1 |
Hi, I have been trying to get involved with NetworkManager's integration |
2 |
with Gentoo, but encounter some problems. |
3 |
|
4 |
1. What network configuration in Gentoo does are not what NM can do. |
5 |
Modular Networking in Gentoo is popular, however, they are not all |
6 |
supported by NM. For example, bonding, bridging and vlan. In addition, |
7 |
advanced configuration such as interface dependency, fall back operation, |
8 |
are not supported by NM, too. |
9 |
|
10 |
2. Configuration about Wireless Networking is not powerful enough. |
11 |
Security wireless connection is a strong point of NM, however, not the |
12 |
network configuration of Gentoo. Though we can choose wpa_supplicant module |
13 |
for security connection, the configuration depends on wpa_supplicant's |
14 |
configuration files which has its own syntax and not worth translation back |
15 |
to NM using plugin, since NM is already working with wpa_supplicant via dbus |
16 |
communication. |
17 |
|
18 |
So, what's the benefit for Gentoo and what I can do if choosing the |
19 |
project? |
20 |
Working with syntax in network configuration file like config_<interface> |
21 |
and config_<essid> is pleasure, but is that enough? they are only little |
22 |
part of Gentoo's network configuration file. The work should focus on |
23 |
settings for NM, but settings in Gentoo's network configuration rely on |
24 |
various tools according to different modules and the syntax is not unified. |
25 |
Will mentor let me pass the final evaluation if only part of the |
26 |
configuration is support? :-) |
27 |
|
28 |
My conclusion is that we should do more work on improving the way to |
29 |
configure network in Gentoo instead of NM integration, if we need to make it |
30 |
easily supported by various network control daemon. For example, focus on |
31 |
settings for variable control like /etc/make.conf instead of syntax as |
32 |
wpa_supplicant_wlan0="-Dwext", put it from a single file(/etc/conf.d/net) to |
33 |
a specified directory, where we can also place the vpn keys, pem files.. |
34 |
|
35 |
Sorry for my poor English, I would explain further if you could not |
36 |
understand my opinion. Feedback and comments are welcome. |
37 |
|
38 |
-- |
39 |
Zhitong He |