net.interface_up and unimplemented net.80203 properties (linux)

[Brian J. Tarricone]

On Mon, 12 Mar 2007 02:29:52 +0100, Danny Kukawka wrote:

> On Sonntag, 11. März 2007, Brian J. Tarricone wrote:
> > Lately I've been working on a wireless networking configuration GUI
> > app, and I've been looking into using HAL for some aspects of it.
> > Unfortunately, I found that the net.interface_up parameter is always
> > 'false', regardless of the interface state.  Also, I saw that
> > net.80203.link and net.80203.rate are listed as unimplemented in
> > the HAL spec.
> 
> They are not part of HAL because we removed them from HAL since 
> NetworkManager handle this. Maybe we should remove net.80203.link and
> net.80203.rate from HAL. We already discussed that Networkmanager
> should set net.interface_up if the state change, but this is
> currently not implemented in Networkmanager.

What about people who don't use NetworkManager?  The app I'm working on
is essentially a lightweight replacement for the wireless half of
NetworkManager (that is, my app doesn't handle wired interfaces).  It
would be redundant and pointless for me to use NM for this, since my
aim is to *replace* NM for people who want a lighter gtk-only solution
that only touches wireless interfaces.

Last I checked (NetworkManager 0.6.4), NM couldn't even be built
without GNOME being present.  My understanding is that HAL is intended
to be cross-desktop: what about Xfce users? KDE users?

> IMO this should be the job of Networkmanager as already decided a long
> time ago.

Can you point me to a relevant mailing list post/blog entry/etc. that
talks about this decision?

IMO, the right place for this is in HAL, especially since these kind of
operations can't be done in a cross-platform manner.  (Well,
ifup/ifdown can be, but getting interface state can't.)  It's no less
valid to have operational parameters about network interfaces in HAL
than it is to have operational parameters for (e.g.) removable
storage, which is currently the case.

	-brian