Re: Build NetworkManager without GNOME dependencies

[Michal Krenek <mikos sg1 cz>]

On Fri, 5 May 2006 at 23:19:05, Dan Williams wrote:

> On Fri, 2006-05-05 at 23:11 +0200, Michal Krenek wrote:
> > On Fri, 5 May 2006 at 19:39:26, Dan Williams wrote:
> > 
> > > But in any case, there are no _runtime_ dependencies on Gnome of any
> > > sort in the core daemon, and if there were, we'll take them out.
> > 
> > Thanks for your reply, so it is possible to build it (version 0.6.2) with 
> > GNOME support and then manually separate GNOME independent things (daemon)
> and 
> > GNOME specific things (panel applet, etc.) to different packages? I am
> asking 
> > because of packaging NetworkManager for Arch Linux.
> 
> Right; there are no runtime GNOME deps.  Only a few small build-time
> ones that we should likely fix in the near future.
> 
> > > Note that to get any use out of NM you'll need to have an info-daemon
> > > for your situation, if you're not running Gnome or KDE.  That
> > > info-daemon just sends configuration bits to NM from your specific
> > > distro and/or desktop environment.  If you don't have an info-daemon,
> > > you'll likely not be able to connect to wireless networks that are
> > > encrypted, simply because there's nowhere to store that information.
> > 
> > Well, my original motivation for trying NetworkManager was only detection
> of 
> > network cable connect/disconnect events. I had written to hal mailing-list
> why 
> > there aren't some LinkUp/LinkDown HAL signals if network cable is 
connected
> / 
> > disconnected (I want to catch these signals with ivman and run for 
> > example /etc/rc.d/network stop/start or some other programs). But Kay
> Sievers 
> > told me that this feature has moved from HAL to NetworkManager and I 
should
> 
> > use NetworkManager for it. So here I am :-)
> 
> Yes.  Although NetworkManager might be a bit heavy-weight for you, since
> when NM notices that the cable is inserted, it will attempt to activate
> that interface and acquire an IP address on it.  It does really "manage"
> your network.
> 
> If _all_ you're looking for is for link events on wired Ethernet
> networks, you may be better off looking at ifplugd or some of the other
> daemons out there.  Or, write 50 lines of netlink code yourself to get
> the link events directly from the kernel.  If I'm not mistaken, the Howl
> people had a daemon that did this too, called 'nifd'.  That may be what
> you want.
> 
> Some other problems you might think about are that not all drivers
> actually have carrier-detect, or don't have it for some cards they
> support.  For example, Belkin F5D6020 PCMCIA ethernet cards using the
> pcnet_cs driver don't support carrier detect.
> 
> Also, wireless networks have a different definition of "link" than wired
> ones.  NetworkManager more or less redefines "link" to mean "Can I talk
> to the other devices on this interface with the Internet Protocol."
> That means that NM won't send out link events until (a) the device has a
> carrier, and (b) the device has an IP address.
> 
> Dan

Thanks for your answers. I will try NetworkManager and see if it is good for 
me or not. I know about ifplugd, but I was searching for some DBUS-based 
solution.

Michal Krenek (Mikos)