]

I don't really much care about 'radical changes' to the boot scripts as they are downright easy to change in both LFS and BLFS, if justified (besides, they won't be all that invasive). I just want them to work well. Network Manager is one topic that comes up frequently and if NM can handle linkstate with DHCP, then we should let it and not duplicate its functionality in our boot scripts. If you have the time, please dig into it and see what it is capable of. If not, give me three weeks to finish up on IcedTea6, OpenOffice, and possibly Xorg (if Ken isn't already on it) and we'll bring the discussion to BLFS-dev so that we can get more input from others who have made it work in the past. If NM works as I believe it can, then I think ONBOOT can remain, and simply be set to "no" once NM is in place. Only change the config file name for dhcpcd/dhclient to dhcp as originally proposed, so that the ONBOOT variable only controls whether the scripts or NM take care of the interface.

[willimm]

Replying to dj@…:

I don't really much care about 'radical changes' to the boot scripts as they are downright easy to change in both LFS and BLFS, if justified (besides, they won't be all that invasive). I just want them to work well. Network Manager is one topic that comes up frequently and if NM can handle linkstate with DHCP, then we should let it and not duplicate its functionality in our boot scripts. If you have the time, please dig into it and see what it is capable of. If not, give me three weeks to finish up on IcedTea6, OpenOffice, and possibly Xorg (if Ken isn't already on it) and we'll bring the discussion to BLFS-dev so that we can get more input from others who have made it work in the past. If NM works as I believe it can, then I think ONBOOT can remain, and simply be set to "no" once NM is in place. Only change the config file name for dhcpcd/dhclient to dhcp as originally proposed, so that the ONBOOT variable only controls whether the scripts or NM take care of the interface.

I think you are getting confused. This is not about Network Manager (which, with a few changes to the source code, and a new bootscript, just works), this is about the networking part of Gnome-system-tools and system-tools-backends. That is a lot more compilcated, and needs tweaking to the bootscript system, not just the backends themself.

Additionally, I have one more request: Wifi support. As of now, there is no way tell which SSID the wireless card should use via the network scripts, and there is no support for encrypted wireless networks. However, I think I've found a hint that may help with implementing this support:

​http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/hints/downloads/files/wpa-service.txt

Yes, it's old, but still useful. This would also require wpa-supplicant to be added to the book.

[(none)]

Milestone 6.5 deleted

[Randy McMurchy]

Updated milestone to 6.7

[bdubbs@…]

Milestone current deleted