Re: [gentoo-soc] Network Configuration in Gentoo

[Rahul Jain]

On Tuesday 06 April 2010 11:33:25 Zhitong He wrote:
> Hi, I have been trying to get involved with NetworkManager's integration
> with Gentoo, but encounter some problems.
>
> 1. What network configuration in Gentoo does are not what NM can do.
>     Modular Networking in Gentoo is popular, however, they are not all
> supported by NM. For example, bonding, bridging and vlan. In addition,
> advanced configuration such as interface dependency, fall back operation,
> are not supported by NM, too.
>

The major advantage of NM (as is often cited) is the fact that it provides a 
unified UI for managing wired(Ethernet, DSL, PPP), wireless and vpn 
connections. It allows automatic reconnection on network loss, allows you to 
automatically connect to a preferred wireless network (if found) and allows 
hotplugging of the ethernet cable. Conventionally speaking, these tasks would 
take care of the networking needs of a vast majority of end users. Bonding, 
bridging and others are advanced networking tasks that one does not expect a 
"normal" user to perform on a day to day basis. 
So, the only advantage of NM is that gives you a sane UI to perform your day 
to day networking tasks.

> 2. Configuration about Wireless Networking is not powerful enough.
>     Security wireless connection is a strong point of NM, however, not the
> network configuration of Gentoo. Though we can choose  wpa_supplicant
> module for security connection, the configuration depends on
> wpa_supplicant's configuration files which has its own syntax and not
> worth translation back to NM using plugin, since NM is already working
> with wpa_supplicant via dbus communication.
>

I have not used NM for quite a long time (I use WICD for managing my internet 
connections) but as far as I know (and understand your question) the end user 
does not need to write config files by hand for managing wireless networks in 
NM. I recently did try the Ubuntu Live CD (the Ubuntu folks do a great job of 
integrating NM) and NM was able to connect to the encrypted Uni network after 
I provided it with the username and password. For WICD, I had to create a 
template using the provided wpa_supplicant file. I think it might be helpful 
for you to look into what Ubuntu does in this regard.

> So, what's the benefit for Gentoo and  what I can do if choosing the
> project?
> Working with syntax in network configuration file like config_<interface>
> and config_<essid>  is  pleasure, but is that enough? they are only little
> part of Gentoo's network configuration file. The work should focus on
> settings for NM, but settings in Gentoo's network configuration rely on
> various tools according to different modules and the syntax is not unified.
> Will mentor let me pass the final evaluation if only part of the
> configuration is support?  :-)
>

As far as I know, there are already two methods of managing networks in 
gentoo. Those using openrc already do things a little differently than those 
who are not. (Please correct me if I am mistaken). The main advantage for 
gentoo would be to provide end users with a straight forward way of managing 
their network connections. 
 
>  My conclusion is that we should do more work on improving the way to
> configure network in Gentoo instead of NM integration, if we need to make
> it easily supported by various network control daemon. For example, focus
> on settings for variable control like /etc/make.conf instead of syntax as
> wpa_supplicant_wlan0="-Dwext", put it from a single file(/etc/conf.d/net)
> to a specified directory, where we can also place the vpn keys, pem
> files..
>

This is indeed a good idea. I am not qualified to comment on what needs to be 
achieved as part of GSoc project but I think any major steps to improve 
network management in gentoo would be welcome by all.  I am no fan of NM so my 
views might be a little bit coloured in this regard, but even then I still 
think that due to the popularity of NM it would be a good idea to have it 
integrated into Gentoo. Maybe you could also look into making it gnome-
independent (or kde-independent in the case of knetworkmanager) so that it can 
be used as a networking tool by people using other WMs/DMs as well.

> Sorry for my poor English, I would explain further if you could not
> understand my opinion. Feedback and comments are welcome.

I hope I might be able to answer some of your questions, I am no expert 
myself. :)

Cheers
Rahul
-- 
M.Sc. Computer Science
ETH Zürich
Switzerland