Re: How does network manager read rfkill ?

[Dan Williams <dcbw redhat com>]

On Thu, 2009-04-23 at 22:35 +0300, Maxim Levitsky wrote:
> On Thu, 2009-04-23 at 07:15 -0400, Dan Williams wrote:
> > On Thu, 2009-04-23 at 02:16 -0400, eye zak wrote:
> > > Hi,
> > > 
> > > I am writing low-level rfkill support in the ath5k driver in
> > > compat-wireless-2.6, and I am wondering how network manager knows
> > > about my rfkill device ?
> > > 
> > > Hal recognizes it no problem and broadcasts an event on state change,
> > > and tracks the current state. But netowork manager (jaunty-latest)
> > > does not notice it.
> > 
> > NM finds all devices in HAL with the capability 'killswitch', and polls
> > them every 6 seconds to find out if any of them return 0 for GetPower.
> > If any do, it assumes rfkill.  Are you sure NM is allowed to talk to HAL
> > on your distribution?  Some distros like Debian use different D-Bus
> > permissions styles, and if those are wrong in
> > the /etc/dbus-1/system.d/NetworkManager.conf, NM may not be able to talk
> > to HAL and get the killsiwtch state.
> > 
> > Dan
> 
> Or, it currently ignores platform kill switches, like acer-wmi

Do those rfkill switches expose themselves via HAL?  If so, then
NetworkManager is expected to work with them.  If not, then those need
to either (a) be ported to the kernel's rfkill subsystem in which case
they will be supported by HAL 0.5.12 automatically, or (b) get HAL
support otherwise.

Obviously (a) is preferred.

Dan