Re: Moving ppp-manager into ModemManager

[Dan Williams <dcbw redhat com>]

On Fri, 2009-05-08 at 01:40 -0700, Marcel Holtmann wrote:
> Hi Pablo,
> 
> >         what do you guys think about moving the ppp-manager part from
> >         NetworkManager into ModemManager?
> >         
> >         What is the actual reason why ModemManager doesn't handle the
> >         PPP part
> >         of a data connection?
> > 
> > Because NetworkManager also happens to support pppoe and friends
> 
> and with the same argument the support for DSL modems etc. could also be
> moved into ModemManager.
> 
> My problem is that if ModemManager as a standalone can not deal with the
> PPP portion of a dialup connection, then it is nothing more than an AT
> command parser with D-Bus interface. I am failing to see the point why
> this code was ever moved outside NetworkManager to begin with then.

Not all modems are PPP.  The IP layer handling isn't the responsibility
of the modem manager, it's the responsibility of the connection manager,
since the conneciton manager applies the IP-layer policies and such.

There are a number of different IP configuration methods that modems use
these days:  PPP, static IP, and DHCP.  It makes no sense to put PPP
into ModemManager without putting the other two in as well.  But putting
the other two into MM is clearly expanding the scope of MM way beyond
what it should be.

Dan