Re: Getting NM to re-try DHCP

[Dan Williams <dcbw redhat com>]

On Mon, 2011-05-23 at 12:59 +0200, Jirka Klimes wrote:
> On Saturday 09 of April 2011 02:01:09 Mikhail Efremov wrote:
> > On Wed, 06 Apr 2011 17:24:44 -0500 Dan Williams wrote:
> > > On Tue, 2011-04-05 at 11:37 -0400, Derek Atkins wrote:
> > > > Hey all,
> > > > 
> > > > I have a strange issue.  I lost power last night and one of my
> > > > systems came up before my DHCP server did (which is surprising,
> > > > because my DHCP server usually comes up pretty quick!)  This
> > > > "client" system was supposed to get itself on the network (it has
> > > > an auto-logon system). However, NM didn't succeed because my DHCP
> > > > server wasn't responding, yet.
> > > > 
> > > > This is a hard-wired system (not wireless).  Is there any way to
> > > > get NM to periodically retry DHCP if at first it does not succeed?
> > > > 
> > > > I realize that DHCP has its own retry mechanism, but if the whole
> > > > process times out, can I set NM to retry every, say, 5 minutes?
> > > 
> > > We'd need some code changes in NM; basically for wired connections if
> > > the activation attempt fails a certain number of times (currently 3)
> > > then the connection is marked "invalid".  What probably should happen
> > > is that internally, in nm-policy.c, a timeout handler should be
> > > scheduled for the connection (using g_timeout_add_seconds()) that
> > > triggers after 5 minutes or so and if the connection isn't currently
> > > active (ie check the NMManager's active connection list) then the
> > > invalid flag is cleared from the connection, which will let it be
> > > automatically retried.
> > 
> > Not on this issue exactly, but this is reminded me about my old patch
> > which was written long time ago (it was just forgotten to submit, sorry).
> > If cable was unplugged, then when it is replugged this may be another
> > network, so NM should try to reconnect even if the connection was
> > early marked as "invalid".
> > This patch for the NM_0_8 branch, for master it should be remaked, but
> > I have no time to do this right now, sorry. And there may be no
> > necessary for a separate function to clear the tag.
> 
> Looks good. However, we may want to remove the 'invalid' flag for all 
> connections compatible with the device.
> 
> Patches both for NM_0_8 and master attached.

Patches look good to me, thanks!

Dan