Re: Implementing a VPN plugin

[Manuel Schölling <manuel schoelling gmx de>]

Hi Thomas,

thanks for the information.
I also found out that you must not call
nm_vpn_service_plugin_set_ip4_config() from your connect() function.

Anyway, it seem to work now.

On Mon, 2017-12-11 at 16:10 +0100, Thomas Haller wrote:
> On Sat, 2017-12-09 at 20:31 +0100, Manuel Schölling wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > I am currently implementing a WireGuard [1] VPN plugin for
> > NetworkManager in Rust.
>
> I personally think that WireGuard should be handled natively, not as
> VPN plugin. That of course doesn't preclude to have a VPN plugin, as
> there is a stable plugin API. Thanks for working on that!!
>
> > My plugin can already setup a network device, but right now I am
> > working on giving feedback to NetworkManager.
> >
> > If I understand the code correctly, my program has to call
> > nm_vpn_service_plugin_set_ip4_config() and pass a "a{sv}" dict to
> > tell
> > NetworkManager about the configuration. If NetworkManager validates
> > the
> > data, it will show the connection as "up".
> > But what data needs to be passed in the dict? Is
> > NM_VPN_PLUGIN_IP4_CONFIG_ADDRESS and
> > NM_VPN_PLUGIN_IP4_CONFIG_PREFIX
> > enough? And what data type should these values be?
> > Right now NetworkManager does not like the data I am passing and
> > give
> > a
> > message like "invalid IP4 config received".
> >
> > There is also the nm_vpn_service_plugin_set_config() function. Has
> > this
> > function to be called, too? And what arguments does it need?
> >
> > And btw, is it ok if I call
> > nm_vpn_service_plugin_set{_ipv4}_config(0
> > right from my program or I have to call it via the DBus instead?
>
> nm_vpn_service_plugin_*() is part of libnm's public API, which VPN
> plugins may use to implement a plugin. If this doesn't simplify your
> work, then you don't need to use it. But of course, all VPN plugins
> actually make use of libnm, so, it's probably a good idea.
>
> For example, NM-openvpn doesn't call set_ip4_config() directly.
> Instead, their helper script calls [1] the SetIp4Config D-Bus method
> of
> /usr/libexec/nm-openvpn-service. The latter ends up being handled by
> NMVpnServicePlugin [2], which then forwards the signal to NM [3]. And
> NM handles it in [4]
>
> [1] https://git.gnome.org/browse/network-manager-openvpn/tree/src/nm-
> openvpn-service-openvpn-
> helper.c?id=40e522aea2146ec20e0232545aa574664184be39#n114
> [2] https://cgit.freedesktop.org/NetworkManager/NetworkManager/tree/l
> ibnm/nm-vpn-service-
> plugin.c?id=7044febf97debaf04b7f9ca4fbb2dc24fcf1b0b0#n876
> [3] https://cgit.freedesktop.org/NetworkManager/NetworkManager/tree/l
> ibnm/nm-vpn-service-
> plugin.c?id=7044febf97debaf04b7f9ca4fbb2dc24fcf1b0b0#n345
> [4] https://cgit.freedesktop.org/NetworkManager/NetworkManager/tree/s
> rc/vpn/nm-vpn-
> connection.c?id=7044febf97debaf04b7f9ca4fbb2dc24fcf1b0b0#n2072
>
>
> yes, you need to send there something valid.
>
>
> best,
> Thomas