aleksander/qmi-proxy

[Aleksander Morgado]

> 
> There's a new branch in upstream libqmi git repo called
> 'aleksander/qmi-proxy':
> 
> http://cgit.freedesktop.org/libqmi/log?h=aleksander%2Fqmi-proxy
> 
> This branch allows a QmiDevice to get opened with a new
> QMI_DEVICE_OPEN_FLAGS_PROXY flag; which will automatically launch a
> 'qmi-proxy' daemon which takes care of talking to the actual QMI port.
> 
> qmicli has also a new '--device-open-proxy' option to force using the
> 'qmi-proxy'.
> 
> Internally, there are only a couple of special things to consider.
> First, a new 'CTL Internal Proxy Open' request/response set that I made
> up so that the user of the libqmi-glib library tells the proxy which
> port it is interested in. Second, the communication between the proxy
> and the clients is done through an abstract socket with a
> well-known-name (\0qmi-proxy). All the messages between the proxy and
> its clients are QMI messages. And last, the QmiClientCtl in the proxy is
> shared between all remote clients, and the proxy takes care of fixing up
> the transaction ID for each remote client when using the CTL service.
> 
> The 'qmi-proxy' will exit itself if there are 30s of inactivity (i.e. no
> remote clients connected to it). If you want to debug the qmi-proxy
> itself, you can run it manually (before any other application requested
> to run it):
> 
>   $> sudo /usr/libexec/qmi-proxy --verbose
> 
> Each remote client will get the responses for its own requests only; and
> the proxy will also take care of forwarding indications only to the
> proper remote clients (e.g. matching service+cid or matching
> service+broadcast).
> 
> If you want to test it, set this libqmi branch in place, and do this
> simple change in ModemManager:
> 
> diff --git a/src/mm-qmi-port.c b/src/mm-qmi-port.c
> index a26fdab..efecf2e 100644
> --- a/src/mm-qmi-port.c
> +++ b/src/mm-qmi-port.c
> @@ -214,7 +214,7 @@ qmi_device_new_ready (GObject *unused,
>                        PortOpenContext *ctx)
>  {
>      GError *error = NULL;
> -    QmiDeviceOpenFlags flags = QMI_DEVICE_OPEN_FLAGS_VERSION_INFO;
> +    QmiDeviceOpenFlags flags = (QMI_DEVICE_OPEN_FLAGS_VERSION_INFO |
> QMI_DEVICE_OPEN_FLAGS_PROXY);
> 
> Once it's done, you will be able to run qmicli (with
> '--device-open-proxy') even if MM is running; which leaves the door open
> for applications which want to use QMI directly (got a couple of ideas
> already floating around). Of course, if multiple apps use the same modem
> at the same time in incompatible ways, bad things will happen :)
> 
> Comments and tests welcome!
> 

Now that there is a 1.6 with all the latest changes I'd like to merge
the aleksander/qmi-proxy branch in git master. Given that running with
qmi-proxy is optional and needs to be explicitly requested (e.g. with
"-p" in qmicli or with QMI_DEVICE_OPEN_FLAGS_PROXY), I don't think it's
a big deal, but anyway wanted to ask first. Anyone has any major
objection to merge the branch?

Once it's in git master I'll also make ModemManager (git master) use the
proxy by default.

-- 
Aleksander