This used to be the main page for netconf, but it now serves mostly posterity. The main content has moved here.
I've made some sort of mission statement, if you're wondering what I am up to. There are also slides from a recent talk online.
Initial brainstorming
These are features/aspects I (madduck) want netconf to address. Feel free to add your thoughts, please give your name when you add content.
no more ifconfig, all iproute. Note that iproute is not on BSD or Hurd, so we need an abstraction layer. See here.
stateless (if at all possible)! => listen on netlink socket rtnetlink(7) so kernel informs us of its state (address add/remove, link up/down...). Also see media status stuff and operstates.
- modules/plugin based, so tools can install configuration methods
- C/shell based.
resolv.conf management, a la resolvconf
integrated guessnet-like configuration detection
integrate well with wireless-tools/wpasupplicant (see plugins)
- openvpn integration (see plugins)
- determine SMTP smarthost, extract from DHCP if available
- determine NTP servers, extract from DHCP if available
- same for other protocols where it makes sense
- proxy configuration: http/ftp/socks[45], extract from DHCP if available
integrate switchconf?
control socket or other means for easy integration with higher level tools (think hal, desktop tools)
policy-controlled user access, so users can ifup/ifdown certain configurations
100% backwards compatible, read /etc/network/interfaces, even if we might switch to a different primary file or even ./interfaces.d/
- wildcards for interfaces in /etc/network/interfaces
integrate functionality from zeroconf (crossover cable connection)
integrate well with bridge-utils, so that interfaces that are part of a bridge get added to the bridge again when they are taken down and brought up again -- elho
- integrate bonding
fallback to some kind of arp-based mechanism for automatic IP config when DHCP/BOOTP fails/isn't available. http://advogato.org/person/etbe/diary/108.html. madduck: this is what zeroconf does, it makes no sense to do it another way since you netconf has no idea about which IP network it is attached to.
Missing functionality in ifupdown
(also see my FOSDEM 2007 talk)
- iface aliases
- ipv4/ipv6 not interlinked
- automatic configuration and laptops just weird
- sysctl integration
Wishlist
- get APT mirror from DHCP
- TODO
please provide a way (e.g. modular enough design) to handle non-Linux kernels (was in reaction to the above listen on netlink socket so kernel informs us of its state) -- CyrilBrulebois
Be able to auto-detect restores from s2disk/s2ram and change network settings accordingly (handle being in a different environment than were suspended in) -- ?BenjaminSeidenberg
- Be able to handle much more dynamic and ridiculous routing settings that just a default gateway. -- mentor
Todo
look at zugschluss' ifupdown-scripts-zg
really understand network-manager
look at ifupdown-extra