Re: integration of nonphysical interfaces in NM

[David Zeuthen <davidz redhat com>]

On Wed, 2005-01-19 at 12:30 -0800, Paul Ionescu wrote:
> Hi David,
> 
> So if I understood well, NM will import a list of
> physical devices from HAL, and it will create logical
> interfaces as needed.

Yeah, today NM gets, from HAL, a list of network interfaces
that stem from physical devices.

> For instance on ethernet we can have plain ethernet,
> but also we can have PPPoE, 

I don't see why NM couldn't do this in the future.

> on serial we can have ppp,
> or slip or whatever else, on bluetooth we can have
> multiple bnep interfaces (PICONET), or create a VPN
> over whatever interface is available, and all this
> interfaces are managed by NM.
> 

In theory, yes.

> But the question is: 
> After NM does create such a virtual inteface, somebody
> should advertise this on DBUS because maybe there is a
> firewall listening for new interfaces to secure, or
> some monitoring application, or something else.
> If HAL is not advertising it on DBUS because is not in
> his database, then NM should do it.
> As long as somebody advertise the new interface on
> DBUS, then is fine by me.
> 

NM already exports the different connections and which
one is currently active. I think (Dan or Colin may 
correct me) that things like VPN isn't to be considered
a separate connection even though the OS advertises
it as one (e.g. networking interface tun0 for vpnc) -
VPN is just something you want to run over the 
existing connection.

Cheers,
David