Re: [PATCH] core: add internet connectivity check

[Marcel Holtmann <marcel holtmann org>]

Hi Thomas,

> >> i just want to summarize the discussion about the response handling so
> >> we can decide which solution we want to use.
> >> mentioned solutions are:
> >>
> >> 1) check http status-response 204 (or any other) (chromiumos method)
> >> 2) check content for a specific http header (connman method)
> >> 3) check start of content (implemented in patch V3)
> >> 4) check complete content
> >> 5) check http status-response 200 (creates false positives for hotspots)
> >> 6) check content with a regex (tie us into a specific regex lib)
> >>
> >> 5+6 are already declined.
> >>
> >> i prefer solution 3 because it's more flexible than 1) and produce fewer
> >> traffic than 2).
> >
> > actually 2) would produce fewer traffic than 3) since the HTTP headers
> > are transmitted before the content.
> 
> You are right. i mixed up http headers with html headers.
> 
> > If you just want some stupid check, then looking at the headers is
> > simpler since otherwise you have to deal with HTTP 1.0 vs 1.1 and have
> > to have support for chunked encoding.
> 
> i'm not sure but i think libsoup handles 1.0/1.1 and chunked encoding.
> 
> i like the idea of a plain text file because it's more easy to setup on 
> server side than http headers.

creating server side HTTP headers is as simple as plain text files. We
decided for the HTTP headers since it a lot more logical then doing some
random plain file comparison.

Actually the HTTP header makes a lot more sense since once you received
the valid one, you can just terminate the HTTP request and do not have
to deal with downloading the whole file. Keep in mind that some hotspots
have a lot of HTML in there. In case you care on how fast your overall
connection setup time is. If you don't, then it does not matter of
course.

> > However if your long term goal is WISPr support, then you have to look
> > at the whole page anyway. There is no guarantee that the WISPr XML is at
> > the beginning. Some providers actually just attach it to the end.
> 
> personally i don't care about WISPr. I just want to know if i have a 
> working internet connection.

Doing this without also handling WISPr seems rather pointless. I prefer
my system to automatically log me into a hotspot if I have access
credentials for it.

Regards

Marcel